Major FOMO for minors camp: Orioles prospect DL Hall, in MLB's lockout limbo, left 'itching for baseball.'
Hall, one of the game's top pitching prospects, can only watch from afar as the special on-field and off-field group he's a part of prepares for 2022 without him.
To DL Hall, the best pizza in the Orioles’ spring training home of Sarasota might be some of the best in the world — it’s that good.
He made sure in past springs that it was a staple of the group dinners that fill young ballplayers’ nights there, and earlier this week, Hall said fellow top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez sent him a picture from outside the building. It was not well-received back in Hall’s native Georgia.
“Now, they’re eating it there without me,” Hall said. “I’m pretty heated about that.”
Hall, the former first-round pick and the Orioles’ third-ranked prospect, isn’t at minor league spring training with the rest of his peers. His position on the Orioles’ 40-man roster means he’s homebound, and the group chat featuring those two top pitchers plus top hitting prospects Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson buzzes along without him.
MLB’s lockout means major league spring training, where Hall would have spent February before being reassigned to minor league camp to prepare for a big league debut this summer, hasn’t begun. But as a member of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, he can’t participate in minor league camp either, so Hall is essentially in limbo.
It’s an unfortunate circumstance for a player who missed most of 2021 due to injury, and the long-standing group chat with Rutschman, Rodriguez, and Henderson isn’t helping.
Hall said: “They’re always messaging and talking about going out to dinner and stuff, and I’m like, ‘Can you all please leave me alone?’ And Grayson always says, ‘Sit your ass back down on the couch’ – because he knows that I can’t do anything.”
That’s only true in a technical sense, of course. Hall’s spiritual place may with the other potential future stars in the Orioles’ rebuild, but the lockout hasn’t hindered his rehab from the stress fracture in his elbow that cut short a dazzling 2021 at Double-A Bowie.
He made seven starts before the elbow soreness cropped up, but struck out 15.92 batters per nine innings with a 1.01 WHIP thanks to overpowering stuff he honed during the lost minor league season of 2020.
After essentially a six-month shutdown from when the injury first cropped up in early June, Hall threw for the first time on Nov. 17 at the Orioles’ spring training facility in Sarasota.
A few days later, he was added to the 40-man roster to ensure another team didn’t take him in the Rule 5 draft, and in early December, the owners locked the players out. That meant covered players like Hall couldn’t have any contact with the Orioles, or vice versa.
“We went into the lockout and they’d already given me my throwing program,” Hall said. “I was medically cleared in the weight room already. My trainer who does my offseason program, he handled my weight room stuff, but with me being cleared, it was pretty easy and straightforward for him.
“Then, as far as the throwing goes, the team had already put me on a program to build me all the way up through February. Basically, build me up to season-ready. Once I finish this throwing program, which…I think I might have a couple more weeks of it, then I’ll be considered season-ready.”
Had the lockout served MLB’s stated purpose by speeding up negotiations and leading to an agreement, Hall would have been in Sarasota earlier than most. He was meant to report on Jan. 10 to rehabilitate under the team’s supervision, and would have been in town through the team’s minicamps with their top prospects that month.
Missing that report date was likely at the outset of the lockout, one that Hall has stay informed on through regular conversations with his agent, Scott Boras.
“I know it’s easier for us young guys who aren’t as involved in the player’s union yet to just go with the flow and see what happens,” Hall said. “But I’ve been trying my best to stay up-to-date on everything that’s really going on, so maybe one day, once I’m in that situation or once I’m an established big leaguer and maybe I play a part in it, I’ll know what I’m doing and not be just lost out in the blue.”
Several Orioles prospects are in the same position as Hall in never having played in the majors but locked out with the big leaguers, including pitchers Kyle Bradish, Kevin Smith, Félix Bautista and Logan Gillaspie; infielders Terrin Vavra and Rylan Bannon, and outfielder Yusniel Diaz.
In the nearer term, Hall feels every bit of the in-between nature of his situation. He’s not an active part of the negotiations, but they clearly impact him and he’s trying to learn as much as he can about the sport’s business landscape while the opportunity exists. He has the plan from the Orioles and spoke glowingly of the handling of his rehab and strength-building program they’ve assigned, but knows it would be easier to follow if he was on-site and engaged in the process the way the minor leaguers are. Seeing that all of his peers are in Sarasota “definitely makes it tougher.”
Few in any farm system, however, are in the position of the Orioles’ top prospects. With the major league team struggling so badly over the last three seasons, the club’s resources and also a growing portion of the fans’ attention have been directed at the minor league stars who could soon help turn things around.
The Orioles’ top prospects, by and large, embrace the chance to be part of something that’s improving and could lead to a contending team before long, and the spirit of camaraderie and competition that’s been fostered on the farm certainly plays into that.
The players are close off the field and push each other to be better on it, and the organization’s “Rising Tide” mantra gives the minor leaguers a sense of ownership over the team’s future than most would have.
“If there’s one thing I miss, it’s being back on the field, and being back in that atmosphere around all the guys, and just trying to build a championship organization.”
Being part of that is appealing, and Hall seems to enjoy it. His social media leans heavily toward competitive trash-talk with Rodriguez, pumping up his teammates’ accomplishments, and trumpeting the farm system’s lofty ratings. He believes in what’s being built in Baltimore, and wants to be a part of it.
When being away from that is compounded by an unprecedented lack of competitive baseball for someone like Hall, the longing to return is even stronger.
“You’ve got 2020 [with the COVID-19 pandemic], then 2021 I come out and start with a really hot start to the year and then get shut down and basically miss the whole year, and then after that, I’m just basically itching for baseball,” Hall said. “If there’s one thing I miss, it’s being back on the field, and being back in that atmosphere around all the guys, and just trying to build a championship organization.”