Tony-OH

Step one: Have him get through an entire season without injury. Step two: Evaluate the stuff and it's readiness in the big leagues to see if there's a chance he could be taken. Step three: Evaluate the 40-man to see if there is room Step Four: Make decision on whether to protect him

You're just not living in the economic reality or how Elias does business with these players. I mean, as a fan, you can wish for what you want, but that's just not going to happen unless Basallo just has a crazy good year and gets 200+ impact bats in AAA this year. I would not put it against reality that he could debut (a few weeks after the season so they can gain an extra year) in 2025, but that would only be a year after Holliday and I think they are going to want to spread out these players financially.

There is almost no way he debuts in 2024. The only way he debuts in 2024 is if he's been promoted to AAA, he's tearing it up, the Orioles are in a pennant drive, and Adley gets hurt. THAT's ABOUT IT. Basallo won't turn 20 until August. I love his bat, but he's got a bone chip thing that's limiting his catching early on so he needs to overcome that as well and most of all, he has only a handful of at bats above A ball. Mayo has a similar bat and is stuck in AAA. Elias also likes to spread out his impact players and Basallo is the only one below AAA right now. Unless someone else breaks out this year, the system gets barren of impact bats after Basallo.

We'll see. I do think the bat is special but we've also seen the Orioles keep guys in the minors longer than they need to be due to a lack of space on the roster. Like I said, if he pushes the issue and then tears it up AAA over 200 PAs or so, then he'll be in the conversation. I'm just going by how Elias has done things so far, even with players like Holliday, Mayo and Kjerstad to a lesser extent. The role for Basallo probably is catch 40 games, DH/1B the other games while Adley is here, but he's going to have to have an impact year once again to get into the 2025 equation.

Unless he has an absolute terrible year, I'd imagine he'd be back next year too unless Basallo just tears it up this year and end up with 200+ good PAs in AAA. My guess it's more like 2026 for Basallo leaving 2025 backup available and McCann is a good fit overall in that role.

He used a 4-pitch mix, though he was was heavy fastball curveball. Threw 19 or 29 (65.5%) pitches for strikes, getting 6 whiffs (3xCB,2xCU,1xFB). No velocity readings from the broadcasters who spent one of the innings actually thinking Baumler was Baumeister (Good Lord). The curveball was pretty good overall, a 12-6 breaker that he felt comfortable throwing behind in the count. He threw the cutter up with some success, but only saw 1 changeup that he didn't throw for a strike. His fastball was hard several times and the batters seemed to see it well. Definitely worth watching how he's used this year. He would move a lot faster as a reliever and he'll need to be protected on the 40-man this offseason of risk being selected in the Rule 5 draft.

Ok, I watched Baumeister's outing yesterday. I got like one MPH reading from the broadcasters and it was 93 MPH, but the pitch has good ride and he got a decent amount of swing miss. He got 9 whiffs in 58 pitches, which is ok, but I bet most were on the fastball. Showed an ok slider, and also threw a curveball and change (which he was not able to throw for strikes.) He didn't have great command of anything, though the fastball command was the best of the four. He's got a nice smooth, high leg kick delivery though.

It's overslot for sure. 11-20th round is $125K now. There's some upside here with the arm and I really like the slider/curveball (hard to say but it had good downward bite and decent horizontal. Certainly worth following to see how it all plays, including whether he can master that changeup. Obviously a 3rd pitch gives him a better chance to stick as a starter.

39. Michael Forret – RHP (CC): An ECU recruit who went to a community college so he would be draft eligible this year was taken by the Orioles in the 14th round and given an overslot $450k signing bonus. At 19-years old, Forret is the youngest pitcher the Orioles drafted this year. At 6-foot-4 with room to fill out, he's a projectable pick that could add velocity to his already low 90s 4-seamer that has good ride. He spins a nice high 70s curveball and low-mid 80 split change as his offspeed offerings. Like most of the Orioles drafted pitchers this year, he was never assigned to an affiliate and will make his professional debut next spring when it's expected he'll be assigned to Delmarva.

They are inconsistent. They also never played Stowers against lefties despite his minor league career numbers saying he hits them better than righties. Gunnar was not good hitting left-handers in his minor league career and not surprisingly has been poor so far in his major league career. It's something that could limit his "superstardom" if he doesn't figure it out at some point.

Part of this is on the Orioles development side. Anyone who watched Gunnar last year knew he could be an everyday shortstop. So why didn't Holliday start getting regular starts at 2B vs SS? I mean I think they've done a pretty good job overall, but it does seem like if they have one weakness, their desire to make guys versatile has taken away from some of that experience at the positions the player is going to play in the big leagues the most.

