A bountiful minor league
I've never paid a lot of attention to the Rule V Draft, but it is an intriguing proxy for the health of one's minor league system.
One offseason question for the Shorebirds’ parent club, the Baltimore Orioles, is the fate of free agent-to-be Anthony Santander. He will most likely be moving on, but at least in theory still could decide to come back as a free agent if the Orioles can get a hometown discount.
While others like him have dotted the Orioles’ roster over the past several seasons, Santander is perhaps the best example of the effect the Rule V Draft can have as a player, as the Orioles plucked an injured Santander out of Cleveland’s farm system and watched his maturity as a slugger - with some fits and starts, of course - after eight seasons in the black and orange.
Last week the baseball winter meetings culminated with the 2024 edition of the Rule V Draft. While the annual joke for the Orioles used to be who they would attempt to make the next TJ McFarland, Tyler Wells, or John Flaherty - none of them household names, but useful pieces for an MLB squad who got a Rule V break - the Orioles were the only team this year to stand pat and not add a soul during the entirety of the Rule V Draft. This while other teams were quite active: between the two phases of the draft; for example, the Phillies led the way with seven (including one from Baltimore, as I’ll get to in a moment), while Atlanta picked six and Houston and Pittsburgh grabbed five apiece - in the latter cases, all at the AAA level, meaning they won’t have to return the players if they don’t make the major league roster. (Only 15 players were picked in the MLB phase, while 68 players went in the AAA phase.) Out of the AL East, the other teams went on a sliding scale (Boston 4, Toronto 3, Tampa Bay 2, and New York 1) between the phases while my Tigers added just one in the AAA phase.
It was more interesting to me, though, to see how the Orioles stacked up with the teams who were raided the most. Their seven losses were up there, although that category was won by the Mets, who lost nine players out of their system. St. Louis was also relieved of seven guys, while the pair of teams tied with six were the Tigers and Giants. On the flip side, teams losing no one were the White Sox, Braves, Diamondbacks, and most of the AL West (LA Angels, Houston, and Seattle.) Aside from Toronto, teams regularly selected out of the AL East: Baltimore with 7, Boston and New York with 5 apiece, and the Rays with 4. (Toronto only lost one.)
As a net, the biggest gainers were Atlanta and Philadelphia (+6) with Houston right behind at +5, while the Mets had the most net losses (-8), followed by the Orioles at -7 and Detroit at -5.
Of course, most of the guys Baltimore lost had a Shorebirds connection. Perhaps the biggest reach, though, was the one player the Orioles lost in the MLB phase.
Juan Nunez was one of the guys the Orioles picked up from the Twins in the August 2022 Jorge Lopez trade. While Lopez was a bust for the Twins, it gave the Orioles four pitchers to work around, including major-leaguers Yennier Cano and (eventually) Cade Povich as well as Juan Rojas, who spent most of his summer with Delmarva this season. Nunez was the next-farthest from the Show, and was here in 2022-23 right after the trade before heading up to Aberdeen at mid-season of 2023.
He’s missed most of 2024 with an injury, so I’m sure the Padres (who selected him with their one MLB phase Rule 5 pick) will use that excuse to “rehab” him sufficiently in the minors in 2025 so they can minimize his time in the Show next season, finishing his required time in the 2026 season. (I believe the Orioles did this with Santander, not getting through his prescribed stint until his second season in 2018.) It’s a bit of a reach, though, because the Padres aren’t exactly a rebuilding team, having reached the NL playoffs in two of the last three seasons.
I’m sure the Orioles would happily pay to get Juan back if San Diego doesn’t want him or extract a trade for a nice midlevel prospect if the Padres insist on keeping him without putting him in Petco Park quite yet. Baseball America had Nunez as Baltimore’s #20 prospect.
The first guy selected in the AAA phase from the Orioles is the only one without a Shorebird connection. The O’s acquired pitcher Tyler Burch in the 2021 trade with the Phillies where Freddy Galvis went back to Philadelphia and assigned him to Aberdeen. He’s pretty much been parked at Bowie since and missed a lot of time in 2024 with injury. Tyler is now the property of the Colorado Rockies, so the question is whether he’ll be East Coast (Hartford) or out west in Albuquerque.
