As the calendar waits for the World Series to get rolling on Friday, the Orioles’ corner of the baseball world has found a different place to keep tabs on: the Arizona Fall League.
The Orioles’ AFL contingent is all stationed with the Peoria Javelinas, who are sharing the roster with prospects from the Cardinals, Mariners, Padres, and Reds. After 14 games, Peoria sits at 7-7, but the run differential tells a prettier story: they lead the league at plus-25.
The loudest Orioles bat out there right now belongs to Vance Honeycutt. He’s tied for second in the league with three home runs and ranks sixth in slugging percentage at .652.
The downside is the familiar one - 11 strikeouts and 10 walks in 23 at-bats - so any dream of him moving away from the “three true outcomes” profile hasn’t really taken hold. Still, the production is better than what he showed early in the regular season.
Ike Irish has been just as eye-catching, maybe more so overall. In 34 at-bats, the former first-round pick is hitting .353/.421/.559 with two homers, three walks and five strikeouts. That kind of line looks especially encouraging after the torn meniscus that shut down his regular season in late July.
Brandon Butterworth is putting together a different kind of case. He’s at .233/.410/.433 with three doubles, nine walks and 10 strikeouts, and his time in the AFL follows a stretch in which his bat cooled off after about a month at Triple-A. Even so, the 24-year-old could still be in the conversation for a utility job at the major league level soon.
The pitching side is harder to read because the innings totals are so small, but there are still a few numbers worth noting. Braxton Bragg has tossed six scoreless innings.
Patrick Reilly has worked seven innings with a 1.29 ERA and, just a couple days ago, was named Pitcher of the Week. Kiefer Lord has given up four runs in three innings.
Teddy Sharkey has logged two strikeouts and three walks in 2.2 innings, and Kailen Hamson has matched those strikeout and walk totals - four and four - across three innings.
That’s the tricky part of the Arizona Fall League: it’s designed to give extra game reps to players who lost time, often because of injury, and the workloads stay limited because the rosters are packed with prospects from all 30 organizations chasing the same development goals. So the numbers should be handled carefully. But there’s still plenty there to monitor.
For anyone who wants to follow along, nearly every Peoria game can be streamed live. The next one is today at 4:30 p.m., and the AFL season runs through November 14.
Jayvien Sandridge also turned up in the Orioles news cycle, signing a minor league deal. The 27-year-old left-hander, born in Hagerstown, spent most of the season hurt but did appear in six games for Norfolk. He also got a big league callup from the Yankees in 2025, so this looks like another depth move for the bullpen.
Elsewhere, Roch Kubatko noted Cade Povich had a left elbow debridement procedure. Povich remains an interesting name heading toward 2027.
He has flashed enough as a starter to keep attention on him, but not with the kind of consistency the Orioles would need every turn through the rotation. The fit that makes the most sense, at least here, is as a swingman - someone who can make shorter spot starts or provide bulk relief a couple of times a week.
There was also a World Series angle from the AL East. Every other team in the division has reached the Fall Classic within the last decade except the Orioles: the Rays this year, the Blue Jays in 2025, the Yankees in 2024, and the Red Sox in 2018.
Only Boston has won it so far. Whether to root for a division rival, even one with familiar faces, is another matter entirely.
The question is still open.
Birthday wishes go to Matt Krook, who turns 32 today after appearing in one game for the Orioles in 2024, and to the late Valmy Thomas, born in 1925 and part of eight Orioles games as a catcher in 1960.
Baseball Reference says nothing of note happened on this day in Orioles history, so the calendar looks farther out. In 1940, the first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls was published.
In 1959, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened to the public in New York City.
In Other News...
Orioles Pitching Picture Just Got A Telling Offseason Update
The Orioles got a useful offseason checkpoint on their pitching depth with word that Cade Povich is expected to be ready for spring training after undergoing elbow surgery. For a club that has spent much of the winter sorting through arms and trying to keep its rotation depth intact, that kind of update matters just as much as any splashier transaction because it gives Baltimore some clarity on one of its younger pitchers heading into camp.
Baltimore also brought back left-hander Jayvien Sandridge on a minor league deal, another small but telling move for a staff that is always looking for extra options. Neither item changes the top of the Orioles' pitching plans on its own, but together they reinforce how much of the offseason conversation around this club is still tied to health, depth and the possibility that a few lesser-known arms could still factor into the picture before Opening Day. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Investment In Vance Honeycutt Suddenly Looks Much More Interesting
Vance Honeycutt spent much of the 2026 season looking like a classic high-upside, high-whiff project, the kind of late first-round pick who can test an organizations patience before he finds his footing. The Orioles kept pushing his development anyway, and there were signs in High-A Frederick that the tools were starting to show up more consistently, with more power and enough speed to keep him on the radar as a potential everyday player.
The real intrigue came once he got back from an oblique injury and moved up to Double-A Chesapeake, where the bat looked cleaner and the swing-and-miss eased enough to matter. Baltimore has been willing to keep investing in Honeycutts growth, and the next stretch will go a long way toward showing whether this is just a nice run of production or the beginning of something more serious. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Are Betting Big On One Basallo Question Behind The Plate
The Orioles moved on from Adley Rutschman at the trade deadline, and that immediately opened the door for Samuel Basallo to take over behind the plate. The 22-year-old has plenty of offensive upside, but his catching work has not come without questions, and Baltimore is betting that his learning curve can keep pace with his bat as the club reshapes the position on the fly.
What makes the transition more delicate is that Basallos challenge is not just handling his own game, but helping a pitching staff feel comfortable with him running it. The Orioles added Carlos Narvaez in the same deal, which gives them another layer of catching depth, but Basallo still has to show he can build the kind of rapport that keeps him on the field and in the role the team has carved out for him. [Read more 🡒]