The Orioles selected second baseman Connor Norby out of East Carolina in the second round of the 2021 MLB Draft. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound outfielder began the 2023 season at Triple-A Norfolk and entered the campaign as a .296/.364/.502 career minor league hitter. So far this season, he’s slashing .286/.341/.433 with 16 doubles, five home runs and 33 RBIs in 48 games for the Tides.
Double-A Bowie manager Kyle Moore and East Forsyth High School (N.C.) baseball coach Drew Dull chatted with PressBox about the 22-year-old Norby.
PressBox: How did you see Norby get better under your watch?
Kyle Moore: I think Connor got away with some things in Aberdeen and then once he got to Bowie, we really had to just remind him, “You have to hit the fastball to right-center field.” When you do that it creates such good things when they do throw you off-speed. You can pull it. When they do throw you a fastball in, you can stay on it and keep it fair. I think ultimately his thing was just being reminded all of the time to stay in his strengths, which is completely driving the ball to right-center field. And then other than that, we established a really good routine with him where we wouldn’t allow him to forget about that strength. … And I think that really clicked for him. He kind of stopped just swinging at things and hitting them because he can, and he started really hunting a zone where he does tremendous damage.
PB: What’s your favorite Norby story?
Drew Dull: There’s a few. I’ll go back to just a couple years ago. I was actually on spring break. We had a COVID-shortened season, so I actually had to have spring break as a coach [or] player for the first time in my life. I was sitting with my girlfriend in Nashville, Tennessee. There may or may not have been several beverages consumed before this conversation. But he texted me and said, “Coach, what do I got to do to get drafted on the first day?” Because my brother [Ryan Dull] had played in The Show and we knew some people. I said, “Man, you’ve got to hit 15 doubles and 15 home runs and knock in a bunch of runs.” He said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Yeah. If you want to get drafted on the first day, that’s what you’ve got to do.” His junior year at ECU, he hit 15 doubles and 15 home runs and knocked in 51. Probably was pretty close to a first-day [pick] from a lot of the conversations that I had the two draft days.
KM: My favorite story so far is that there was a time about halfway through the second half when we lost Joey Ortiz and Colton Cowser to Triple-A. It really stunk because we lost them at a time when we were competing and we were a game out of first place and we were trying to get in [the playoffs]. So you lose your top one and two hitters, and Connor was so upset that those kids got called up and he didn’t because his numbers were just screaming, “Call me up, call me up to Triple-A.” And we were really progressing with pushing guys and so forth. My favorite moment was when we went into Akron and he was so upset that he didn’t get called up. I had a chance to tell him, “Look, dude, this is the way it’s going to be,” and just had a heart-to-heart with him and said, “What if this was Triple-A and that was the big leagues and you didn’t get called up? Are you going to waste a week or two or three here sulking about it and just saying, ‘I didn’t go up, the other guys did?’” He took it like an absolute champ. He went out and hit three homers in the series where we were trying to get into the playoffs versus Akron. I was like, “Wow.” The way he responded made me think, “This kid might be special.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles
Originally published April 19, 2023. Updated May 30.