Orioles' spree of prospect promotions pushes exciting talent to the doorstep of the major leagues

Following the Baltimore Orioles' Sunday loss to the Braves, the team announced several exciting prospect promotions. The migration of minor league talent saw players in Low-A moving to High-A, players in High-A moving to Double-A, and players in Double-A moving to Triple-A, including some of the Orioles' very best prospects.

The big name moved was Luis De Leon, who went from Double-A to Triple-A. According to some prospect ranking services, De Leon is the Orioles' best pitching prospect. De Leon made it to Double-A at the very end of an excellent 2025 season. At the start of the season, the Orioles were optimistic about him progressing through the minors and potentially debuting this season.

De Leon got off to a slow start, and it looked like his ascent through the minors might have stalled, but over the last two months he's gotten back on track and looked like the prospect the Orioles hoped he would be, pitching to a 1.80 ERA with a 0.93 WHIP and a 2.98 with 49 strikeouts in 40 innings over his last eight starts. Just yesterday, he pitched 6.1 innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts before being promoted later in the day.

Luis De Leon could join the Orioles sooner than most would expect

Now that he is at Triple-A, it feels like he could be called up at any moment. There are other prospects who have been at Triple-A waiting for their shot, but none of the Orioles Triple-A pitchers have De Leon's stuff. Most likely he'll have to do his time and prove that he can handle Triple-A, but it's not out of the question that the Orioles could promote him to pitch out of the bullpen in the next few weeks if he looks like he's handling Triple-A well.

Fellow pitching prospect Juaron Watts-Brown is coming with De Leon to Norfolk. Watts-Brown doesn't have quite De Leon's prospect status, and he's had an even rougher season at Double-A than De Leon was having, but he's a solid strikeout pitcher, and now that he's at Triple-A, it wouldn't be shocking for him to get a shot in the bullpen before the season ends either.

The other exciting promotions were a handful of players moving from high-A to double-A. One of the Orioles 2025 first-round picks, Wehiwa Aloy, has been tearing it up in high-A and received a much-deserved promotion. Aloy was a star in college, so dominating High-A was to be expected in some respects, so it will be interesting to see how he handles the challenge that comes with this promotion.

Wehiwa Aloy is the kind of player the Orioles really need

If he continues to excel, he feels like a player who could continue to move through the minors at a rapid pace. It would take a Herculean effort on his part to make it to the majors this season, but balling out over the next few months could result in a late-season call-up to Triple-A, and an early-season MLB debut in 2027 could be on the table.

The other Double-A promotion that should be especially exciting for Orioles fans is that of Caden Hunter. Hunter was a sixth-round pick out of USC in last season's draft and has been lighting it up so far this season. He has already been promoted once and has an ERA of 1.46 with 102 strikeouts in just 68 innings across low-A and high-A.

The Orioles don't have a long track record of successfully drafting after the first four rounds, and they especially don't have a track record of drafting pitching talent at that point in the draft, so seeing a sixth-round pick pop to this degree is incredible for the Orioles. The Orioles are being aggressive with him, promoting him twice already in this season with still enough runway that it's possible he could finish the season in triple-A. This could end up being one of the best draft picks of Mike Elias' career.

As a final note, among the handful of additional names promoted this week, one to keep an eye on is Victor Figueroa, whom the Orioles got as part of the Ryan O'Hearn trade package. Figueroa is an interesting prospect. Positionally, he's never going to be more than a first baseman, and he might not even be very good at that, so he's easy to overlook when evaluators are trying to project future value. However, all Figueroa has ever done as a baseball player is hit. He's an impressive slugger who runs high OBPs. With his limited defensive potential, he may never show up on a top 100 list, but he's the kind of prospect who might just hit his way to the majors.

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