The Orioles signed pitcher Luis De León out of the Dominican Republic in December 2021. His signing bonus was just $30,000. A high-strikeout, high-walk pitcher, De León struggled in the Dominican Summer League in as a 19-year-old, but slowly began working up the ranks of the minors. By the end of 2025, he had worked his way up and finished the season with three games with the Double-A Baysox.
The 2026 season brought big changes for De León. He returned to Double-A and made 19 starts with disappointing
results. Now 23, De León struck out nearly 30% of batters but walked over 11%. He had a good ground ball rate, but allowed a ton of baserunners.
Despite his troubles, De León was promoted to Triple-A Norfolk on August 1st. He made three starts at that level before the Orioles moved him to the bullpen. The move made sense. De León didn’t look capable of rising above the starting pitchers in Baltimore, and the Orioles needed bullpen help. With his hard slider and strikeout ability, the bullpen seemed like a good place for him. He made just four bullpen appearances with Norfolk before being called up to the big leagues.
It was a rude welcome for De León, who was inserted into a high-leverage situation on his first day. He gave up a home run, took the loss, and probably felt like a real Oriole for doing so (I kid…or do I?). He also took the loss in his second career MLB game; he took the loss again after Yennier Cano allowed his inherited runner to score. After watching the first two games of his time, I was ready for De León to go back to the minors to work on some things.
But then, things got better. De León got into six more games before the end of the season. He gave up four hits and two walks. He didn’t allow another run. It was a very small sample size, but he started to look like a good pitcher. His emergence was a nice part of a mostly frustrating end of season.
So what is in store for De León next year? The Orioles might try him as a starter again, with a longer stretch at Norfolk. But I believe his future is as a relief pitchers as he has continually struggled as a starter in the minors. A hard-throwing lefty is valuable out of the bullpen, and De León gained about a mile per hour on his fastball as a relief pitcher in the majors.
De León has the talent to succeed; it’s just a matter of if he can control the strike zone. He did so in his 10 MLB games, though it’s foolish to draw conclusions from 9.1 innings. If you were going to, you’d also have to worry about his strikeout rate being half what he had in the minors. Even so, the performance was a nice early audition for next year, when you expect he’ll get the chance to make the team out of spring training.
Until the recent influx of talent into the farm system, De León was the highest-ranking pitcher on the Orioles’ prospect lists. Back in May, FanGraphs ranked him as the team’s third-best prospect overall, with this to say about him:
De León still has command-related relief risk and a bit more because of his fastball’s vulnerability against righties, though it eats lefties alive. His delivery is atypical for a big league starter and it detracts some from his strike-throwing, but it also makes hitters uncomfortable
…
[W]e know De León can hold big velo across as lot of innings and that his secondary stuff (especially his splitter) can finish hitters.
MLB Pipeline placedDe León as the #8 prospect in 2026, with the following to say:
De León has always had inconsistent command, and his control can unravel when his mechanics fall out of sync. But his stuff plays up when he’s repeating his delivery and staying on top of his release, and he’s shown improvement in the free-passes department, slicing his walk rate every season as he’s matured. If he can consistently throw all of his pitches for strikes and limit the walks, his weapons give him the ceiling of a mid-rotation starter, with the raw stuff to impact a big league bullpen even sooner.
He fulfilled that last part, but time will tell if he finds his way to being a competent starter.
