If you’re a fan of top-quality, crisply played baseball, then…well, Delmarva isn’t the place for you.
It’s nothing personal, Shorebirds. But the Orioles’ Low-A affiliate is very much a working-out-the-kinks step on the organizational ladder. For most of the season the roster consists of very young, very raw players, often those who spent the previous season in the Dominican Summer League or the Florida Complex League and are getting their first taste of full-season affiliated ball. This is especially
true since MLB shuttered the short-season A-ball affiliates throughout the minors in 2021. Players who have graduated from the summer leagues have nowhere to go but Low-A, even if they’re not quite ready for it.
The result is a lot of sloppy play as these youngsters navigate the challenges of longer seasons and tougher competition, evidenced by Delmarva’s brutal record over the last four years. Since 2022, the Shorebirds are a combined 209-312, and they’ve been at least 18 games under .500 every season.
Of course, minor league records don’t matter much. What’s more important is the development of the prospects as they aim to work their way up the farm system. Let’s look at some of the players who will, at least initially, spend their time on the Orioles’ Low-A roster.
Orioles top 30 prospects (per MLB Pipeline)
- RHP Esteban Mejia (#6)
- OF Jordan Sanchez (#16)
- OF Stiven Martinez (#26)
- IF Cobb Hightower (#30)
It’s mostly slim pickings as far as top prospects for the Orioles’ lowest full-season affiliate, but the Shorebirds do boast a trio of intriguing international signings, led by Mejia, the Birds’ third-best pitching prospect. The right-hander signed out of the Dominican for $150,000 in 2024 and breezed through the DSL and the FCL, reaching Delmarva as an 18-year-old last year. His fastball has been clocked at 102 mph, but as with so many unpolished pitching prospects, control is a problem. Mejia has averaged more than five walks per nine in his professional career. Pipeline writes that “there is a ton to dream on here, given his tantalizing combination of age and eye-popping raw stuff.”
Sanchez, a Cuban defector who signed with the Orioles about a month before Mejia, took the Orioles’ short-season affiliates by storm. In the DSL in 2024, he collected 21 extra-base hits and a 1.037 OPS in 38 games, following it up with a .293/.421/.529 line in 54 games in the FCL last year. According to Pipeline, “The bat is the carrying tool for Sanchez, a left-handed-hitting outfielder with tremendous raw pop. He has natural loft to his swing and a good feel for the strike zone for his age.” The 20-year-old has struck out in 25% of his plate appearances, but when has striking out too much ever been a problem for an Orioles hitting prospect? (Don’t answer that.)
Fellow outfielder Stiven Martinez has been moved up very aggressively, making his Delmarva debut last season at only 17 years old. The Dominican was the prize of the Orioles’ 2024 signing period, inking a deal for just under a million dollars, and put up solid on-base numbers if less-than-spectacular power in his short-season stops. His first experience in Delmarva last year was a massive struggle (.125/.263/.188 in 25 games), as you might expect from someone who was 3.5 years younger than the average Low-A player. He has yet to play a game this season due to a hamstring injury.
Finally, the Game of Thrones-named Cobb Hightower is the newest inclusion in the Orioles’ top 30 rankings, sliding onto the list when Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers graduated from it a few days ago. The O’s acquired Hightower from the Padres as part of the six-player package for Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano last year. In general, a team’s 30th-best prospect is not someone to get particularly excited about, and Hightower’s best-case scenario is likely as a utility infielder if he reaches the majors at all. Last year, in his first professional season, he OPS’d .671 with just two homers in 64 games.
The rest
The rest of the Shorebirds roster is largely made up of recent international signees and lower-round picks from the last two amateur drafts. The highest drafted position player (besides third-rounder Hightower, who was drafted by the Padres) is shortstop DJ Layton, the Orioles’ sixth-rounder in 2024. Outfielder Braylon Whitaker, a 19th-rounder, is the other 2024 draftee among the current Delmarva hitters. Four 2025-drafted pitchers — Kailen Hamson, Brayan Orrantia, Denton Biller, and Braeden Sloan — are on the roster, with eighth-rounder Hamson being the highest-drafted of that bunch.
Among notable international prospects is shortstop Luis Almeyda, who in 2023 became the highest-paid international signee in Orioles history by agreeing to a $2.3 million bonus. Almeyda, who grew up in New Jersey but moved to the Dominican Republic before college, was expected to move quickly through the Orioles’ system, but a variety of injuries have stalled his progress. The now 20-year-old is starting his second year at Delmarva and needs to improve on last year’s .662 OPS.
Almeyda is joined in the Shorebirds lineup by two other top 2023 signees, Joshua Liranzo and Félix Amparo. Delmarva pitchers from that same signing class include the currently injured lefty Francisco Morao as well as right-hander Keeler Morfe. Morfe briefly attracted some prospect buzz in 2024 after a sensational DSL performance — an 0.82 ERA and 15.5 K/9 in seven starts — but ruined it last year by posting a 9.39 ERA in eight starts for Delmarva, issuing an unheard-of 14.1 walks per nine.
Believe it or not, the now 22-year-old Maikol Hernandez is still toiling at Low-A. In 2021, Hernandez and Samuel Basallo became the Orioles’ first international signees to receive seven-figure signing bonuses. It’s safe to say that their two careers have gone in opposite directions since then. Such is the uncertainty of international prospects.
