Two of the Orioles’ top prospects aren’t of the first-round variety, like so many of the players who’ve recently graduated to the majors. They are a 16th-rounder and an undrafted free agent.

Outfielder Nate George and right-hander Trey Gibson were named Baltimore’s minor league player and pitcher of the year, respectively, after standout seasons saw them rise up the ranks. George reached High-A Aberdeen a year after the Orioles selected him in the late rounds of the 2024 draft, and Gibson broke through to Triple-A Norfolk this season.

George finished the year with a .337 average and .896 OPS across three levels of the minors. The 19-year-old from Illinois took some, not all, by surprise. The Orioles signed George for $455,000, the seventh-highest bonus in their 2024 draft class.

“It took a little bit of a gamble from the people in the warehouse to commit that kind of money in him, knowing that he didn’t have that track record against elite competition,” Ryan Carlson, the Orioles scout who discovered George, said in July. “But those of us who saw him play, we were pretty convinced he could hold his own in pro ball.”

George stole 50 bases but recognized that the 25 times he was caught stealing were too high. That will be one area he focuses on next year, on top of “polishing up everything.”

“Every part of my game I want to get better,” George said.

Even with this honor, George said he’s maintaining the same mentality that got him here.

“Being a 16th rounder, a couple months after, I was kind of questioning myself, like, ‘Why? Why me in this situation?’” George said. “And I feel like I performed a lot better than I was picked. ... I’m a strong believer everything happens for a reason and it’s just more fuel for the fire, being a 16th rounder.”

Gibson was suspended from his junior year at Liberty University and went undrafted in 2023 before he signed with the Orioles (the nature of the suspension has not been made public, although Gibson was set to be welcomed back to the team at Liberty if he hadn’t chosen to sign with a major league team).

Gibson, 23, has made a name for himself since then. In 52 1/3 innings for Double-A Chesapeake this year, he pitched to a 1.55 ERA. His jump to Triple-A led to an elevated ERA (7.98 in seven starts), but he shows promise with many of his underlying metrics.

He boasts a mid-90s fastball, a hard cutter, a mid-80s slider and a low-80s curveball, as The Banner’s Jon Meoli broke down in a scouting report in July.

“I’m really confident in my abilities as a pitcher,” Gibson said. “Just going out there every time and trying to do the best that I can do, I’m glad the Orioles took notice of that.”

Gibson said the rise to Triple-A exposed him to areas in which he can still improve, but overall, he feels close to breaking through to the majors.

“Seeing all the guys who are in Triple-A who have major league experience, I think I fit in pretty well into that clubhouse and those guys,” Gibson said.

The Orioles also honored Christian Frias, the Florida Complex League manager, with the Cal Ripken Sr. Player Development Award. The Jim Russo Scout of the Year Award went to Rich Amaral, whose signees include a pair of draft picks this year: fourth-rounder Colin Yeaman and fifth-rounder Jaiden Lo Re.

Amaral said the scouting department works as a team to cross-check prospect reports, and part of their success story this year is evident in players such as Gibson and George.

“That shows you how hard it is to scout,” Amaral said. “You see a high school kid and you’re watching him play, how are you going to predict what he’s going to be like in five years? ... It’s a funny game. Baseball’s funny. You have to master all these different crafts to be a good big league player. We just try to get the odds with us when we pick people. We’ve done pretty good over the years.”

Frias oversaw a team on which many of the players are international signees adapting to the culture in the U.S. That, on top of baseball development, is part of the coaching.

On Frias’ hat Wednesday at Camden Yards were the initials L.G., for Luis Guevara, the 19-year-old who died in a personal watercraft crash in June.

“We had the whole organization behind us,” Frias said. “It was a team effort. The guys never gave up. They wanted to play for him. They wanted to make sure he was honored and that his name wasn’t forgotten.”