Fellow pitcher Dan Hammer may have been a member of the 2020 Shorebirds had we not cancelled the season. Instead, the 2019 draftee in the 13th round from the University of Pittsburgh waited until 2022 to play here and put up so-so numbers (2-3, 5.44 with 37 walks in 43 innings) but was pushed to Aberdeen regardless. He’s split the last two campaigns between Aberdeen and Bowie and will now try to make Tampa Bay’s AA squad in Montgomery. He’ll still be a member of the All-Name team in the minor leagues regardless.
Wrapping up the first round of AAA selections was outfielder John Rhodes, whose stay in Delmarva was brief on his way up. He was the Orioles’ 3rd pick in the 2021 draft from the University of Kentucky, hitting .266/2/18 in 23 games here at the tail end of that season. He’s another guy who seemed to be stuck at Bowie, and with a .213 lifetime average at that level will likely just be one of the guys to form depth at the Dodgers’ AA team in Tulsa. Regardless, he has been bouncing around at the bottom of the BA Top 30 prospects for Baltimore since coming on board, last ranked at #26. As it turns out, he was one of just two totally homegrown players who were selected after being unprotected.
Deep in Round 2, the Astros grabbed another from the Oriole collection of selloff trades as pitcher Jean Pinto headed west. The departure of Pinto closes a minor trade made with the Angels in December, 2020 as infielder Jose Iglesias was sent there for Pinto and another minor league pitcher, Garrett Stallings. (Stallings was let go earlier in 2024 and now pitches in the Brewers organization.)
Pinto put up some great numbers for Delmarva in 2021: in just 46 2/3 innings here he pitched to a 2.51 ERA and sensational 56/13 K/BB ratio. I was pretty impressed, but it seems like injuries have won out over talent in Pinto’s career, as he missed all of 2024 and fell off the Orioles’ Top 30 after 2022. (It’s not that he’s ineffective, sporting a career 3.11 ERA.) In 2023, he had made it to Bowie so perhaps Pinto will be a contender for a spot with Houston’s AA affiliate in Corpus Christi.
Speaking of the Brewers, a few selections later they picked the next player who once toiled in the Angels’ farm system, pitcher Zach Peek. (Peek was a part of the Dylan Bundy deal in December, 2019 - the one which netted them Kyle Bradish, among others.) Peek has been here on several occasions: on the way up in 2021 he was semi-effective (2-3, 4.37, a 64/21 K/BB ratio in 45 1/3 innings) and in 2023-24 he’s made a total of six rehab appearances here off Aberdeen’s or Bowie’s injured list. In the first case, he was a member of the Delmarva Scrapple, so I have a personal connection with Peek: I snagged his 2023 Scrapple jersey (#15) and met him afterward. He seems like a nice enough fellow, so I’m rooting for his success. The Brewers’ minor league fans seem to like him, too.
Last but not least, the Shorebirds are losing a familiar name, and yet another only partially homegrown player. Elio Prado was chosen in the third round by the Philadelphia Phillies.
Prado was part of the return from the Boston Red Sox (along with another familiar name to Shorebird faithful, organization player Noelberth Romero) for a half-season of Andrew Cashner back in July, 2019. Because we missed the 2020 season and Prado was out for 2021 with injury, we weren’t introduced to Elio until 2022. Two years removed from action and playing in the States from the first time (his debut 2019 season was spent in the Dominican Summer League) it’s not hard to blame Prado for a .197/1/25 slash line in 66 games. The next season Elio returned and improved to .251/7/27 in 65 games before promotion to Aberdeen, where he has remained. With a .229 lifetime average at the high-A level over the last season-and-a-half, he’s likely going to be looking for playing time on the Jersey Shore.
We will have to see if this is addition by subtraction, but to me it’s interesting that Mike Elias is cleaning out the cupboard from several of his early deals by not protecting the players he used to jumpstart a moribund minor league system early on. Perhaps that’s a sign of a mature developmental program.
Heck, I just want a pennant winner here. Is that too much to ask?