The Orioles took Ike Irish with the 19th pick in the 2025 draft, but the bat was always the real prize.
Irish came into pro ball listed as a catcher, yet that label never quite matched the player Baltimore eventually got. During three seasons at Auburn, the Grand Rapids, Mich., native bounced all over the diamond, logging 57 games in the outfield, 12 at first base and 40 behind the plate. Catching, though, was a battle he never fully won.
“I’ve dealt with … the yips, catching, since I was a junior in high school,” Irish told FanGraphs’ David Laurila. “Junior year I had them.
Senior year I had them. Freshman year of college.
They would come off and on. … I was talking to mental performance coaches.
I was doing brainspotting. I was doing everything I could to try to get rid of them.
And I couldn’t.”
He was even more blunt about what it felt like in games. “When I was catching it was, ‘How the hell am I going to get this ball back to the pitcher?’”
Irish continued. “I was throwing three-finger changeups back to the pitcher.
I was throwing cutters. I was trying anything.
It was awful.”
Baltimore didn’t wait long to move on from that experiment. Irish made just five professional starts at catcher with Low-A Delmarva in 2025 before the Orioles took the position away for good.
This season at High-A Frederick, he spent most of his time in the outfield, at first base, and at designated hitter. The shift clearly changed everything.
“With catching, it never felt like I could play the game with freedom,” Irish said. “As soon as I got away from that position, the game felt free again.
… The game has opened up and I can just have fun. I can go out there and hit.”
And hit he did.
Irish’s 2026 season was a breakout in every sense. He produced power with 16 home runs and a .528 slugging percentage, got on base at a .388 clip, hit .286, and stole 20 bases.
He opened the year with five hits in his first two games and carried that momentum into a 1.039 OPS in April. A rough May drop to .521 didn’t stick; he bounced back with OPS marks of .956 in June and 1.142 in July.
That was a massive leap from his pro debut in 2025, when he hit just .230/.296/.297 in 20 games for Delmarva. At that point, he was still at least nominally a catcher, and the contrast says plenty.
MLB Pipeline now has Irish ranked as the Orioles’ No. 5 prospect and No. 95 overall, praising the maturity of his approach. “Irish makes hard contact to all fields and hangs in against same-side pitching. He handles velocity and spin, doesn’t need to sell out for power and projects to hit for average with 20-plus home run potential.”
Irish also knows exactly what he likes at the plate, especially when he can drive the ball the other way. “The plate’s what, 17 inches long?
I feel like I can hit any ball that’s 17 inches the other way on the plate,” he told MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo. “I mean, I like to pull baseballs, don’t get me wrong, but naturally speaking, [the opposite field] is where I’m good and that’s what I like to keep doing.”
The breakout earned him a spot in the MLB Futures Game on July 12 during the All-Star break. Starting as the American League prospects’ DH, he went 0-for-1 with a walk.
Once he got back to Frederick, though, he looked even hotter, ripping 14 hits in 27 at-bats (.519) with four homers and 10 RBIs over five games. At that point, nothing seemed capable of slowing him down.
Then came July 22. While running to second base, Irish tore his left meniscus, ending his season and sending him to surgery. The injury shut down a year that had been taking off in a big way.
He’s back on the field now in the Arizona Fall League, and the numbers have held up so far. Through nine games for Peoria, Irish is hitting .353/.421/.559 with two home runs.
The AFL can inflate offense, but the important part is that he’s healthy again. “My knee recovered really well and recovered pretty fast, and so when I was running on it and rehabbing it, it felt really good and I felt confident in it,” Irish told Mayo.
With the knee holding up and the catching burden gone, Irish looks positioned to keep climbing. His on-base skill and all-fields approach fit the profile of a top-of-the-order hitter, and he should open 2027 with the Chesapeake Baysox for his first shot at Double-A. The bat has been loud, the knee is sound, and the position that once caused all the trouble is now in the rearview.
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