Orioles top prospect's comments after roster cut will have you worried about his confidence

On Tuesday afternoon, the Orioles announced their latest round of roster cuts ahead of Opening Day. Among the group going back to minor league camp are Orioles' top prospects Coby Mayo and catcher Samuel Basallo.

While these types of moves are generally expected and pass with little fanfare, Mayo spoke out about being reassigned and based on his comments he's not particularly happy. “It definitely is difficult. It obviously sucks, because you feel like you’ve proved everything you needed to. And sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it’s quite enough", Mayo said.

Mayo called the situation a lose-lose for him, based on the idea that if he goes down and does well, people expect that. However, if he struggles, then he's also going to be in a tough situation, especially given the track record of success he's built throughout his career.

Orioles prospect Coby Mayo frustrated with being sent to minor league camp

Mayo, and some fans alike, are probably annoyed with the demotion based on fact that he'd actually started to come into his own over the last few weeks. He'd been hitting well over the last 10 days and had bumped his spring line to .190/.239/.262. However, you can see the evidence in the line itself that he got off to a slow start this year.

That performance is in a small sample, of course. He's gotten just 46 at-bats this spring, which isn't enough time to really derive anything meaningful. However, he got exactly 46 at-bats in the majors last year and his performance was dreadful.

On a positive note, Mayo's strikeout rate has looked better, especially of late. It's one of the things that he's struggled most with throughout his path through the minors and it was a glaring weakness during his brief debut with the big league club in 2024. Mayo has consistently run strikeout rates north of 25-30%, and struck out nearly 50% of the time in the majors last year. This spring, he was striking out at a more tolerable 28.3% clip, so there's some progress there.

It'll be important to remember to avoid judging Mayo's performance too harshly in the early going this year. He's a good player and a well regarded prospect, and the signs still point toward him becoming a strong contributor at the major league level in the future.

Despite that, this is still a blow to Mayo, who'd certainly had hopes of making the big league club out of spring training. For now, he'll have to make the most of his opportunities down in the minors and it'll be vital for him to play well when he eventually does make it back up to Baltimore.