This year’s annual trip stateside for the Orioles’ international scouting department is well-timed to say the least.

Their calendar typically includes a trip to the Baltimore area to catch up with the players they’ve signed over the years and get a feel for the levels where they’re competing. This time around, they’ll all be at Camden Yards on Thursday to enjoy the home debut of Samuel Basallo — the team’s top prospect and the first international signee to make the big leagues that this group led by vice president of international scouting Koby Pérez signed as an amateur.

Basallo, who turned 21 earlier this month, is an exception to the more deliberate development path expected for international signees, considering he started 2023 at Low-A Delmarva. At that point, he was pretty much the only notable hitting prospect to emerge from the Orioles’ Dominican Academy and achieve success stateside.

That’s no longer the case. There are impressive pitchers on the mound, from this year’s breakout star Esteban Mejia to his predecessors, Keeler Morfe and Luis De León. Basallo’s fellow top signees in 2021, Maikol Hernández and Anderson De Los Santos, are now at High-A Aberdeen. The majority of talent that has advanced the farthest in the system is at the plate, where after several years of the transition from the complex league to Delmarva being incredibly challenging, the team has flattened that curve a bit to allow for some success in affiliated baseball.

Here are some of the hitters who have the talent and success on their minor league resumes to, eventually, join Basallo in the big leagues. (All stats entering Wednesday’s games.)

2B Aron Estrada (.284 average, .798 OPS, five home runs, 30 steals at High-A Aberdeen; .299 average, .923 OPS, five home runs, four steals at Double-A Chesapeake)

Estrada, 20, didn’t headline the 2022 signing class by any means but has been one of the fastest movers out of it, becoming the first to be promoted to Aberdeen last year and Chesapeake this year. He has strong bat-to-ball skills and is refining his swing decisions, but Aberdeen manager Ryan Goll said that wasn’t all that distinguished him for the Ironbirds.

“I think we knew his bat was going to play at the upper levels, but what we needed to improve was his defensive caliber,” Goll said. “We were able to play him not only at second base but get him some outfield exposure, which he’s experiencing now in Double-A with [manager] Roberto Mercado. … He was awesome and a huge impact getting on base but also driving in runs. That was really fun for me to watch, and him stealing all those bases as well.”

OF Thomas Sosa (.221 average, .722 OPS, six home runs, three steals at High-A Aberdeen)

The 20-year-old corner outfielder started his season late due to an injury but continues to demonstrate the hard contact ability that made him one of the more interesting names to watch entering this season.

“At the beginning of the year, we were missing that oomph in the lineup with the power, and he’s a guy that drives the ball, is probably going to be one of them that sits at the top of our team right now in exit velocities, so that’s a fun addition,” Goll said. “He’s a power bat in the lineup, but he’s hard to get out, too. If we need a single, he can get a single. If we need an extra-base hit, he has that in the toolbox as well.

C Yasmil Bucce (.255 average, .814 OPS, eight home runs at Low-A Delmarva; .159 average, .468 OPS at High-A Aberdeen)

A 21-year-old catcher who was promoted to Aberdeen at the end of July, Bucce was one of the better performers in Delmarva that the international program has produced outside Basallo. Shorebirds manager Collin Woody said he remembers seeing Bucce’s pop at the Florida complex earlier in his career, but noting he needed to be a bit more adjustable in his swing. That, he said, was what allowed him to succeed at that level.

“That was the thing I saw the most, turning that really good swing with a really good motor into something that could be adjustable and play in the game,” Woody said.

Added Delmarva hitting coach Christian Poulsen: “When he hits the ball, he hits it extremely hard. He was posting exit velos of 110 (mph), I think he hit one 113, and then his game planning was really good. He was able to kind of swing at the pitches he needed to, take the ones he didn’t, walk when he needed to. … This level, you have to plan a little bit more and have an understanding of what pitchers are going to do. It felt like Bucce did a really good job of that and when he forced pitchers in-zone, he hit it really, really hard.”

UTL Elis Cuevas (.229 average, .647 OPS, three home runs, 19 steals at Delmarva, .180 average, .528 OPS, one home run, eight steals at Aberdeen)

Cuevas, a 20-year-old who had the distinction of hitting the longest home run of anyone in the organization in 2024— big leaguers included — needed to adjust to the environment at Delmarva to turn things around there and did so with a very strong June before he was promoted at the end of July. Poulsen said Cuevas was constantly evaluating video of his swing and working to perfect it with the challenging drill work on the menu for Aberdeen hitters.

Woody said: “High motor. There’s potential there. I think that when it was good with Cuevas, it was really good. And then the same thing with him, I think if he can continue to find more adjustability, the swing is just going to play more and more.”

The Delmarva midseason additions: 3B Joshua Liranzo, SS Luis Almeyda, OF Stiven Martinez, C Adriander Mejia.

Liranzo, a toolsy, high-ceiling infielder, and Almeyda, the top prospect of their 2023 signing class, arrived at Delmarva in early June after strong starts in the Florida Complex League to go through what Woody calls “the April struggles” a little later in the calendar.

“A lot of times at this level, when you get guys that have spent the last two or three years playing complex ball only, they adjust not only to the new schedule but now the fact that pitchers are a little bit more dialed in,” he said. “April to me has always been a slow month at this level for a lot of young hitters, and when these guys show up in the middle of the season, after crushing it in the complex, people think that they’re just going to show up and keep crushing it because it’s just one level of a jump. But it seems to be a bigger jump, not only because you are now facing better, more polished pitchers, but there’s also like the environmental factors.”

Liranzo is one of them, he said. Poulsen said he’s a “really good kid” who’s doing “a really good job of understanding what this level provides compared to rookie ball.”

“In Florida, he did a really good job at making good swing decisions, hitting the ball hard, and hitting it in the air,” Poulsen said. “So, just getting back to showing those skills off is going to be important for him.”

Similarly, he said Almeyda has “shown his power with a couple home runs here already.

“Just continuing to tap into that, and again, the game planning of setting himself up to get better pitchers to hit them over the fence is extremely important,” Poulsen said.

Martinez and Mejia were two of the higher-rated prospects left in Florida when that season ended, and they’ve had modest exposure to the level since their promotions. They create the core of an international group that likely will be back at Delmarva to start next year, armed with the knowledge of what the level is like, and could represent the higher-ceiling prospects the program has produced in a while.