Jon Meoli: Evaluating a key piece of the Orioles’ Adley Rutschman trade

When Arms on the Farm was born in 2023, the Orioles had a stable of homegrown hitting talent in Baltimore and in the minors, and the ability to build the same thing on the mound felt like the last piece to their rebuild puzzle.

Only the first part has changed; they’re trying to find their way back to contention at the major league level and, while closer, are still waiting for all the work put into developing the next wave of homegrown starting pitching to produce results.

With Brandon Young a key part of the rotation and Trey Gibson showing he can contribute when called upon, this is the beginning of a long and potentially productive era of homegrown pitching for the Orioles. This is Year 4 of Arms on the Farm, which uses firsthand observation, data analysis and insights from the pitchers and their coaches, along with opinions from professional scouts who cover the Orioles, to provide as much information as possible about these prospects.

We began this year’s installment of the series with left-hander Joseph Dzierwa, who for a while looked like the organization’s top pitching prospect — until Anthony Eyanson came over in a four-player deal that sent Adley Rutschman to Boston. Eyanson has emerged as worthy competition.

Where did he come from?

Eyanson is a Southern California product who pitched his first two years collegiately at UC San Diego, eventually taking over as the top starter midway through his sophomore year, before transferring to LSU. Pitching behind Kade Anderson, who went third overall in last year’s draft to the Mariners and just made his big league debut, Eyanson had a 3.00 ERA with a 1.15 WHIP and 12.7 strikeouts per nine, and he was the winning pitcher as LSU won the College World Series.

Boston took him in the third round (87th overall), and he represented the Red Sox in the MLB All-Star Futures Game before the Orioles acquired him.

What do the numbers say?

Few have had better seasons in the minors this year than Eyanson. In 89 1/3 innings between the two organizations — most of which was spent in Double-A — Eyanson has a 1.51 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP, 12.69 strikeouts per nine and a 2.81 FIP, while holding opponents to a .166 average. Among the 405 pitchers with at least 80 innings in all of minor league baseball, those rank second, fifth, 15th, third and third after his start Thursday. Eyanson’s swinging strike rate of 18.8% was best in that cohort.

What does he throw?

In his start Aug. 20 against Richmond, Eyanson threw his three best pitches exclusively, focusing on his fastball, curveball and slider. The fastball, which topped out at 101.1 mph against the Orioles’ prospects in this year’s Spring Breakout game and was in the upper 90s early in the season, has settled in the 93-95 range as the season has progressed and is of the cut-ride variety, with rise and late horizontal movement. He throws a gyro slider in the mid-80s, with more vertical movement than horizontal break, and also has a bigger curveball in the 78-80 mph range off his fastball line.

Eyanson came to the Orioles also throwing a cutter and a split-change, but the emphasis in this last month of the season has been on hammering those three pitches in the strike zone to keep hitters off balance; the goal is to enhance them before they add to his arsenal.

As it is, it’s plenty effective, given how the pitches jump on hitters from Eyanson’s higher arm slot.

“They all come off the same line, and as he continues to grow and develop and uses the top and bottom with the heater whenever he wants to, it’s really hard to stay off of those breaking balls with how good and how sharp they are, if you’re trying to stay committed to one of those lines,” Chesapeake pitching coach Jeremy Hileman said. “I think just his ability to play that game, north and south, with the angles he creates and kind of that release and that slot, I think those things all just kind of blend together to make for a really, really tough at-bat, and he’s really good at throwing those 50-50 balls down at the bottom where you feel like you’ve got to swing and it’s just invisible under the barrel, and there’s all those whiffs.”

What does the future hold?

As one of the top pitching prospects in the Orioles’ organization — I’m not ready to order the first few just yet — there’s obviously a lot of hope around Eyanson, and his being one of the main pieces of the return for Rutschman only heightens the stakes.

When he was part of that trade, he was described to me as the ideal Orioles pitcher due to his pitch mix and unique arm slot, and that all remains true. And how the Orioles go about developing him will be fascinating. Both Eyanson and Hileman said the emphasis on the fastball/curveball/slider combo didn’t mean the splitter and cutter were gone for good, but adding one of those or a sinker back feels like the next logical step, considering how the Orioles typically adjust pitchers’ arsenals at this stage in their careers.

What felt most notable from the night I saw him, and the conversations after, was not only how good those three pitches were — they’re all at least potential plus pitches — but the realization a year into his professional career of how important his ability to sequence and command them is.

Hileman said: “The goal over anything … is how quickly can he smother people in the zone and get to two strikes? How much can he fill it up with his best stuff and just be relentless around the zone and relentless in the zone? …

“It’s best stuff, at you, in the box, and we’re going to get to 0-2, 1-2 in a hurry, and we can do it in a couple different ways because we have feel for all three.”

Eyanson said that became an emphasis once he got to Double-A with Boston as he realized he might not get as much chase from more advanced hitters. He put an emphasis on pitching backward and locating his breaking balls for strikes early in counts, given hitters weren’t necessarily expecting them.

“If you’re able to just overwhelm guys in the strike zone, it just puts so much pressure on them and makes them get themselves out,” he said.

Because of his delivery, pitch shapes and ability to throw them all in the zone, he’s always been hard for hitters to square up. I see a midrotation floor and the potential for more. We don’t have to look far to see how the Orioles will get him there.

As I was watching Eyanson pitch, an evaluator posited that, with the higher arm slot and the pitch mix, there were shades of Kyle Bradish to Eyanson, which is lofty praise but also indicative of what the Orioles value. Bradish continues to be an example of what they look for in the combination of unique pitches, athleticism and ability to throw quality pitches in the zone.

Their paths to the organization couldn’t be more different, though. Bradish was acquired after his first full season in 2019 with the Angels organization and wasn’t a high-profile prospect, though the Orioles were intrigued by his pitch shapes and delivery. Eyanson is anything but a hidden gem.

The Orioles’ pitching program has specialized in uncovering those and developing them, but the stakes are high with the haul from this trade. They recognize how good Eyanson is now. Once the time comes to accelerate his development, they know he can be even better.

“He’s obviously got a pretty good base of what’s making him successful and why he’s as good as he is,” Hileman said. “It’s more a matter of let’s highlight the areas we think he can keep getting better, now or into the offseason. Let’s have a plan to attack those, but let’s do so in a way that Ant Eyanson is comfortable in and that we can continue to just build off what he’s already done as he continues to build feel for us and gain trust in us and what we can offer.”