Across the whole of the Orioles organization, it may end up that only the High-A affiliate in Frederick has much to play for in the month of September. The rest of the farm teams haven’t done much all season, and as for the big league team, well, they started out playing meaningful September games and rapidly moved towards making them meaningless.
This week-long look at the action on the Orioles farm tends to focus on players who are on the midseason updated top prospect lists, guys who will hopefully
make their way into the major league picture eventually.
The regular seasons for Low-A Delmarva and High-A Frederick are both over now. Chesapeake’s season ends after this week. Norfolk has two more weeks to go.
Here’s how things shook out over the minor league week that just finished:
Triple-A Norfolk Tides
- Last week’s record: 3-3 vs. Jacksonville (Marlins)
- This week’s opponent: at Memphis (Cardinals)
- Second half record: 24-36, last place (12 GB) in International League East
In Baltimore, another random outfielder has recently arrived – Rece Hinds. That’s twice now that the Orioles have chosen to just call up some random dude instead of giving Enrique Bradfield Jr. a chance; they brought Christian Franklin into the mix rather than trying Bradfield after the trade deadline. It’s weird. As for Bradfield’s performance this week, he batted 7-24 across six games, with four walks and four stolen bases.
To some extent, I get it: Bradfield is hitting .264/.352/.354 in 79 games and you have to wonder how that slugging percentage will translate to MLB. But, again, instead we’re seeing Rece Hinds, who can’t hit and also screwed up a routine fly ball yesterday.
Relatively recent Norfolk arrival Brandon Butterworth, from last year’s Padres trade, went 5-19 across six games, with two of his five hits being homers. His 18 games since getting promoted have generated a .631 OPS. It’d be nice to see him raise that to more respectable levels by season’s end. This week makes for a move in the right direction.
I’d like to tell you that Michael Forret, who the Orioles re-acquired from the Rays for Tyler Wells after including him in the Shane Baz trade, pitched well. Instead, what I can tell you is that he had just a three-inning start and managed to allow two runs on three hits and three walks. The 22-year-old has a 5.43 ERA in 14 games between Tampa’s and Baltimore’s Triple-A teams this year. Eh.
Others of interest
- RHP Félix Bautista – The Mountain’s rehab continued. He walked three batters over 1.2 innings in two games.
- C/1B Creed Willems – 2-12 with no extra-base hits; he slumped in August and so far September is worse.
Norfolk season-to-date stats.
Double-A Chesapeake Baysox
- Last week’s record: 3-3 vs. Portland (Red Sox)
- This week’s opponent: at Richmond (Giants) – end of regular season
- Second half record: 34-28, second place (6.5 GB) in Eastern League Southwest
The Baysox are eliminated from Eastern League postseason contention. The second half went better than the first half (29-39).
My guy Aron Estrada went just 2-22 with no extra-base hits and only one walk. He’s still my guy. I just won’t be waving the flag too high right now.
The ever-enigmatic Vance Honeycutt was about as far from Estrada’s performance as can be over these games. He packed nine hits into six games, with three doubles and two homers, and he stole three bases. Honeycutt, who you’d be forgiven for bailing on based on his Frederick batting, has a .339/.431/.661 in 16 games with Chesapeake.
Shortstop Wehiwa Aloy did one better than Honeycutt for homers, with three homers in his five games. Aloy has nine homers in 35 games since joining this level. He struck out 10 times in 21 at-bats. That’s going to be the thing to keep an eye on as much as anything else.
Three of the organization’s top four prospects are currently in the Baysox rotation. The headliner from the Adley Rutschman trade, Anthony Eyanson, had the best outing of this group of guys this week, allowing just a run over six innings while striking out eight and walking none. That’ll play! Eyanson has a 2.00 ERA in five starts since joining the Baysox.
