With spring training in full swing, the competition for big league jobs is fierce — and the ranking of prospects ahead of the upcoming season plays an integral role in assessing the talent in each team’s pipeline.
Every prospect list has the same goal — to identify and rank the best prospects in baseball. But analysts go about that task in different ways. Although it is not an exact science, curating a list of prospects typically involves conversations with scouts, firsthand observations and data.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel assigns dollar values for each tier of prospect, and in part because they have five of his top 50 overall prospects, the Orioles came in as the No. 1 farm system in McDaniel’s methodology.
“When I’m adding up the numbers of how good the players are monetarily in each of farm system, the teams that have guys in the top 50 or 75, that drives like 90 percent of the value,” ESPN MLB insider Kiley McDaniel said on Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 14.
The Orioles have six prospects in McDaniel’s top 100 prospects, headlined by top overall prospect Jackson Holliday. The infielder advanced through four levels of the Orioles’ system last season as a 19-year-old, batting .323/.442/.499 with 51 extra-base hits.
Holliday has an advanced approach at the plate, combining discipline with a left-handed stroke that delivers consistent contact and elite exit velocities. He is expected to make his big league debut sometime early in the 2024 season.
McDaniel believes Holliday could hit .280 with a 12 percent walk rate and 25 home runs and play an average shortstop — similar to Francisco Lindor during a good season.
“The best version of that, if you just look at the stat line, could be a top-10 player in the game as technically the upside,” McDaniel said. “Even though he is right there, he still could also just be a better version of J.J. Hardy. That’s sort of the lower end of what he would be.”
Analysts differ on whether to rank catcher Samuel Basallo or infielder Coby Mayo No. 2 in the system after Holliday. McDaniel went with Mayo, citing a longer track record and a little more clarity on the position he’ll play even if the upside isn’t quite as high.
“Basallo is not a catcher. He is probably a first baseman,” McDaniel said. “Mayo is either third base with a good shot to stick there but if he isn’t there, then he’s probably at first base so the defensive value is similar.”
Basallo, 19, hit .313/.402/.551 with 53 extra-base hits across three levels in 2023. Mayo, 22, hit .290/.410/.563 with 77 extra-base hits across two levels a year ago.
“Basallo is one of the best for his age group [in exit velocity]. I think he’s already above-average for the big leagues as a teenager, so if that was all I was going off of, I would have gone with him,” McDaniel said.
The Orioles have drafted effectively and continued to find value where other teams might miss it. For all of the hype the Orioles’ system has received in the last five years, it is better than ever now.
Although the future is bright for the Orioles, the depth of their pipeline will likely soon diminish due to graduations and trades. To fortify their system, the club may need to contemplate trading some key regulars ahead of free agency if they are not part of the team’s long-term vision since the club will not pick at the top of the draft in the coming years.
With that in mind, McDaniel says there are a number of different ways that teams can approach this phase. It all depends on who the players are, who the agents are, what the options are and what the payroll is expected to be. The Rays, for example, have built a sustainable model for their payroll.
“Once a guy gets to arbitration, he’s either gotten an extension or he’s been traded. That’s just the way they approach it,” McDaniel said. “If you’re at that level of being able to produce players and find value and that level of payroll, that’s just what you do.”
For more from McDaniel, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles