These 3 Orioles Will Shine Brightest In The Second Half

It would be easy to suggest Gunnar Henderson is going to be the Orioles player to improve the most in the second half of the season.

He should be, given he is the best baseball player on this roster by far with the most talent and highest ceiling. He is also the player in the deepest funk who has fallen the hardest, which would make bouncing back more logical in many ways. But this is in no ordinary funk and Mike Elias’s Orioles are uniquely horrific at player development, and adjustments at the MLB level, which has doomed his perpetual rebuild.

And there is going to be a selling-off of some talent that will also take a toll on the overall product and how well certain individuals are protected in the lineup. And another lost season will weigh on some of these players more than others and the reality that this rebuild is going to be for naught heading into labor Armageddon will drain some of these veterans more than others.

But there are a small handful of players I believe will present a better side of themselves over these final 60-odd games, and some of them, frankly, have already been shattering any reasonable expectations. Here is who I am bullish on in the second half:

Samuel Basallo

No catcher under the age of 22 in the history of MLB has produced this kind of power, while catching, through his first 65 career games behind the plate. It’s not even close. He should have been an All Star and he can pretty much count on hitting around 5th most nights and he is settling into life in MLB.

Basallo is just scratching the surface and improving significantly the more he gets to catch and if Elias would do the right thing and embrace the future and get Adley Rutschman out of here to let Basallo develop as best as possible back there, all the better.

Either way, I don’t see whatever happens to them collectively between now and the end of the season slowing this kid down. Them trying to sully him or embarrass him didn’t work. He’s probably going to end up with the second best OPS total on the team, which would be nuts.

Dylan Beavers

Not sure how much they try to limit him to a platoon role, and heaven knows this front office has no clue how to bleed in young players and especially outfielders. He should be given right field from here on out and not jerked around. How likely that is, remains to be seen.

He understands the strike zone and his happy zone better than most hitters on this swing-and-miss/feast-or-famine team and unlike most of their youngsters embraces walking. He is a better natural base stealer than speedier types like Jackson Holliday and I believe he will look late this summer like the promising prospect he was with the Orioles after his initial recall last year.

Missing so much time was brutal to his first half. Elias needs to account for that by giving him as long a run as possible from here on out.

Brandon Young

Wouldn’t be shocked if he won a triple crown of sorts for this rotation, leading it in wins, and ERA, and maybe innings pitched. They will try to cull as many innings as possible out of Shane Baz after giving up so much for him (they can’t sell his overall quality but it’s been clear all season that the puppet skipper was instructed to leave him in games and try to frame his as a horse).

Still, Young goes deeper into games with more regularity than most of the rest of this staff, he doesn’t have to pitch around his fastball like most of the rest of them (his four-seamer is in the 86th percentile in run value). He doesn’t pitch scared, he needs to keep cultivating the curve and slider and I buy him presenting himself well the rest of this season.

Hard to look at profile and see more than an innings eater but could replace what Dean Kremer has given them the last four years or so, which ain’t bad and is better than anything Elias has come close to developing internally. They will let him stretch out and go the rest of the year, though you have to think they take it easy on Bradish at some point having not thrown even 40 innings either of the last two years.

Opening Day starter Trevor Rogers, a pending free agent, should be dealt and Baz is erratic, so Young might be their team leader in several categories, even with this rotation surprisingly one of the strengths of the team.

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