Been a while since the last time I filed live-action reports! Summer’s been busy, with trips to visit grandparents, summer camps, and pool time. In the meantime I’ve attended five games: a Single-A doubleheader between the Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Cubs) and Hickory Crawdads (Rangers), two Double-A games in a Baysox (Orioles) vs. Altoona Curve (Pirates) series in late June, and one game in mid-July between the Baysox and the Reading Fightin’ Phils (Phillies). I attended all the games with my family (and one with my parish’s social club), so they weren’t quite the same as a normal scouting mission!

On the plus side, the kids were able to go to their first Baysox game of the year. Because of the season ticket package we got, they have wristbands for unlimited use of the kids zone attractions like a carousel and bounce house. Big hits, as you might expect.¹

Anyways, on to a breakdown of the handful of players that drew my eye. Apologies for the relative lack of video — since I attended these games with my family, I wasn’t able to do a ton of recording. No write-ups from the Myrtle Beach games — the only player that caught my eye was RHP Nazier Mulé (Cubs), a 4th-round prep pick in the 2022 draft who threw 100 in high school. His stuff was on a different level than other pitchers in the game, but he had real troubles throwing strikes, as evidenced by a 16 percent walk rate this year.

Trey Gibson (RHP, Orioles)

The Orioles signed Gibson as an undrafted free agent in 2023 after he missed his entire junior season at Liberty due to a suspension for an undisclosed reason, then popped in the Cape Cod League that summer. He was effective in the lower minors in 2024, and this was Gibson’s fourth AA start after dominating at High-A Aberdeen for the first part of the year to the tune of a 40.4 percent strikeout rate and 8.4 percent walk rate. His ERA in Aberdeen was inflated by a high BABIP and a 28 percent HR/FB rate — his xFIP was a full 3 points lower than his ERA — but both of these metrics have been at far more sensible levels in Double-A, suggesting it was mostly luck and perhaps some defensive differences.

First, let me preface by saying that this was arguably Gibson’s worst start of 2025 at any level, and the conditions may have played a role in that. Bowie was firmly under the heat dome stretching across the Mid-Atlantic, and he was pitching in heat in the 90s with humidity pushing 100. The four walks were a season-high. The pace of the game was extremely slow, with Gibson’s relatively short appearance lasting well over an hour, so he was baking in the heat for a while.

(Gibson followed this game up with a 7-inning complete game shutout on July 2nd at Richmond in which he gave up a single hit, issued no walks, and struck out six batters — an absolute gem. Then he followed that up with a stinker. Such is the life of the pitching prospect.)

Gibson’s a big guy at 6’4” 240, though his movement is a little more labored and a little less athletic than I had expected. His body and athletic profile remind me of Corbin Burnes. He attempted one ugly pickoff play at second that he launched into the outfield, which isn’t an easy play to make but was probably unnecessary and certainly didn’t make things any easier for him.

Gibson features a fastball that sits around the 96 mph “shelf” where velocity starts to have a significant impact on hittability.² He’s also adding a two-seamer, and the fastball was the pitch that got him into trouble when I watched him. He seemed to have trouble locating the pitch, either missing the zone entirely or leaving it over the center of the plate for batters to punish. I wonder if this was simply growing pains from trying to integrate a new pitch. I only read about the new two-seamer after the fact in a profile in the Baltimore Banner, so I wasn’t paying close enough attention to differentiate four- and two-seam fastballs.

His breaking stuff, though, was tremendous, and he uses it very well. He has a mid-80s sweeper with less velocity and more horizontal movement than the cutter.

He also throws an 80 mph deathball slider with a vertical drop that works as his offspeed pitch. This might be my favorite of his pitches because of how he locates it and employs it in tandem with the sweeper and cutter. He doesn’t throw it a ton, but he does a really good job sneaking it into the top of the zone, and it’s so different from his other pitches in its profile that most batters seem inclined to just spit on it. So he’ll throw the deathball and then follow it up with the cutter or slider, and the result is a batter who just looks totally bamboozled by the whole affair. This is probably the best pure stuff I’ve seen at a Baysox game from a starting pitching prospect since I went gaga for Nolan McLean’s slider last summer.