Lefty Caden Hunter, this season’s big surprise, struck out nine over five innings, with two runs allowed. Joseph Dzierwa had a nice K/BB rate (7/1) though four runs allowed in three innings isn’t so good. Still, he has a 2.43 ERA and 0.961 WHIP in 17 games with the Double-A affiliate.
Others of interest
- C/1B Ethan Anderson – 5-19 with a homer across five games; .871 OPS for the season
- 1B Victor Figueroa 6-19, also with a homer, across five games. He’s got an .808 OPS in 32 games since getting promoted here
- RHP JT Quinn – Five shutout innings with just three hits allowed, five strikeouts. Quinn has a 2.50 ERA in four games with the Baysox
- RHP Patrick Reilly – Two runs allowed in seven innings, with eight strikeouts and only one walk. Reilly has a 3.97 ERA in seven starts here since returning from Tommy John surgery
Chesapeake season-to-date stats.
High-A Frederick Keys
- Last week’s record: 6-1 at Brooklyn (Mets)
- This week’s opponent: Division Series vs. Greensboro (Pirates)
- Second half record: 42-23, first place in South Atlantic League North
The Keys also won their first half division with a 41-23 record. Their 83 wins are a record for the affiliate. Their best-of-three against Greensboro this week pits them against the team that finished a combined 2.5 games back in the first and second halves of the season. If Frederick wins this series, they’ll play the winner of Bowling Green (Rays) and Winston-Salem (White Sox) for the league title.
It’s not only players who’ve already been promoted beyond Frederick who helped rack up those 83 wins. Recent arrivals are playing their part too, including a dynamic duo of age-19 infielders, DJ Layton and Jaiden Lo Re. Layton notched nine hits, including five doubles, in five games for the Keys, with four walks and five stolen bases. He’s already stolen 13 bases in 23 games here. Lo Re’s seven hits includes two doubles.
Not so much a part of this party were outfielders Enddy Azocar and Ty Head. Azocar, also 19, went just 4-19 with a double; still, he’s OPSing .9o1 in 25 games here. Head, the Orioles second round pick this year, was 5-18, and although he had no extra-base hits, he did steal three bases in his first week playing at High-A.
Others of interest
- LHP Boston Bateman – Three innings, three runs, four hits, three walks. Finished with a 3.65 ERA and 1.378 WHIP in 24 games. Would really like to see that 5.0 BB/9 get cut down.
- C Yasmil Bucce – He signed the same day as Samuel Basallo and has been on a slower development path, but still, at age 21, this is like where an American college player would be now. That’s totally fine! He hit two homers and walked six times; .860 OPS in 58 games, with 11 homers, isn’t nothing.
Frederick final regular season stats.
Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds
- Last week’s record: 1-5 at Kannapolis (White Sox)
- This week’s opponent: Season over
- Second half record: 22-44, last place (18 GB) in Carolina League North
Delmarva finished last in the first half as well.
One piece of good news to send the Shorebirds into the offseason. First round pick Eric Booth Jr. racked up 11 hits over the six games in this series, adding three stolen bases. He had a .719 OPS over 18 games; he’ll probably start next season at this level as well, hopefully with a midseason promotion to Frederick in his future.
Delmarva final regular season stats.
**
The winner of last week’s minor league player of the week poll was Victor Figueroa, who took 55% of the vote in a head-to-head with Cade Povich after a week where Figueroa had a 1.102 OPS. That’s Figueroa’s second win of the season, joining a list of two-time winners that also includes Enddy Azocar, Caden Hunter, Ike Irish, and my guy Aron Estrada. Man, it sucks that Irish tore his meniscus in July.
The list of single-week winners: Payton Eeles, Braylin Tavera, Wehiwa Aloy, Jaiden Lo Re, Joseph Dzierwa, Luis De León, and Heston Kjerstad.
We’re going to crown a new winner this week. Though some of the players named above had nice weeks for themselves, particularly Aloy, I’m putting a set of choices into the poll where no one has taken a weekly crown yet.
