Baltimore Orioles Star Prospect Continues to Impress in Minor Leagues

After making a rapid ascension in minor league baseball prospect rankings, the Baltimore Orioles' young farmhand continues to impress.

Shorebirds' Samuel Basallo (21) swings in the game against the Cannon Ballers / Lauren Roberts/Salisbury Daily Times /

The Baltimore Orioles have many of their elite prospects making an impact at the Major League level or who are ready to contribute at some point this season.

Grayson Rodriguez, Jordan Westburg, and Colton Cowser have all been reasons why the team has won this year and will be in the race to win two straight AL East titles.

They gave their No. 1 prospect Jackson Holliday a shot before it was clear that he wasn't ready to play in the MLB right now. They also called up their No. 4 prospect Heston Kjerstad to give him another opportunity in the bigs.

Because the Orioles have such a loaded roster, their farmhands don't get a lot of leeway to go through struggles, evident by Holliday getting demoted after his brutal stretch.

And while many of the players at Triple-A are waiting for their opportunity to get called up, their 19-year-old top Double-A prospect, Samuel Basallo, continues to impress in the minors.

He's coming off a multihomer game on Sunday en route to him finishing 3-4 with those two jacks and three RBI. That's now the fourth time in his career that he has hit multiple home runs in a single game.

The 6-foot-3 catcher and first base prospect signed with Baltimore as an international free agent in 2020. He stayed in the Dominican Republic for his first professional season in 2021 before moving to their rookie ball complex in Florida the following year.

Basallo's breakout came last season when he slashed .313/.402/.551 with 20 home runs, 53 extra-base hits, and 86 RBI across three affiliate levels that saw him finish with Double-A.

Talent evaluators took notice of this also and he climbed from being ranked 12th in the Orioles' pipeline and outside of the Top 100, to now being listed as Baltimore's No. 2 prospect and 16th in all of minor league baseball according to MLB Pipeline.

The sky is the limit for the 19-year-old, and he should continue to get better before he eventually gets called up, whenever that may be.