New breakouts are underway on the Orioles farm. A year on from minor league baseball's return, whose stock rose the most in that time?
Seeing a 2022 breakout ahead of the anniversary of minor league baseball's return made me think about who has risen the most in the year since its return. Here are the five biggest climber.
It’s been a year since minor league baseball returned from its COVID-enforced absence, and that year has shown just how much players can change and improve from season to season — whether there are 18 months between those seasons or just your average winter.
That’s partially why I ended up in Bowie Tuesday night to see Ryan Watson start for the Baysox, carrying an impressive scoreless run to begin his career at Double-A: five baserunners and no runs with 16 strikeouts in 13 innings.
Watson was an undrafted free agent as a senior out of Auburn in 2020, and had a respectable 1.18 WHIP with 11.99 strikeouts per nine innings and a 3.48 ERA in 64 2/3 innings in his pro debut. It was nothing to distinguish him from the dozens of Orioles farmhands getting their feet wet in the low minors last summer.
But that version of Watson was working with a fastball in the 89-91 mph range. He’s been up to 95 mph this year, and worked 92-93 early in his outing Tuesday, which is around his season average. Granted, this was the outing he came back to earth, allowing five runs on seven hits in 5 2/3 innings. But he showed a feel for four pitches and solidified himself as someone worth watching the rest of the way.
It will take more than a month like this to change too much when it comes to Watson’s standing in the organization, but that’s not to say it won’t ever change. Given it’s the anniversary of the return of minor league baseball, here’s a breakdown of five players whose performance in the last year has bolstered their standing and in some cases solidified potential major league futures that weren’t as clear a year ago.