Samuel Basallo is here.
The Baltimore Orioles have called up their top prospect, a top-10 prospect in the entirety of baseball. Fans have been waiting for him all season, and on Sunday, Basallo has been officially promoted.
Basallo is a catcher who can also play first base.
This season at Triple-A, Basallo has played in 76 games and has gone deep 23 times (a 49-HR pace for a full season). His OPS at that level is .966.
Basallo is 21 years old and should star with the bat no matter what position he winds up playing at the MLB level.
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Long term, there'll be some question over what this means for Adley Rutschman, the Orioles' incumbent catcher.
For now, though, that's less important than simply getting Basallo a taste of the big leagues so that when next season rolls around, he can hit the ground running with an Orioles group that will be hoping for a big bounceback.
This Baltimore group, though, is out of it. They're 56-67, and that's actually an improvement from the rate they were playing at for much of the season.
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If the Orioles had been involved in contention, there's a chance Basallo would've been called up sooner. But once Baltimore was out of the race, there was no reason to rush Basallo.
At Triple-A Norfolk, though, Basallo has proved he has nothing else to learn. He's ready to be a Major League Baseball Player.
And on Sunday, that's exactly what he'll be, for the first time in what shapes up to be a long, special MLB career.
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