Baltimore Orioles Prospect Poised for Breakout After Disappointing 2025

The Baltimore Orioles have been one of, if not the best team at drafting and developing talent in this decade. 

President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias has thrived with finding talent in the draft, and eventually see them flourish into top prospects. 

However, like every GM has misses, Elias has had a few, most notably with 2024 first-round pick Vance Honeycutt. 

Drafted 22nd overall out of the University of North Carolina, Honeycutt was an extremely intriguing prospect due to his elite defense and raw power/hitting upside. However, Honeycutt has failed to generate any sort of success in his professional playing career, until spring training of this year. 

After being drafted in 2024, Honeycutt would start in High-A with hopes that he could shoot up the minor league ranks. Unfortunately for Honeycutt, he went 2-for-20 to start his minor league career, promoting Baltimore's organization to demote him to Single-A. This time around, Honeycutt would find moderate success, going 7-for-31 (.226 BA) with four walks and a .591 OPS. Although his performance was poor, it was still steady improvement. 

To open the 2025 season, Honeycutt would start in High-A once more, but would once again struggle to put together an above average season. Honeycutt would appear in 101 games, where he posted a subpar .171/.284/.275 slash-line with five home-runs and 24 RBI's in 374 at-bats. 

The rookie has consistently struggled throughout his career with striking out, and was considered to be one of the bigger risks in the 2024 MLB Draft. However, Baltimore saw the upside in Honeycutt, and although he hasn't panned out so far, the progress that he's made from 2024 to now has been glaring. 

Baltimore decided to give Honeycutt a chance to play in spring training this year, and let's just say that he has MAXIMIZED his opportunities so far. 

Honeycutt has had a historic start to spring training, hitting a home-run in his first four plate appearances. The outfielder has only had eight plate appearances this spring, but has posted a ridiculous .625 batting average and a 2.792 OPS with six RBI's and seven runs scored. 

Honeycutt has always had raw power, but Baltimore has yet to see it displayed, until now.

Although Honeycutt is unlikely to make Baltimore's opening day roster, it is still extremely encouraging to see a former first-round pick perform this well against major league pitching. Baltimore already has a log jam in their outfield with Colton Cowser, Taylor Ward, Tyler O'Neill and Dylan Beavers, so the chances of Honeycutt starting in the big leagues this season is slim. 

With that being said, if Honeycutt can continue this success in the minor leagues this season, there's no doubting that he can make the big league roster heading into next season.