An advance look at the Orioles’ pre-Rule 5 draft 40-man roster choices

Bowie, and he played five different defensive positions. There might be a super-utility role there, although if he gets to Norfolk this year and the bat disappears, that is less likely to happen.

Justin Armbruester

Armbruester played his way up to Norfolk in the middle of last season, where he struck out almost exactly one in four batters and other things were not quite as good. The walk rate went up by a lot and the home run rate doubled from what he’d done at Bowie. There are people in the world of Orioles writing and podcasting who are a lot more excited about Armbruester than I am. I don’t think another high-4 ERA at Triple-A would get him either onto the Orioles this year or onto the 40-man at the end of the year.

Though they were drafted in the same year with the same amount of college experience, Pham is close to a full year younger than Armbruester, so he’ll be playing this season at age 24 compared to 25 for our last pitcher. Pham split 2023 between Aberdeen and Bowie and things went well at each of these stops, including a 0.989 WHIP in 14 games for the Baysox. Can he keep succeeding if his Bowie K/9 of 8.0 continues at Norfolk? His 40-man status and potential big league future probably depends on that.

Juan Nuñez

Nuñez, who also arrived in the López trade, becomes Rule 5 eligible after this season because of when he signed with the Twins. He was just labeled as Baseball America’s biggest potential sleeper prospect for the Orioles system. The 5’11” righty has not yet gotten above High-A Aberdeen, where he had some good things going for him but also a 5.8 BB/9 over 13 games. I think it’s going to take a loud alarm to wake up that sleeper.

It’s a big group! Add in to this roster math that 2022 #1 overall pick Jackson Holliday is on track to arrive on the 40-man as soon as Opening Day.

If more than half of these ten players are playing their way into consideration, the O’s will have some tough decisions to make on who to protect and who to leave off. Or, they’ll need to thin the ranks with trades between now and July so that they have more of a say in what kind of value they get back for their prospects who could be Rule 5 candidates for other teams.

When I looked at the roster picture in November 2022 and tried to predict the 2023 Rule 5 additions, I thought the Orioles would add Kjerstad, Hernaiz, and Hudson Haskin, with a prediction that Westburg would already be on the 40-man before the end of the season. That turned out to be what happened with Kjerstad also. Hernaiz was dealt, and Haskin was hurt for a bit and ultimately neither protected from the Rule 5 nor selected. The Orioles added no one new before the 2023 deadline and this fact did not matter even though people talked about it a lot because there was nothing else to say.

I think that we start out with four players who are pretty darn close to locks to be on a 40-man roster after this year’s deadline passes. With position players, that’s Mayo and Norby. The McDermott/Povich duo of pitchers also seem to be on the inside track. Cook’s versatility seems like something that would appeal to the Orioles, and I think at least one of the fringier pitchers will make it too – for now, let’s go with Armbruester, because he’s already the closest to MLB.

That would be a group of six players. This wouldn’t be unprecedented for the team, as the Orioles added six players who were Rule 5 eligible ahead of the 2021 version of this deadline. Three of those six are still on the roster today: Félix Bautista, Kyle Bradish, and DL Hall. The team was in a different place then, probably more willing to give roster space to players to try them out in the tanking era than they should be now that the team is good.

Although this is a large potential group, the Orioles should not end up with too much of a challenge fitting as many of the prospects onto the 40-man as they want by season’s end. There are still a few players on the current 40-man who could be easy picks to release if they don’t show some improvement this year.