The days of the Orioles having a consensus top farm system in baseball are apparently behind us. Keith Law of The Athletic just released his 2025 farm system rankings and one thing’s for sure, Law isn’t high on the Orioles.
Law has the O’s all the way down at 20th overall, a bit of a shock to fans who have become accustomed to seeing this organization near the top of these types of lists.
To be clear, the graduations of guys like Jackson Holliday and Colton Cowser are a big part of why Baltimore is ranked so low.
There’s less talent atop the system than in the past, solely because they’ve graduated so many top prospects, which is obviously a good thing.
Coming into 2025, the top prospects in the system are catcher Samuel Basallo and infielder Coby Mayo.
The latter struggled pretty heavily in his brief major league debut in 2024 but will look to get back to Baltimore as early as possible this year and prove that those hiccups were just a fluke. Basallo could potentially debut later this year, but surely will get a chance by 2026 at the latest.
Keith Law doesn’t like the shape of the Orioles’ farm system
Outside of those two, there are a number of question marks in the system. And, as Law notes, a visible lack of top tier pitching prospects.
Yes, guys like Cade Povich and Chayce McDermott are vying for spots on the big league roster, but neither have the prospect pedigree that other top pitching prospects across the league do.
Neither are seen as consensus top-100 prospects, and there are questions about whether either of them will remain in the rotation moving forward.
Outside of the guys already mentioned, there are two outfielders who could help boost these rankings at mid-season. Enrique Bradfield Jr. is a pretty high-variance guy but if he can get it figured out, he could be a star.
Bradfield stole 59 bases in 81 games at High-A last year and raked after his promotion to Double-A. His plate discipline has been excellent to this point and if that translates to the majors, he’s going to do a ton of damage on the basepaths.
In addition to Bradfield, 2024 first round pick Vance Honeycutt could go either way but if things pan out, he’s going to be a major contributor.
Honeycutt is a toolsy, raw player right now. He’s a strong defender with plenty of power and speed, which all worked for him in college.
The biggest issue to this point has been the strikeouts. He whiffed over 30% of the time as a freshman and made some improvements in the two following years
. However, he struck out 24 times in his first 56 professional plate appearances last year, good for a rate of 42.9%. That’s not going to cut it.
There are other prospects that you can talk yourself into, for sure. It’s easy as an Orioles fan to go down the list and pick out players with high upside and big tools that could translate well to the majors.
But Law clearly doesn’t see it.
The fact that so many of these guys are younger, high-variance types, along with the lack of organizational pitching depth is a big part of why Law is down on this group. With any luck, a few of these prospects will take a step forward in 2025 and prove Law wrong.
