Orioles ' fast-rising pitching prospect could be a difference maker in 2026

One of the fastest rising prospects in the Baltimore Orioles farm system and a name to watch this spring training is left-handed pitcher Luis De Leon. With just three career starts at the Double-A level, De Leon is the least experienced player to get a non-roster invite to big league spring training, but if he continues to improve and rise through the system the way he has in the past year, he could end up making a real impact on the Major League club by the end of the season.

It's been a good year for De Leon. In August, he got promoted to Double-A. In October, he was dominant in the Arizona Fall League, and now, as the 2026 season approaches, he's been asked to join the major league team for spring training.

Luis De Leon could be this year's Trey Yesavage

De Leon still has a lot to prove. The journey from three starts at the Double-A level to potentially pitching in the MLB playoffs is not something that can be shrugged off as an inevitability. However, De Leon has the kind of stuff that makes teams want to hit fast-forward on his development and get to the part where he's getting big-league hitters out.

The Arizona Fall League provides statcast data on the pitchers, and there we can see just how nasty De Leon is. First of all, a 96 mph fastball from the left side is almost good enough to make him a big league pitcher on his own. Beyond the fastball, though, he also features multiple offspeed pitches that were very effective in the AFL. The slider and the splitter both got hitters to whiff at a rate above 45%.

Those pitches were confounding to hitters. Major league hitters wouldn't whiff at quite the same rate, but the kind of velocity and spin that De Leon features is hard to hit, no matter what level of hitter is in the box. Which is why it's reasonable to think that if De Leon progresses this season in the minors, he could get called up and play a role for the Orioles late in the season and hopefully in the playoffs.

The factor that will decide whether or not De Leon gets a late-season call-up is his command. De Leon has long struggled with command. The same FanGraphs ranking that has him as a top prospect has his current command tool as a 30. That's not good. Even in his standout AFL performance, he put up a walk rate of 17.4%. That's too high.

The Orioles know that this is what they have to fix with De Leon. If they do fix it, they'll have an excellent homegrown pitcher in their rotation for the next several years. If they can't, then they probably have a nice reliever. Either way, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on this spring training and in the minor league season that follows.