PEORIA, Ariz. -- Vance Honeycutt’s path to the Orioles has already taken a sharp turn, and the latest stretch has looked nothing like the hitter who struggled through his first taste of pro ball.
Baltimore grabbed Honeycutt with the 22nd overall pick in the 2024 Draft after concerns about his bat pushed him down the board. His pull-heavy swing, chase issues and miss rate against pitches in the zone all raised questions, even with the kind of tools that made him one of the most intriguing players in the class.
After he signed for $4 million, those concerns showed up fast. Through mid-August this season, he had hit just .175/.282/.298 with a 42 percent strikeout rate across 177 career games in Single-A and High-A.
Then came the move to Double-A in mid-August, a promotion Baltimore made mostly to see whether a change of level could wake him up. It did. Honeycutt hit .288/.381/.616 with five homers and 10 steals in Double-A, and he’s kept rolling in the Arizona Fall League, where he’s batting .256/.500/.535 with three homers and eight steals in 14 games while holding the strikeout rate he posted in Double-A at 25 percent.
That’s a meaningful shift for a player whose ceiling still looks loud. Honeycutt has the kind of power-speed blend that can change a game in a hurry, and the defensive profile only adds to the appeal. He showed off the raw pop by homering in four straight Spring Training at-bats, and some evaluators view him as the best defensive outfielder in the Minors, with plus arm strength that stands out even in center field.
If the contact keeps coming, the upside is obvious: 30-30 production and Gold Glove potential.
Honeycutt said the turnaround has been about more than just a new level of competition.
"It’s an interesting game," Honeycutt said. "The journey is different for everybody.
I never doubted the ability that I had. It was just a couple years’ stretch of inconsistency.
There was a lot of work that went into it and I was always confident that I’d be able to settle down, figure it out and get back to the normal Vance I’m used to and impact the game."
A key part of that work came this summer, when his University of North Carolina coaches pointed him toward Gerardo Caceres, a Maryland-based hitting coach who had worked with several Tar Heels. Honeycutt reached out to "Coach G" and started training with him by phone and in person on off days.
"I kind of asked around a little bit and then just jumped on a phone call to see what he was about and got out there," Honeycutt said. "He was 45 minutes away from where I was playing, so it was great. He was pretty close so whenever I could out there, I’d go.
"The main thing was quieting down my hands. My hands were kind of moving a lot and there was a lot of wasted movement. So I’m trying to limit the movement, stay above the baseball, stay short to it."
Even with the offensive gains, Honeycutt isn’t treating the Fall League as a victory lap. He’s also using the time to sharpen the rest of his game, working on reading pitchers better to improve his basestealing and refining his pre-pitch setup in center field so he can get better jumps.
He said the confidence boost matters, but he’s trying not to let the results run the show.
"I went to Double-A, came out here, worked on the things I wanted to work on and also I kind of threw the results out, honestly," he said. "Can I stay present?
Can I be good mentally? Can I do all those things?
And I think if I could do those, then that was going to be a successful Fall League. I’ll definitely take it into the offseason, continue to work on this stuff and take it into next year."
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