Tony-OH

As usual, it's been mums the word on injured players. We'll just have to see if he shows up healthy next spring unless the MASN guys get something.

Gotcha. I thought you were saying that you felt Hernaiz deserved it because he played more games in the minors last year.

That's ok. He is a five tool guy in that he really doesn't have a bad tool, but he also doesn't have a carrying tool for me right now. Could he develop more power as he gets older, sure, but he's already lost a little quickness in the field and that arm is not going to make up for that. I have him in the top 20 of a pretty deep farm system. That's pretty good praise if you ask me.

I'm not sure what you mean. What are you referring to?

I'll post more on him soon, but he's a nice little all-around player who really outhit EVERYONE in the Orioles DSL team despite being a $175,000 signing. The only flags on him are his size, high GB rate and very high BABIP in the DSL.

Hernaiz is another one of those high character guys this organization is very keen on selecting. Considering they were hammered by some in the industry when they fired a bunch of scouts, they really have a done a nice job with the human element of the players selected, showing they don't just "robo select" players on metrics alone.

Hey, it's good discussion stuff I guess. My only issue is that BA carries some weight with people even if their scouting guys are mostly gone from the staff. So that means more work for me to counter some of the silly stuff, especially when people link to that when they want to counteract what I said about a player. But then again, that's more page views, so why not?

Hey, scouting at the end of the day is all about subjectiveness in some of these areas, but whoever wrote this about him being a fringe average center fielder with 55 speed definitely never heard of baseball savant. lol

Fair enough. Mata has a real good LD rate as well. Honestly, your right about Mata. He's a little guy without a lot of power so it would be quite the feat for him.

Updated through 18

It is interesting. The only thing I can think of is that batter's eye affects some players different than others.

I think the risk factor comes into play here. I think Hall's risk factor is pretty low on being an impact reliever because we've seen him to it a bit at the end of last year. If Hall was lower in the system he'd be much lower on the list. But I get it, I typically drop guys if they are going to be relievers, but I really think Hall has a chance to be one of the best as a reliever, and there's a lot of value on that.

That partially explains why guys numbers are typically not very good in Aberdeen, but a lot of these guys also hit mediocre away as well, so perhaps the other stadiums have similar issues? All I know is the Sally League is the absolute worse for MiLB TV coverage. So hard to get good video and when they do provide the MPH, they are way off a lot of times. Frustrating league to watch or not watch in some cases still.

He very well should have been. I went back and forth with him and Hall at #4. I even had Hall lower, but I really think has a really good chance of being an impact high leverage reliever and while I really believe in Mayo, I do want to see those numbers improve next year in Bowie at 21 years old.

Yes, $1.325 million bonus and was considered in some preseason mocks a top ten pick overall before his disastrous junior year at the plate. I really don't know what to make of the bat yet, but there is tools and talent here and the defense is reportedly legitimate stick at SS defense.

If you have to google any names on this list you haven't been spending enough time on the minor league board this year.

Here's Norby's 2022 highlights. Notice how many home runs to right and right-center as well as some big boy home runs to center and left center. The home run around the 1:00 mark was 430 ft. 2022 Highlights

A little inside scoop, I moved a lot of these names around the last couple of days as I did more research and analysis based on everything. So in other words, none of you are going to be wrong! lol As always it's more about the writeups.

You do know I talk to pretty high guys that are involved with these guys and not just looking at stats and making predictions? There are other talented guys down there for sure like most of the guys you mentioned, but there are reasons why I talk about the guys I do. Now guys will develop differently, and most of these guys are going to flame out, but when I mention a guy, I didn't just pull him out of hat. You do a great job of tracking these guys, and I give you a lot of credit for your research, but give me a little credit when I mention something about a guy that I'm not winging it. Now, I caveat all of this with I haven't seen one of these guys besides a clip here or there. I do look at their stats like LD rates, swinging strike rates, K%, BB%, BABIP and their power output along with their actual stats as well.

Sorry, that was my fault. I've been trying to remember to add first names for guys that could be confused, but yeah, this is Braylin Tavera. This is just the fun part of the list anyways (really starting with the last two). These guys can get mixed around pretty easy from here and you can build cases, at least through 25.

