The Orioles announced that they’ve signed outfielder Mason Williams to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Norfolk.
Williams, once regarded as one of the game’s top outfield prospects, spent the 2018 campaign with the Reds organization and tallied a career-high 132 plate appearances at the Major League level. Now 27 years old, Williams hit .293/.331/.398 with Cincinnati last season and has experience playing all three outfield positions. He’s yet to tap into the potential that made him such a vaunted farmhand in his days with the Yankees but does have a .278/.327/.371 slash in just over 1000 Triple-A plate appearances. He’ll give the O’s some depth in the upper minors.
The Orioles also announced that they’ve acquired minor league infielder Yeltsin Gudino from the Blue Jays in exchange for cash. The 22-year-old Gudino hit .276/.347/.306 in 344 plate appearances across two Class-A levels last season and has experience playing all four infield positions (but primarily the two up-the-middle slots). Gudino has never shown any semblance of power, but he’s punched out in just 14 percent of his career plate appearances in the minors while drawing walks at an 8.9 percent clip.
At one point, Gudino was actually a rather high-profile signing for the Blue Jays, as evidenced by the $1.2MM signing bonus they gave him back in 2013. Baseball America ranked him eighth among international prospects at the time, though certainly Toronto’s expenditure has failed to pay dividends as Gudino has never developed at the plate. The Orioles have assigned him to Class-A Advanced Frederick for the time being.
Oh good, ANOTHER outfield prospect…
Yusniel Diaz
Anthony Santander
Austin Hays
D.J. Stewart
Ryan McKenna
Every one of these guys is projected to be in the majors at some point in the next 400 days. But hey, what’s another one?
McKenna is still a ways off honestly, but the other four, yeah.
Diaz and Hays the only ones on that list who I can see starting at the MLB level. I can’t see or yet to have see anything better than a 4th OF promise from the other 3… the more depth the better.
Sure, but at a certain point how are you getting playing time for all of them? That’s two full outfields between AAA and AA and High-A isn’t going to produce any learning opportunities for any of them at this point.
Hays is hurt. Mason Williams is probably a 4th OFER in AAA. We traded Yaz away so there was a spot there. Santander will probably get some looks at 1st also. We’ll see one of them up in the big leagues in relatively short order anyway. I think we’ll probably cut Jackson or Alberto at some point and it’s going to have to be an OFer to replace them. I’m more concerned with our catchers. We have wynns sisco susac and Perez down there. “Defensive whiz” sucre had two bad plays yesterday. I hope we cut him when wynns is back in game action. I don’t see the point in keeping him around. Looking at his haircut is about as rough as Manny’s last year if you needed some extra incentive.
Were any of them former top-100 MLB prospects?
Mason Williams, in particular, is a lifetime .289 major league hitter, who hit .293 for Reds, last year, in 132PA.
It’s so easy to make fun of the Orioles, low hanging fruit and all, but no need to list all other OF prospects…
Diaz currently is one so…
And Hays is on the bubble, and was a Top 50 prospect until he got hurt last year.
Mountcastle is going to wind up in the outfield or 1B also. If nothing else the orioles have OF prospects. Santander, Stewart, McKenna etc. are all lottery tickets. As a side note, Joey Rickard can’t hit enough to play everyday on a decent team for sure but he is our only outfielder who is a plus defensively. I’m pretty confident he’d be a better defensive CF than Mullins. Who I’m honestly not that high on.
Also, being a former top prospect means nothing. Most execs agree that after a few years of not living up to expecations, a prospect just simply isn’t as good as people thought they were. Take Richie Martin. He was a first round pick, and a few short years later is a Rule 5 guy.
You always get more than what you need because not every prospect pans out.
New to baseball?
Hard to believe a future HOF Spankees prospect has fizzled out.
If his walk-up song isn’t “Classical Gas” he shouldn’t be allowed to play baseball.
…oh ya, you old…..
Stockpiling Catchers and Outfielders! Elias is a Marvelous Man!
SMH
just wait till they draft adley first overall
If it’s not Bobby Witt Jr. they need to pack it up
All the media talks about is that catcher from Oregon
I don’t even know who that is
Better then Dan and stock piling left handed relievers
Yeltsin? That’s quite a name, maybe named after Boris?
…close… related to Boris and Natasha…..
Williams also spent all of 2019 Spring with the Reds. I didn’t even know he had been cut. He seems pretty synonymous with Anthony Santander in Baltimore.
The catching prospect plays for Oregon state and he is amazing!
His ceiling doesn’t come close to Bobby Witt Jr.
And I thought his career was over after “Classical Gas.”
Hilarious. I thought the same
It appears the O’s have gone ALL INN on the rebuild. Happy to see it!!
Stocking the minors with high caliber- high ceiling players is a smart move. Building the talent funnel…