This blog will be a bit shorter than the last 2 because there is only one prospect left to talk about and that is Samuel Basallo. Basallo is currently the Orioles #2 prospect and the #17 prospect in all of baseball.
Unlike the other guys we have talked about so far who have either already tasted the major leagues or are in AAA knocking on the door of a call up Samuel Basallo has just played 4 games at AA Bowie and will not likely join the team until 2025.
But even though Basallo is still a ways away from the big leagues I still wanted to talk about him this year because he presents an interesting roster problem that the Orioles front office has the next year to figure out.
The “problem” is that Basallo is a catching prospect and the Orioles are kind of all set at catcher for now. When a prospect is coming up and your team already has a franchise player at their position you have a couple of options, you can trade them and improve other parts of the roster or you can try to get them to play another position.
If Basallo was just a really good top 100 prospect I think the obvious solution would be to trade him. A fair amount of the value that a catching prospect has is due to the fact that it is harder to find an elite catcher than to find an elite first baseman or an elite corner outfielder so if you have a catching prospect to spare you can get a good haul for him on the trade market.
But Basallo does not appear to be just a regular really good top 100 prospect over the past year he has rocketed up from rookie ball to AA and has gone from a mostly unknown prospect to now where he appears to be following in the footsteps of Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holiday on his way to being the #1 prospect in all of baseball and you just don’t trade the #1 prospect.
Here are the numbers Basallo put up across three different levels of minor league ball:
A: .299/.384/.503
A+: .333/.443/.688
AA: .467/.500/.667 – this was in just 4 games but still!
Basallo’s numbers are great, his tools at the plate as far as hitting for both contact and power are great and he has a disciplined approach at the plate. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but I’ve heard the name Yordan Alvarez floated out there as a comparison. In summary, Basallo is the kind of prospect that you make room for.
But if he’s not going to be a catcher for us that just leaves the 1B/DH/RF position group. Which is a little tricky because we don’t know exactly who he will be competing with for those spots a year from now.
If what I think is going to happen happens then this time next year Basallo will be competing primarily with Coby Mayo for reps at first and Heston Kjerstad for reps in right. If the O’s let Santander walk then there would be an opening at DH but if you are only going to use Basallo as a DH then maybe you should consider trading him and get the value of a top catching prospect out of him.
Really what the Orioles have to do is decide which of their young prospects currently ahead of Basallo they are willing to part with because by the time Basallo makes it to the majors the only players left blocking him will be other former top prospects from the Elias regime.
I mentioned Mayo and Kjertsad by name because they both play the positions that the O’s would most likely try to slide Basallo into but there are other options. For example you could have Mayo move to third and have Westburg be the guy that gets pushed out, you could force Kjerstad into left and lose Cowser, or you could move Cowser to center and lose Mullins. Basically on Rutschman, Henderson and Holiday are safe from getting replaced by Basallo if he is who he projects to be.
I think it is too early in any of these guys’ careers to say who should be replaced by Basallo. I think if you are the Orioles front office you let the 2024 season play out and hope that the answer presents itself. The problem with that is that I don’t know how much playing time Cowser, Kjertsad, Mayo and Norby can bank on with Hays, Santander, Mountcastle, Mullins and O’Hearn still on the roster. So how much Major League data will the front office have on these guys when 2025 comes around and it is time to think about where Basallo fits in.
One last quick thing about Basallo is that if the O’s decide that they just LOVE all the guys ahead of him then they could try to do a Jazz Chisolm for Zac Gallen type trade and try cash in the #1 prospect for a very good and still young pitcher like George Kirby or Tarik Skubal or someone else that I’ve never heard of but the front office has been walking like a hawk.
A word about the Veterans
I feel like these last three blogs have made it seem like I can’t wait to get rid of all the veterans who were on the roster before Elias took over and that is not really the case.
I’m not in favor of clearing out all the veterans and turning the team over to the prospects just for the sake of doing so. Those veterans were a big part of winning 101 games last year and I only want the prospects to take over if they are definitely going to be a significant upgrade which is why in my proposed lineups I’ve tried to keep Mullins and Santander on the team and I would like to keep Mountcastle too if he can outperform Mayo and Basallo and hang onto first base I just think that’s a tall order for him based on the level of prospects that these guys are.
I think there is a good chance that when it comes to trades that other teams would rather have prospects than guys that are near the end of their deals so it’s very possible that if the O’s are trying to trade for another top pitcher that teams will ask for Mayo or Kjerstad and then guys like Mountcastle and Hays get to keep their spots and be a part of the future of team and they are good enough that that is still a great option as long as we get good value back when we trade our prospects.
The Dishwasher 
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