My first time getting a chance to write about live minor league games since joining Prospects Live this year, and I was blessed that Saturday's games were a double header. It's been really rainy over the past week in Minnesota, but the weather could not have been better this past weekend.

Minnesota Twins fans are lucky that their AAA-team is about 15-20 minutes away in St. Paul, and this was the first time in the 5 seasons they've been a minor league affiliate they faced the Norfolk Tides, the AAA-team for the Baltimore Orioles. I was initially bummed to find out that Dylan Beavers, the Orioles 2022 33rd overall pick, had hurt his shoulder earlier in the week. Still, this was the first time I was going to see Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo live as well as my 2nd time seeing Emmanuel Rodriguez live. On the pitching side, Sundays game was definitely the most exciting as I got to see a pair of top-10 pitchers in their respective systems, Andrew Morris (currently ranked #9 on our Twins Top 20) and Chayce McDermott (currently ranked #6 on our Orioles Top 20).

Saturday's doubleheader was a split, as the Tides smoked the Saints 12-1 in the first game and the Saints responded with a 6-4 win in the nightcap. The one run in the first game for the Saints was an absolute nuke that left the park by major leaguer Mike Ford. On Sunday the Tides went back to their dominant ways and won 10-4. Similar to the other Saints loss, their only runs came on one swing of the bat as 25-year-old catcher Patrick Winkel hit a grand slam in the 2nd but then the Saints didn't score again.

Player Reports

Coby Mayo, 3B/1B/DH, Norfolk Tides

Game 1: 2-5, RBI, 2 K
Game 2: 1-3, 2B, CS
Game 3: 2-5, HR, RBI, R, K

Coming into the weekend, Mayo was one of the top names I was looking forward to see. I know both stints in the major leagues (17 games in 2024, 4 games so far in 2025) have both been short stays as well as poor performances. Baseball is a sport full of highs and lows, and it always takes an extended period of time before we can come to any conclusion on a certain player, especially one who is rated so highly as Mayo.

The first thing that caught my eye with Mayo was his size. Listed at 6'4" and 230 pounds, Mayo looks pretty lean especially when he stands next to his teammate Samuel Basallo (more on him later). The body is really athletic and he doesn't look oversized at all. The swing isn't very fluid, with a fairly small stride. Besides the stride, it looks like he barely uses his legs at all when he swings. How he's able to get to so much power is all in his hands, as they are ridiculously fast. You can see how is swing looks on this video of his home run in the third game, and notice how he utilizes his legs.

Defensively, Mayo played a different position each game (DH, 1B, 3B). Nothing really stood out from the field. While he has yet to play an outfield position in his entire professional career, I'd really like to see him in a corner. Obviously the Orioles have their reasons of why he hasn't been tried out there, and it's not as if they don't have plenty of prospects and major league players on the grass. But if Mayo isn't seen as a capable defender at 3B, or if there isn't an opportunity to play there, I think the outfield is definitely worth a try.

On the weekend, the box score stats were pretty solid for Mayo. 5 hits in 13 at-bats, two of the extra base variety, is certainly what you want as a hitter. The home run was an 108 mph blast to left-centerfield that we knew was gone off the bat. In Game 2, Mayo had a sweet double he deposited into leftfield but quickly got out trying to steal third. The jump was actually really solid, starting his secondary lead before the pitchers front leg had even been lifted and taking off immediately but was still thrown out and it wasn't really close.

The future for Mayo is one of the murkiest in the Orioles organization. Almost to June, the Orioles are one of the worst teams in baseball by their record and making the playoffs seems like a long short. Normally for a team doing as poorly as them, it would be easy to find a way to play Mayo. I mean, wouldn't Mayo be the best hitter on the Marlins or Rockies currently? But that's what's tricky for the O's. They simply don't have the space to play him, and they're getting back Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg soon. On the On Deck Podcast, our very own Drew, Rhys, and Nate discussed what the Orioles should do over the next few months and a large part of that discussion was about Mayo. If the Orioles are serious about fixing their issues in the rotation, maybe trading Mayo could be the answer. Will Mayo get traded? Will he fix the strikeout concerns at the Major League level? All this to say, the next months will be pivotal for Mayo.

Samuel Basallo, C/DH, Norfolk Tides