The last thing I’ll say about Gibson is that he put himself in tough situations in this game through walks and the rough pickoff attempt but was able to limit the damage that Altoona did because he could generate strikes and, importantly, strikeouts. I came away with the impression that he was a little less polished than, say, Nestor German, but with perhaps greater upside given the strength of the arsenal. The rapid rise of guys like Gibson, German, and Braxton Bragg in Bowie, Michael Forret in Aberdeen, and the new hotness, Esteban Mejia in the Complex — all of whom are sneaking into the back ends of Top 100 lists — makes me pretty excited for the future of pitching in Baltimore, especially the miracle turnaround the pitching development staff seems to have worked with Trevor Rogers during his Norfolk sojourn.

Termarr Johnson (2B, Pirates)

In the first game I saw the Curve play in Bowie this season back in April, I had this to say after watching the 4th overall pick in the 2022 draft play:

Well, Termarr can legally drink now, and he’s also swatted an additional five home runs since that day, including one on Saturday against the Baysox, and stolen seven more bases. He continues to take big cuts, but the bat is finding the ball 76.4 percent of the time this season, up from a career average around 70 percent. Moreover, his noticeable handedness splits seem to have dissipated this year, and he actually has a better OPS against left-handers this season. It’s not a full-on breakout, but it’s certainly a sign of steady progress for a young, talented athlete who just turned 21.

The move from shortstop to second base seems to be a more or less permanent one now, but it’s a much more comfortable defensive home for him, and he looks fine making plays at the keystone. With many public rankings seeming to have soured on Termarr because he hasn’t followed draftmate Jackson Holliday’s meteoric rise to the Majors (which was itself rushed), now is probably a good time to buy low.

Creed Willems (C/1B, Orioles)

One of the games featured an appearance from a rehabbing Tyler O’Neill, who reminded everyone how different a veteran Major League slugger is from a bunch of young, still-developing hopefuls by swatting the single most effortless home run I have ever seen. It also featured fan-favorite Creed Willems being robbed on an opposite-field home run that would have sailed over the outfielder’s glove if only — wait for it — the ball had been taken higher.³

Groan-inducing grunge band jokes aside, that hit demonstrated Creed’s all-fields power that is likely to get him a chance in the Majors in the future despite a mediocre hit tool. While his strikeout and walk rates don’t throw up red flags, he’s a little too free-swinging and fails to maximize his plate appearances by swinging at pitches he shouldn’t. His body also isn’t ideal, and he looks at least a couple of inches shorter than his listed 5’11”.

But even weak contact can be pretty devastating with his raw power, as demonstrated by the near-homer that looked to all the world like a mere pop-up. I did manage to get video of a swing where he sent the ball to deep center, and you can see the nice swing and the pop in the bat even if it this one dropped about 10 feet short of the fence.

From a positional perspective, he does appear to do a good job with receiving and framing, and even when he’s playing first base he’s always the first to give the pitcher a high-five after an inning. That sort of pitcher-catcher rapport doesn’t show up in the box score but it can make a huge difference. His lateral movement is pretty weak, however, and he let at least one pitch in the dirt get by him that a better blocker would have had pretty easily.

Despite a current crisis of injuries at the Major League level, the Orioles have a plethora of catchers in the mid- to high-minors including Silas Ardoin (who was just promoted to Triple-A Norfolk after a historic rash of catcher injuries in Baltimore), Adam Retzbach (who was batting really well in May and June), and of course Samuel Basallo. With Creed profiling as something like a poor man’s Basallo, they can afford to allow him to take his time to continue to develop defensively as a catcher and hope to see him develop his hit tool. If forced to move off catcher, the odds probably become much longer to have a meaningful MLB career absent significant development of the hit tool and an additional half-level of power.

