Aberdeen was the best Orioles affiliate a year ago and could be the most interesting again

Of the five domestic Orioles minor league affiliates, the only one that had a winning record over its season a year ago was the High-A Aberdeen IronBirds of the South Atlantic League. That’s not to say it was a wildly successful team overall, because that winning record was exactly 67-65. They were not running away with everything.

It is almost entirely a new group of players who will be taking aim at success for this team in 2025. The break camp roster included just one batter with 100 or more plate appearances for Aberdeen a year ago, and only one pitcher who threw at least 40 innings here. The rest were either promoted, traded, or released.

None of the players on this roster have much of a shot of making it to the majors during the 2025 season, unless something particularly weird or miraculous happens. Following this team won’t have the immediate interest of, say, Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo at Norfolk. With that said, this is a team that’s starting out with a big number of prospects who will be worth following to see if they can have a positive impact on the team a year or two down the line.

Development of players who are beginning at Aberdeen will be important to show that the Mike Elias Orioles can continue to succeed in the draft even when they don’t pick in the top 5, that they can polish useful players from the third day of the draft, that they can start to have some international signing successes other than Samuel Basallo, and that they can maybe develop a pitching prospect that they signed as an amateur, like, ever.

Aberdeen’s season began on Friday along with the Double-A and Low-A teams.

Catchers

• Ethan Anderson (Camden Chat’s #14 prospect)
• Aneudis Mordán
• Ryan Stafford

Primarily listed as a catcher, Anderson has also played both first base and left field in his early time in pro ball. He only actually caught 34 games in his college career, so questions about sticking at the position more center around how he’ll handle the grind than about his ability as a catcher, which, at least as far as the scouting reports I surveyed while making the composite Camden Chat prospects list, seems to not be in question. He has been a pretty good if not overwhelmingly great hitter.

Infielders

• Griff O’Ferrall (#7)
• Leandro Arias (t-18)
• Aron Estrada (HM)
• Anderson De Los Santos
• Jalen Vasquez

Estrada is my current favorite lower-tier Orioles prospect, not so much because I think he’s definitely headed for big league success as because I love rooting for guys who arrive at Low-A Delmarva when they didn’t have much prospect stock and make a little attention for themselves. Still just 20 years old, the switch-hitting infielder spent the last month-ish at Aberdeen last season after earning a late season promotion. Arias, another switch-hitter, will also play this season as a 20-year-old.

O’Ferrall was the second player drafted by the Orioles last year. What’s interesting about him to me is the way that he is so against the type of player Elias has tended to draft in early rounds, typically aiming for big power potential. O’Ferrall hit eight homers across three years at the University of Virginia. This has carried over into the pros so far - no homers in 20 games after signing last year.

Outfielders

• Vance Honeycutt (#4)
• Austin Overn (HM)
• Thomas Sosa (HM)
• Jake Cunningham

Honeycutt might be the riskiest first round pick that has been made yet in the Elias tenure. In contrast to the 2023 first rounder, Enrique Bradfield Jr., who is an elite center field defender and threat on the bases with questions about power, Honeycutt is an elite center field defender and threat on the bases with massive power but questions about whether he’ll strike out too much to be an acceptable hitter. Prospect analysts have written about how the Orioles are working on Honeycutt’s swing. Let’s hope that bears fruit.

Sosa is a product of the Orioles international pipeline, with high marks for his power potential but, like Honeycutt, concerns that he just won’t hit enough. Overn, a 2024 draft pick, is the kind of player who is praised for overall athleticism and being “toolsy” with some hope that these things will eventually translate into concrete baseball skills.

Pitchers

• RHP Michael Forret (t-8)
• RHP Nestor German (t-8)
• RHP Trey Gibson (t-15)
• RHP Zane Barnhart
• LHP Jared Beck
• RHP Braxton Bragg
• RHP Wyatt Cheney
• LHP Riley Cooper
• RHP Juan De Los Santos
• RHP Daniel Federman
• RHP Dominic Freeberger
• RHP Blake Money
• RHP Hayden Nierman
• LHP Juan Rojas
• RHP Teddy Sharkey
• RHP Ty Weatherly

The trio of Forret, German, and Gibson probably makes the IronBirds starting rotation the one that is most interesting to follow regularly in the whole Orioles farm system. The plan needs there to be some success from this group of players. If they pitch well enough to get themselves to Double-A in the middle of this season, that will add to the excitement about them.

This group of pitchers generally has a wide variety in their pitch arsenal and their development is probably going to depend on how many of those pitches can actually be useful for getting out higher-level hitters. German and Gibson have added a little velocity since getting into the Orioles system to help out their cause.

Since Elias has mostly not spent his high draft capital on pitching prospects, guys like this are going to need to be the ones to break through. (The earliest Elias-drafted pitcher so far has been Jackson Baumeister, who was traded to the Rays for Zach Eflin last July.) German was picked in the 11th round, Forret in the 14th, and Gibson was an undrafted free agent after 2023’s draft.

The future of the Orioles looks better if guys in those rounds are getting turned into big league starters. The thing is that it hasn’t happened yet, and Elias has been around for six years now. If a reliever like Cooper (whose heavy metal tattoos and high-velocity fastball got some spring training attention) or Sharkey wants to show something, that would be fun too. The big league bullpen is also headed for some substantial turnover in the near future.

Missing from any of the affiliate break camp rosters is lefty starter Luis De León, who spent last year mostly with Aberdeen and was notable for walking way too many dudes. He’s still got his backers in the prospect ranking world (#11 in the system) but as far as the Opening Day roster he is nowhere to be found.