BOSTON — Orioles minor league pitching coordinator Chris Holt joined the major league staff as a guest coach for this weekend’s final series in Boston after wrapping up what he believed was a “foundational” year of implementing the new practices that represent the organization’s greatest strides in 2019.
“The first thing that we wanted to establish coming in this year was getting the players to understand how to do better work on a daily basis, and also to have them work with the coaches on a daily basis with daily information,” Holt said. “We were able to achieve that, largely, this year from everybody from the [Dominican Summer League] all the way through Triple-A and the big leagues.
“We’ll continue to build on the process. This year was foundational, so getting a process in place whereby the players were able to understand what it is that we’re working with and building on those from a skill-level standpoint in year two is the goal. Without getting into specifics, it’s really more about how do we take what they were able to do this year, continue to have them build on it individually and as a group at large.”
Holt, the lone Houston employee executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias brought over last offseason to implement the Astros’ wildly successful pitching program, brought in several coaches that aligned with his views and saw great gains as the Orioles worked data and technology into their development programs.
The staffs at Double-A Bowie, Low-A Delmarva, Short-A Aberdeen and the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League were all among their league’s best. Of their 35 minor league pitchers with at least 70 innings, 20 struck out over a batter per inning. Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez and left-hander DL Hall, both former first-round draft picks, impressed at the All-Star Futures Game.
Rodriguez and Mike Baumann shared Jim Palmer Minor League Pitcher of the Year honors in the organization. Baumann was part of a Bowie rotation that included Alex Wells, Zac Lowther, Dean Kremer and Bruce Zimmermann and represents the first wave of pitching that could arrive at Camden Yards to help turn things around.
From the touted players to the likes of Nick Vespi and Ryan Wilson, a pair of left-handers who were in Delmarva’s bullpen in 2018 but were re-invented as starters under the new program, Holt said the system’s depth is greater than he thought it was.
“I think that we’ve also been able to develop some guys that perhaps weren’t on the map before,” he said. “We also were able to get guys who were quality pitchers when we got here to improve what they were doing on the year as well. Overall, we were able to reach a wider scope of players with what we’re doing.”
The plans are largely individualized, but all of the messages are based in the simple fact that there’s a big stage waiting for the Orioles’ minor league pitchers once they make the majors.
“I’m quite straightforward with the minor-league guys,” he said. “You’re going to compete to be in the toughest division in baseball, so we need to develop our skills and our weapons in order to compete in the best division in Major League Baseball.
“If we think that the things that we’ve been doing in A-ball are going to work at Double-A, and also the big leagues, then we’re not getting better from those levels on up, then we’re not going to be able to compete in the big leagues, in the toughest division in baseball. The overall message is we need to develop to be the best pitchers in the game, not just to get better a little bit. So, understanding the scope of where we’re at, and understanding what it’s going to take to compete against the Red Sox nightly, the Rays, the Yankees. This is a tough division. If we can compete in this division, we can smoke anybody.”
While the Orioles are happy with the strides the minor league pitching program has made, they know it’s a much more involved process that doesn’t happen overnight. Holt said he couldn’t speak to what his role would be beyond this year, but will likely remain a significant part of the growth that was established this season.
“I like the work that was done this year,” Holt said. “There’s still work to be done, no question about it. In terms of year one and getting some foundational pieces in place, getting the players and coaches on-ramped with everything, I feel like we’ve made tremendous strides in year one — especially coming into year two. We were just talking about building on it for year two. Everything is in place.
“In terms of catching up, it’s tough to know where everybody else is at. Obviously, we want to get our players and coaches the best possible information to work with but also develop our guys as quickly as we can to be as good as they can, as fast as they can. We’re in a position after year one to continue to build that process.”