I'm not sure some people really know how much of a crap shoot this current system is over there. Players have to be recruited and agreements have to made at 14-years old, sometimes 15 years old for the top guys. Do you realize how much projection it takes to know which one of these 14 and 15 years old will be able to handle professional level offspeed pitches or be have the aptitude to throw multiple quality pitches competitively? Sure, there may be the few obvious guys, but a lot of those "obvious" guys have flamed out long before the majors. It's hard enough to know which 18-21 year olds will do well, which is why there are so many flame outs in the 1st round through the years, now drop another 4-7 years off that. This place needs a draft like yesterday. Saying all that, one of the two (Basallo) of the first big money players could be an impact guy at the major league level and I could have easily put him in the top 10 if I was going off more of a ceiling. But to show the inexact science, Hernandez, who has been a total flame out with the bat, was more highly thought of nationally and was even a top 50 international prospect by MLBpipeline.com. Meanwhile, in that same class (late signee) Bencosme has developed later and is now a Top-20 prospect in a pretty deep minor league system. So if we start with the first class of high value signings (Basallo/Hernandez class) for the Orioles, which were made up of what would have been high school juniors in the states, they already have two of them in the top 20 and one could be an impact guy. So yeah, I'm going to go out and say that it's way too early to give a grade to the International scouting but I think the early output is pretty decent. BTW, that doesn't even touch on guys like Braylin Tavera, Aron Estrada, and maybe even a Jean Mata who have potential and could be in the top 20 next year with good years in the FCL.

I saw that. Maybe he was thinking of tagging up or maybe he was amazed at him far that ball was hit and mesmerized! lol

You guys are really focused on one word. lol I clearly was showing how he impacts the baseball and why that's special. I realize that a lot of people don't watch minor league baseball enough to know that it's pretty special to watch a 20-year old impact the baseball like that, especially against much older pitching. I'm pretty sure I know about all those other things since I wrote them up, but I'm also not worried about his miss because it's not extreme, and not even bad for a power hitter. I'm not going to sink him for his taste of AA when he was four years (avg) younger than most of his competition. Any way, the video was really to let people see him do some of things I talked about. You or anyone else wants to get down on over his AA number at 20-years old. Feel free.

Who are the Orioles 2022 # 19 and #20 prospects

Frederick Bencosme Pos: INF Bats: L Throws: R Age (as of Jun 30th) : 19 2022 Level: FCL/A/A+ Tools (current/future value) Hit: 40/55 Game Power: 30/45 Raw Power: 30/45 Run: 55/55 Defense: 35/50 Most Likely Future Role: Utility Ceiling: 2nd Division 2B What we know: With all the money the Orioles have thrown at Latin players over the last few years, this low money, 6-foot, 160 pound, string bean is the second best International prospect in the system behind Samuel Basallo. The left-handed hitter just slashing line drives all over the field and rarely misses with a 6% swinging strike rate and 12.4% K rate to go along with a 10.8 BB rate in 250 A-Ball PAs at Delmarva. Slashed .336/.410/.432/.841 with a .398 wOBA and 138 wRC+ at Delmarva despite only playing two games above the Dominican Summer League before this season. Put up a 22.9% Line drive rate going left-center to right center well. His only drawback offensively is not a lot of power, but he started to lift the ball more from July on and even turned on a few homers to RF. He’s pretty skinny overall, and there is a lot of room for him to add muscle to his frame, so there is hope he can add to his power as he matures. Defensively he actually has good tools showing good range and plenty of army, but he’s erratic in the field, very erratic making 22 errors in 49 starts at SS for an ugly .864 fld pct. He wasn’t much better at 3B and right now, 2B is the only position where he won’t hurt a team defensively. He drops down often on his throws making his throws sail towards the runner going to first and really needs a strong off season working with an infield coach. He’s not particularly fast on the base paths but he moves well one on the go. If he can’t get his throws under control, they may have to give him some looks in the outfield, but they may want to give him those looks anyways to improve his versatility. What we don’t know: Bencosme is one of those young inexperienced players who’s bat to ball skills is his calling card right now, but will he fill out and start impacting the baseball more? Defensively, his errors come from poor decisions, lazy throws, and dropping his arm down, but he actually has decent arm strength and may just need coaching to improve. We actually like his tools on the infield better than Hernaiz, but he’s nowhere near as consistent. What we think: Bencosme really came on the scene this year and there is some upside of him becoming an everyday second baseman at the big league level, especially if he can add some strength to his frame. He has some of the best in organization swinging strike percentages and solid line drive rates, and those are two good skills to develop a hitting base from. He’ll start next season at Aberdeen at just 20-years old, so while right now his most likely is a utility guy, don’t count him out as an everyday guy.