Early last year when the Orioles were really good and seemed like they would be forever, it felt like they had more players than they’d ever know what to do with.

Jackson Holliday was the best prospect in baseball, and even though he struggled when he debuted, the shine wasn’t gone. Connor Norby was in year two of mashing at Triple-A Norfolk. Coby Mayo was dominating the level, as was whichever of Heston Kjerstad and Kyle Stowers was not the fifth outfielder in the big leagues.

It boded well for the group’s major league futures. As we sit here in May, with Holliday humming in Baltimore and Stowers the National League Player of the Week with the Marlins, where he plays after being dealt with Norby for pitcher Trevor Rogers last July, the success of those two goes a long way to explain why Kjerstad and Mayo can eventually be productive as well.

No one who has been around here long would describe me as a particularly patient or understanding person when it comes to young players getting their chances to feature regularly for the Orioles. That’s often been in stark contrast to the team I write about, which more often than not is conservative in how it introduces talented young players to the majors.

That can mean limited playing time at the start, and not always giving a player the longest leash if things aren’t going well, especially now that the team’s ambitions are higher than they were a few years ago.

Stowers debuted in 2022 and finished well but did not play much in 2023 due to a lack of opportunities and injury. He had more chances in 2024 but ended up flipping back and forth with Kjerstad before the trade. He played regularly down the stretch in Miami — really his first time playing nearly every day since the end of 2022 — and has come out of the gate looking like the impact bat it always felt like he would be.

He’s batting .310 with a .902 OPS and six home runs in 32 games, which stands in stark contrast to Kjerstad, who hit all three of his home runs in a six-game span April 12-18 but is 5-for-37 since, leaving him with a .596 OPS for the season.

The comparison is an easy one to make. Kjerstad has 236 plate appearances in 82 career games over three seasons. Stowers reached that amount of plate appearances last August after the trade, and had a .555 OPS in his first 234 major league plate appearances, striking out in 34% of them. Even with this season’s struggles, Kjerstad has not only fared better to this stage in his career, but he has a lot of batted ball data that suggests this year should be going better as well.

I happen to judge sluggers like Kjerstad on whether they can do what Stowers did last week, which was hit a bunch of home runs and carry his team for a week or two at a time. Anthony Santander could. Ryan Mountcastle could, and I think still can. But Stowers doing so now, at age 27, was a nice reminder that these things take time.

On the younger end of the age spectrum, Holliday’s success stands out. He has a 1.114 OPS in his last 10 games, easily representing his best stretch of production in the big leagues. Like Mayo, his first look at life in the majors last year didn’t go as planned. It’s taken some time and adjustments both back in the minors and in the offseason to get to this point. But Holliday is now 305 major league plate appearances into his career and growing more comfortable by the day.

Mayo, with Sunday’s return, is now at 52. He might end up being more on the Stowers or Kjerstad path in it being a longer journey to rack up as much experience as Holliday has and really get his footing in the majors, but the point stands that there’s value in just getting these experiences out of the way and working through them to get to the good parts faster.

I wrote around Norby’s debut last year that there’s a lot of evidence that a choppy start to a major league career does not diminish a player’s future value, and that remains true.

Of course, it would be nicer if the Orioles had more reinforcements who were able to contribute now. If you’re looking longingly to Miami for them, just know the players the Orioles kept are still here for a reason, and it won’t be long before they’re on the same level.

Ballpark Chatter

“I do feel confident, but, more than anything, I think I feel more comfortable. I know how to prep going into the game.”

– Tomoyuki Sugano on his performance Saturday.

I think it’s worth pointing out how Tomoyuki Sugano has settled into life in the Orioles rotation incredibly well.

There’s a lot of underlying data that suggests he may not have a 3.00 ERA forever, but this stretch is at least proving that it can go right, which I had some skepticism about given his lack of premium stuff and the ability of major league hitters to punish below-average fastballs.

For me, he has built himself a good bit of cushion for when the league inevitably adjusts to him. That is valuable.

On the farm

Braylin Tavera

Outfielder Braylin Tavera signed for $1.7 million in the 2022 signing class, but as happens sometimes, his transition to full-season ball knocked him off the radar. Tavera had a .509 OPS in 355 plate appearances at Low-A Delmarva as a 19-year-old last year, and a return to the level is serving him well.

He has an .843 OPS with five home runs in 101 plate appearances this year, the kind of performance that will make it easy to overlook last year’s struggles if he keeps it up.

By the numbers

42.5%

Gunnar Henderson was never going to struggle for long — he’s just too good. But it’s more than just finding his timing and rhythm after missing spring training.

No everyday left-handed hitter in baseball has seen a higher percentage of his pitches off lefties this year than Henderson at 42.5%. Last year, that number was 30.9%. In 2023, it was 27%. Henderson hit lefties well last year, so it was moot, but considering how often the Orioles saw lefties to start the year and his .414 OPS off them to this point, the volume of them has really hurt.

He is going to hit lefties better. He is also going to see them less going forward, and considering he has a .953 OPS off righties, that balance is going to help both him and the Orioles.

For further reading

📣 Elias’ support: Yes, I did interpret Mike Elias’ vote of confidence for Brandon Hyde as more of a vote of confidence in the team he put together. Here’s why that matters.

🧮 Salvage a season? I always find breakdowns like this from FanGraphs’ Dan Szymborski to be valuable. It’s from a week ago, but here’s how his ZiPS projection system views the Orioles for the rest of the year, based on how the first month went. It feels like not the best news.