It would be easy to look at his pitching line and think he stunk it up, but he actually pitched pretty well overall and was let down by a terrible Delmarva defense. Again, take the MPH with a grain of salt but the announcers mentioned a 93 and 96 on pitches so that seems like a good range. He has a real good slider though his command of the pitch is certainly not great. He got 14 whiffs in 68 pitches and really only gave up one hit. 2B Angel Tejada threw away a ball trying to get a double play and the official scorer somehow called it a hit, then Braylin Tavera (who made a really bad, offline throw to home from shallow center field to let a run score earlier in the game), dropped a ball that hit in his glove in deep right-center. Official scorer, who clearly defines hits different then I would, called it a hit. I may have saw a split-change a few times, but he didn't have much command with it. The slider is clearly his best pitch. Keep an eye on this guy.

I believe all of K's were swinging and he got 9 Whiffs out of 61 pitches.

Ok, went back and watched him. Showed a nice three pitch mix and as usual, was death on left-handers after the 1st hitter (Lefty) ambushed the 1st pitch of the game for an oppo double. Hard to get a read on velocity since the FredNats broadcast MPH was all over the place. I did see a 94 once, but hitters did not hit him hard after the first inning, and even then they were two oppo doubles. He didn't seem to have a ton of feel for the changeup on this day, so was pretty heavy sinker/slider combo most of the time though he did throw a couple decent changeups. His delivery looks more compact and repeatable and the really good thing was he was able to make quality pitches in he few three ball counts he got to. That was his 10th Delmarva start and he turns 21 this week so a few more nice starts like this and we could see him get moved to Aberdeen. Saying that, let's not get ahead of ourselves and see if he can string 3 or 4 good starts together.

Yeah, I'm started one for my "breakout" candidate. Sure, it seems like he's been around forever, but he's still only 21-years old. He smoked a ball yesterday 105 MPH for 2B off a hanging curveball that just missed by about foot from being his first home run of the season. He still swings and misses too much on breaking pitches, and that very well may be his kryptonite, but he still looks the part. Huge year for him though with repeating Delmarva. Needs to improve upon last year's mediocre numbers or he'll be don on the prospect scene.

Well he hits the ball pretty hard, pretty consistently so I'm not worried about it. Holliday seems to have the "do damage approach" early in the PA but will cut it back a bit with two strikes. Either way, his 11-8 walk-K ratio shows it's not an issue.

I would imagine we'll see him in the 75-85 range by May. They'll probably settle him into that range, though the seem to have a system where a they'll have them only throw 30-50 pitches once in awhile.

It would not surprise me if they did keep him down for a bit, but I would be surprised if it's all the way until June. I know they don't want to make a move with Urias yet, but Kemp is not very useful so Urias could move to his role. Of course there's the Mayo issue as well. He's ready offensively as well. Westburg will get 4-6 weeks, but if he's not improving on his .194/.242/.355/.597, he's going to get sent back to make room. I could see Mayo and Holliday in the regular lineup by mid-May if their defense settles down. They would instantly improve this lineup.

Very interesting to see him only go a few innings. I need to go back and watch him and DeLeon throw, but either way, good to see him at least healthy.

Holliday is leaving little doubt his bat is ready to be at the top of the Orioles order once they get his 7th year of controllability. Holliday has hit 4 2b, 2 homer with a team best 11-8 BB-K ratio in 51 PAs. He's slashing .342/.490/.605/1.096. Super small sample size of 8 PAs against lefties but he has slashed .429/.375/1.000/1.375 with home run and double and has not struck out against a southpaw. BUUUUUUUTTTTT, he defense has been pretty shaky overall at 2B as was discussed previously. His throwing accuracy has been off several times and he's been out of place a few times, and missed an easy one hop throw that would have nailed a base stealer. He also needs to work on his tagging. So, if the Orioles can live with his defensively lapses, his first week and half of games shows, he's pretty ready for the big leagues offensively.

I still don't think some people realize how special Mayo is going to be. He's the impact bat this Orioles lineup needs. He was a bit better the rest of the week at 3B and 1B then he was in the first two games. Still, with Urias not hitting, you have to image they will try and find a spot for him once his extra year of eligibility is gained. Grant it, he's "only" hit two home runs and two doubles and his 4-15 BB-k ratio in 46 PAs needs to improve, but he's slashing .390/.457/.634/1.091 which for a normal team would be leading the team, but his 1.091 is only 6th on the team among qualifiers. Crazy.

He throws bowling balls up there. I'd love to see his statcast data in his power sinker.

He was a late bloomer who was came on after most of his age group had agreements. This happens often in this market because not everyone shows a ton of promise at 14-15 years old when most of these agreements are made. Josh Hader was barely touching 70 MPH when he was 14-15 years old.

I'll have to see if he had a jump in stuff. I've never been impressed with his stuff but I always check guys out in a new year to see if their offseason work allowed them to improve.

47% WHIFF rate is outstanding but even more important is the 61% zcontact which means he was getting swings and misses in the zone. Definitely could see a drop in velocity by about 75 pitches. Was down to 90-91 MPH in the 6th inning after sitting 92-94 most of the game.