With the 19th pick in the 2025 draft, the Orioles selected catcher Ike Irish. Except…not really.
Let me clarify. They did really select Ike Irish. But they didn’t really select a catcher, even if that was Irish’s announced position at the time.
The native of Grand Rapids, Mich., was a jack-of-all-trades defensively during his three-year career at Auburn University. Irish played 57 games in the outfield, 12 at first base, and, yes, 40 games behind the plate. But even then, one position made his life
miserable, by Irish’s own admission.
“I’ve dealt with … the yips, catching, since I was a junior in high school,” Irish told FanGraphs’ David Laurila. “Junior year I had them. Senior year I had them. Freshman year of college. They would come off and on. … I was talking to mental performance coaches. I was doing brainspotting. I was doing everything I could to try to get rid of them. And I couldn’t.”
“When I was catching it was, ‘How the hell am I going to get this ball back to the pitcher?’” Irish continued. “I was throwing three-finger changeups back to the pitcher. I was throwing cutters. I was trying anything. It was awful.”
The Orioles abandoned the charade with haste. Irish made only five professional starts at catcher, with Low-A Delmarva in 2025, before giving up the tools of ignorance for good. This season with High-A Frederick, he played 41 games in the outfield, 23 at first base, and 12 as the designated hitter. And Irish’s eyes are smiling.
“With catching, it never felt like I could play the game with freedom,” Irish said. “As soon as I got away from that position, the game felt free again. … The game has opened up and I can just have fun. I can go out there and hit.”
And boy, can he hit.
Irish’s 2026 season was a revelation at the dish. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He hit for power (16 homers and a .528 SLG). He got on base (.388 OBP). He hit for average (.286). He was a burner on the basepaths (20 stolen bases). Irish came out of the gates hot, with five hits in his first two games of the season, on his way to a 1.039 OPS in April. He slumped to a .521 mark in May, but rebounded in a big way with OPSes of .956 in June and 1.142 in July.
It was a vast improvement over his brief pro debut in 2025, when he slashed just .230/.296/.297 in 20 games for Delmarva. That performance came when Irish was at least nominally still a catcher, which might explain his struggles.
MLB Pipeline, which ranks Irish as the #5 prospect in the Orioles’ system and #95 in baseball, praises his “mature approach” at the plate. “Irish makes hard contact to all fields and hangs in against same-side pitching. He handles velocity and spin, doesn’t need to sell out for power and projects to hit for average with 20-plus home run potential.”
Irish is proud of his ability to hit the ball the opposite way. “The plate’s what, 17 inches long? I feel like I can hit any ball that’s 17 inches the other way on the plate,” he told MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo. “I mean, I like to pull baseballs, don’t get me wrong, but naturally speaking, [the opposite field] is where I’m good and that’s what I like to keep doing.”
Irish’s 2026 breakout earned him a selection to the MLB Futures Game during the All-Star break on July 12. As the starting DH for the American League prospects, he went 0-for-1 with a walk. He then returned to the Keys and started the second half on an otherworldly hot streak, going 14-for-27 (.519) with four home runs and 10 RBIs in five games. Nothing, it seemed, could slow down the luck of the Irish.
And then it all came to a devastating halt. On July 22, while running to second base, Irish tore his left meniscus. The injury required season-ending surgery, and just like that, his remarkable 2026 campaign was over. No warning. No fanfare. Just there one day and gone the next. It truly was an Irish goodbye. (Should I stop doing these?)
But while he didn’t return for the rest of the minor league season, Irish is back to playing baseball in 2026 in the Arizona Fall League. Through nine games for Peoria, he’s hitting .353/.421/.559 with a pair of home runs. Offensive stats tend to be inflated in the AFL, but it’s nice to see he’s swinging the bat well, and most importantly, that he’s fully healthy. “My knee recovered really well and recovered pretty fast, and so when I was running on it and rehabbing it, it felt really good and I felt confident in it,” Irish told Mayo.
Irish’s on-base ability and spray-to-all-fields approach give him the potential to be a top-of-the-order hitter, the kind of guy who’s a real table setter. Which, of course, would make him an Irish setter. (That’s my last one, I promise.)
With his surgically repaired knee doing well, Irish should be able to start the 2027 season with the Chesapeake Baysox for his first taste of Double-A, hoping to continue to produce offensively like he did this season. He’s got a hot bat, a clean bill of health, and he’s free from the burdens of catching. Ike Irish is ready to roll.
