SARASOTA, Fla. — When it comes to the Orioles pitchers added to the 40-man roster this winter — Luis González, Kade Strowd and Brandon Young — there might not be anyone in camp who knows them better than Maverick Handley, the catcher at Triple-A Norfolk for most of last year.

Handley handled the trio plenty, and in the cases of Strowd and Young was responsible for catching them in years past as well. His perspective on the group is particularly useful.

Kade Strowd

Strowd was one of two pitchers, along with Young, added ahead of the deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft. He started the year dominating at Double-A Bowie, striking out 11 in 10 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run before pitching to a 6.80 ERA and a 1.854 WHIP, albeit with 13.2 strikeouts per nine, in 41 innings at Triple-A Norfolk the rest of the way.

Strowd and Handley are two of the longer-tenured players in the Orioles system, having been drafted together in 2019. Their paths have crossed plenty over that time, but Handley saw a different pitcher last year at Triple-A Norfolk than in years past.

“He’s got electric stuff,” Handley said. “He’s very good with the stuff breaking through his glove side, so there’s a really good cutter, really good slider, really good curveball. Really good at that stuff. Throws a four-seam with a little cut, and he’s developed a two-seam that we’re hoping can help open everything up, that’s moving in and can open things up.

“I think the biggest thing for him is attacking hitters and getting into positive counts and to kill counts, ’cause that’s when his stuff plays the best. Because he has swing-and-miss stuff. He’s got the strike to ball; guys will chase it. He’s just got to get ahead, and that’s going to be his biggest thing to see where he is going to be: Can we get those 1-1 counts to become 1-2 counts versus 2-1 counts, you know? Who wins those even counts? But, I mean, is his stuff is electric.”

Handley thought the addition of a cutter last year gave Strowd a pitch to rely on for strikes, and it is a good building block for 2025.

“This last year he threw his cutter like at a 70% strike rate, maybe a click down from that,” Handley said. “But it was a huge strike pitch for him, and his go-to pitch last year, that I think it helped him grow a lot of confidence to say, ‘Hey, I can throw this pitch 3-0 and get a strike,’ which I think was something you didn’t necessarily have in 2021.”

Brandon Young

Young signed as a free agent after the shortened 2020 draft and the pitching group was bullish on him after the 2021 season, but he injured his elbow early in 2022 at Bowie and required Tommy John reconstruction surgery. He spent most of 2024 in the Bowie rotation but finished with Handley at Norfolk, with a combined 10.7 strikeouts per nine and a 1.252 WHIP with a 3.57 ERA in 111 total innings.

Handley was catching him in his final pre-injury start at Bowie in 2022 and loved what he saw of the healthy version of Young last year.

“It’s just, it’s amazing,” Handley said. “He’ll go, ‘Setup fastball away,’ and he’ll sit there for five straight pitches and just throw four-seams away, and it’s right along this black line. He’s a command guy. He’s a starter, he fills up the zone, he’s lengthy so he gets a little more extension and it plays up for him.

“He’s got a great changeup, a high-spin curveball that’s a throttle pitch back and forth, really effective off lefties, and I think he’s developing a slider to get more effectiveness against right-handed hitters. But he’s your smooth, long, right-handed starter who looks like he can eat innings. He pounds the zone, and I think what’s awesome with him is metrically his stuff isn’t 100, you know? It’s not reliever stuff, but the way he throws it, it’s, ‘I’ll throw a heater to Gunnar Henderson in a heater count.’ He’s not afraid to do it. He misses in good locations, pounds the zone, is looking for contact. He’s the starter you want that goes out and eats innings, and I think that last year he showed that his secondary pitches have gotten better.”

Young’s changeup has always been an elite weapon against lefties, but Handley puts his curveball in that same category.

“It’s this giant shape,” Handley said. “He’s blasting heaters off those changeup lines, not afraid to go in. The changeup is his pitch. Righty, lefty, it makes you respect [the fastball], and it makes the heater play up and spin off that.”

Luis González

González was in the Orioles’ system from 2013 to 2019 and pitched in Italy, Japan and Mexico before returning to the organization in 2024 at Norfolk. He had a 4.50 ERA with a 1.10 WHIP and 10.7 strikeouts per nine in 60 innings for the Tides last year, and Handley noted he was one of a few players to be active for Norfolk the whole season — a rarity in Triple-A.

“He’s great,” Handley said. “It’s a hoppy four-seam with some oomph on it, lefty, a little funk to it. He’s got a little gyro slider, straight downer. It’s firm, and then he picked up a splitter halfway through the year and started throwing it, and it was awesome.

“It was something he had banged in the past and he picked it up in the middle of the season, and it helped him get something that was running away from righties, especially guys that hit spin pretty well. That was really cool to see that out of him. It was awesome to see him added to the roster. He pitched his ass off. I think he ran into a little bit of trouble at the end of the year that inflated some numbers for him, but he had a stellar year last year.”