In the game of life, a good piece of advice is to avoid use of the words ever and never. In a life that involves any discussion, written or verbal, of anything remotely related to sports it’s an even better idea to double down on EVER, the dreaded four-letter word too often associated with games, players and, in this case, teams.
That seems to be the right place to start any discussion about the current state of the Orioles’ minor league system — and even more specifically their Triple-A farm team, which is threatening to destroy minor league offensive records.
Based on the first week of the 2024 season, and coming on the heels of winning the “Little World Series” a year ago, the Tides are drawing outlandish attention and even some hints of being one of those teams destined to be … you know … one of those best four-letter-word minor league teams. Well, except for the pitching.
But we’ll get to that later. For now, one principal reason the Tides are drawing such rave reviews is the result of the controversial decision to have phenom prospect Jackson Holliday complete his Triple-A education at Norfolk rather than run the Orange Carpet in Baltimore.
It was a move met with such outrage by pennant-starved Birdland that you would have thought the Orioles were coming off a 101-loss, rather than 101-win season that included the American League East title. In retrospect it’s safe to say the club painted itself into a corner on this one, leaving no room for escape.
What began as a relatively tame question about whether Holliday had a chance to make the Opening Day roster ballooned into a virtual certainty. As GM Mike Elias surveyed the roster, trying to balance the desire for a left-handed hitting second baseman with the need for a right-handed hitter for the lineup against left-handed pitchers, he said there was a distinct possibility Holliday could run the Orange Carpet in his age-20 season.
Having blown through three minor league levels last season before getting an 18-game baptism at Triple-A, Holliday had convinced the baseball world he was a special talent. Birdland didn’t need to be convinced. From a “chance” he rose overnight to a possibility, then a probability and, finally, all but a certainty to be on the O’s Opening Day roster.
Aha, there’s always a but.
When Holliday was instead optioned, the late spring spike of strikeouts wasn’t enough to quell the outrage of a fan base conditioned for, and counting on, the arrival of baseball’s next superstar. It hardly diminished as the major league club scuffled to a 4-2 record on the opening homestand of the season — and it probably won’t if the Orioles “drop” to a pace for a more realistic low to mid-90s win total in an improved AL East. (I can’t imagine the uproar if that happens.)
In the meantime, Holliday seemed to take the “demotion” as the Orioles hoped (and thought) he would until his promotion to the big leagues on April 10. Instead of running the Orange Carpet at 20 he became the cherry on top of what might become the most talked-about minor league team since … well, since the Tampa Bay Rays fielded a stacked team in Durham for what seems like the last decade.
From the standpoint of producing major league players, the Orioles can look at their 1976 Rochester Red Wings Triple-A team, which posted an 88-50 record. Enhanced by the expansion draft later that year, a whopping 29 of the 33 players on that team played in the major leagues, including Hall of Famer Eddie Murray. But you’d be hard-pressed to say it was even the best minor league team in O’s history — and the same may well be true of the juggernaut threatening to set records this year.
Make no mistake, this Norfolk team has a chance to be special — but it won’t qualify for the four-letter description we’ve learned to avoid. For one thing, when those in the know talk about the lineup presented by the Tides, they are really talking about the top five hitters in the early April lineup — Holliday, Connor Norby, Heston Kjerstad, Kyle Stowers and Coby Mayo.
What the casual observer might not realize is something very significant — the current Tides roster has 17 players, including Kjerstad and Stowers, who have already played in the major leagues. That is not insignificant as Elias, in addition to assembling a roster for the big club, has also put together a strong supporting cast for the kids who are causing all the commotion. It is also a trait of other successful minor league teams.
In that regard, the Orioles do not have to look any further than their own history to find teams that have track records equal or better than the one rewriting the Norfolk record book.
The “poster teams” in that regard would be the 1970-1971 Rochester Red Wings, which posted records of 88-50 and 85-56 and featured 21 players who went to the big leagues. In fact, if you Google the ‘71 team you will find a story calling it the greatest followed by the dreaded four-letter word.
Don Baylor was minor league “Player of the Year” in 1970, when he had a slash line of .327/.429/.583 with 22 home runs and 107 runs batted in.
Bobby Grich played 63 games for that team in 1970, hitting .383 before joining the Orioles and mostly riding the bench the second half of the season. A year later, given the option of utility in Baltimore or playing every day in Rochester, he opted for the latter.
“[Then-Orioles GM] Harry Dalton could be stingy, but he gave me a $1,000 raise when I went down,” Grich told me years later. “I learned to hit that time on the bench in Baltimore. When I got there the first thing I noticed was that everybody could hit the ball the other way.”
He took advantage of that learning experience the next year in Rochester. All Grich did for that extra grand Dalton gifted him was throw up a slash line of .336/.439/.632 with 32 home runs and 83 runs batted in. And, oh yeah, he also won minor league Player of the Year. As for Baylor, Grich’s best friend, he was still a teammate, slashing .313/.422/.539 with 20 home runs and 95 runs batted in — a year AFTER he was saluted as the best player in the minor leagues.
The back-to-back years Baylor and Grich had during the 1970 and 1971 seasons are about as good as it gets when it comes to resumes for minor league teammates. Which gives you an idea what Holliday, Norby, Kjerstad, Stowers, Mayo and the Tides are up against when even considering putting together numbers that might be considered worthy of the always-to-be-avoided four-letter word mentioned at the top of the column.
It’s reasonably safe to say there are two more MLB-ready players, Mayo and Norby, who will debut soon — perhaps before the ink is dry on this issue, almost certainly before the end of this season. If starting pitchers Chayce McDermott and Cade Povich join the crowd, that will put the 2024 Norfolk Tides on an elite list of minor league teams.
“This is as deep a 40-man roster, especially with position players, that I’ve seen in at least a decade,” one veteran scout told me near the end of spring training.
That roster is being driven by the top players in the Norfolk lineup, and there are more coming. How far the Tides go may well depend on what moves are made by the major league team in the very near future.
For a team coming off a 101-win season, the Orioles still have a lot of questions. Fortunately they appear to have a lot of answers in Norfolk, where the Tides are threatening to establish records that could last a long time.
But a long time is not forever, and that’s as close as we’ll come to using that four-letter word.
Jim Henneman can be contacted at JimH@pressboxonline.com.
Photo Credit: Sydney Smith
Originally published April17, 2024