20-year-old O's catcher/first baseman will become youngest player at highest Minors level
August 25th, 2024
Jake Rill
@JakeDRillBALTIMORE -- For the second time this year, the Orioles will have the youngest player at the Triple-A level -- and it will again be one of the top prospects in baseball.
Samuel Basallo, a 20-year-old catcher/first baseman, is being promoted from Double-A Bowie to Triple-A Norfolk this week. The Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, native is Baltimore’s No. 3 prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 11 overall prospect.
At the start of the 2024 season, O’s infielder Jackson Holliday (No. 1 overall prospect) was the youngest player in Triple-A, as he was also 20.
“We’re seeing some pretty special stuff here from some of these prospects that have come up as teenagers with us,” general manager Mike Elias said of having two 20-year-old top prospects at Triple-A in the same season.
Basallo has been a breakout star in the Orioles’ farm system since signing with the team out of the D.R. on Jan. 15, 2021. He played at three of the four full-season Minor League affiliates in ‘23, climbing from Single-A Delmarva (83 games) to High-A Aberdeen (27) to Double-A Bowie (four).
This season, Basallo returned to Bowie and put up impressive numbers. Over 106 games, he slashed .289/.355/.465 with 22 doubles, 16 home runs and 55 RBIs.
“For me, he’s a really rare prospect. There’s a lot of things that he does that I haven’t seen in one player for a while. I’m happy and proud of him for earning this call to Triple-A,” Elias said. “We thought it made sense to give him a taste of Triple-A. He hasn’t been there yet, and, in all probability, there’s a good chance that he starts the season there next year coming out of Spring Training.
“We like the idea of giving him some exposure to that level before he goes home and does his work for the winter.”
Although Basallo’s primary position is catcher -- where he made 45 starts at Double-A this year -- he started at first base 27 times. His bat is also potent enough to fill the slot at designated hitter, where he made 29 starts.
Basallo sustained a stress fracture in his right elbow last offseason, so he wasn’t catching early in the season. It also limited him to four at-bats over three Grapefruit League games in Spring Training, when he was in big league camp for the first time as a 19-year-old. But he has been playing behind the plate again since late April.
While Basallo’s bat possesses his best tools -- he has 60-grade hitting and 60-grade power -- the Orioles believe he can play catcher in the big leagues, where he could eventually complement Adley Rutschman on the roster. But the club is also confident in his burgeoning skills at first.
Basallo, who played in the 2024 All-Star Futures Game at Globe Life Field in July, has a 60-grade arm and 45-grade fielding skills, to go along with 40-grade running.
“The reports on his catching have gotten better and better each year,” Elias said. “Now, it’s really, to us, a question of how good a catcher he’s going to be.”
Because of Basallo’s strong, all-around skill set, there isn’t one particular thing Elias wants to see the prospect work on at Triple-A. It’s all about getting reps against the toughest competition that the Minor Leagues has to offer.
It’s a noticeable jump from Double-A to Triple-A, and Basallo could be tested.
“The sort of craftiness and sophistication of the pitching is higher at that level. Whatever he needs to do to adjust to that -- it might be very little, it might be a lot -- it’s all fine,” Elias said. “He’s ahead of the curve, and we just want him to see what that level looks like before he goes home and trains for the winter. So, I hope it goes well. But anything that he does there will be a positive experience.”
Last September, Holliday reached Triple-A for the first time. Less than a year later, he’s in the big leagues, having played 33 games for Baltimore this season.
Despite Basallo’s youth, could he be on track to reach the Majors in 2025?
“I think it will be a lot like Holliday,” Elias said. “He’ll have spent the last several weeks of the season at Triple-A. You go into Spring Training as a guy that finished in Triple-A, you’re a real member of Spring Training at that point, and we’ll just kind of take it from there and see what the roster picture looks like and see how Sammy’s looking.
“But I think the first step here is let’s see how he responds to this exposure in Triple-A. I’m sure he’s real excited.”