Finally, I wanted to mention that Creed’s a big hit with the kids. He sticks around well after the game to sign for anyone who asks, including my daughter! She had wanted to get his autograph and waited for him to finish talking with an Altoona player, and he happily signed her ball and chatted with him a bit. A true class act!

Aidan Miller (SS, Phillies)

Miller was the highest-ranked prospect I saw in the last month, coming in at #62 in Chris’ July prospect rankings (down from #49 in June). He finished the game on July 11th with a single and a walk on five plate appearances. He stole one base.

At a glance, Miller’s approach and pitch recognition appear to be on the high end. He avoids swinging at junk, and every at-bat was at the very least competitive. His swing is quick and efficient, with a little leg kick as he loads, then moves his hands rapidly to the ball.

In a couple cases, he appeared to line up the ball and then swing under it, failing to make sweet spot contact that would have been the difference between a pop-up or lazy flyball and a home run. The video above is one such case, where he puts a ball in the air to the pull side, which is what you want, but he gets under it and a potential home run settles lazily into an outfielder’s glove.

Poor quality of contact is almost certainly a contributor to his mediocre .237 average this season. He still has some ways to go before he’s able to routinely operationalize what looks to be pretty substantial raw power, which holds back both his home run totals and his hit tool, but the potential is there. Like Termarr Johnson, he only just turned 21, so he has plenty of time to put it all together.

On the plus side, Miller’s currently tied for steals in Double-A with 32, and his one single was an infield hit to the shortstop that he beat out without even needing to accelerate to his full speed. Miller wasn’t really known for his speed before this season — he stole just 23 bases total last season in the lower minors, and Chris didn’t mention it at all in his offseason report — but the organization’s development staff prioritized it last winter and at this point it’s probably safe to say this is a double-plus tool in his arsenal. His first move was delayed with a modest lead, and I still timed him at just over 3 seconds from 1st to 2nd. That would put his top foot speed in the upper echelon of MLB players.

While he didn’t stand out for good or ill at shortstop in my look at him, there’s some concern over his long-term viability there. Third base is also probably an easier route to the Majors if he remains in Philadelphia, since Trea Turner is signed through 2033 while Alec Bohm becomes a free agent after next season. To that end, Miller reaching his potential power becomes significantly more important if his permanent home is indeed on the corner, and there’s still a lot of projection there. Still, he’s holding his own at Double-A despite being several years younger than most of his teammates, and the surge in stolen bases show there’s still a lot to uncover in terms of his tools. Miller’s hit tool issues may be a stumbling block to reach his ceiling, but he has the potential to be a five-category contributor at a premium position.

Blake Money (RHP, Orioles)

Blake Money is a big (6’7”), funny man with a funny name.⁴ He pitched on the 2023 national championship LSU squad in a rotation headlined by names like Paul Skenes, Grant Taylor, and Ty Floyd, with most of his appearances for the Tigers coming out of the bullpen. He was a 12th-round pick of the Orioles that year, his junior season, and has put in yeoman’s work in the low minors since then, with mid-3 ERAs, strikeout rates around 30, and walk rates below 10. He’s continued that level of play in Double-A since being promoted in mid-June after Braxton Bragg’s injury.

In the game I saw him pitch against Reading, he struck out eight batters and walked three in four innings of work. I came away with two big impressions. First, this is a real prospect with the chance to be a backend MLB starter. Second, his statline does effectively tell his story as a player.

Money has a wide arsenal. His fastball isn’t anything special, sitting 92 to 94, but he throws it for strikes. He also features a high-80s cutter and a mid-80s slider that blend together a bit, a high-70s sweeper with big horizontal spin that he throws exclusively to right-handed batters, and a low-70s curveball with intense vertical movement. He plays the pitches well off each other, but the slider and cutter seem to be the pitches that invite the most trouble, with locations oscillating between the dirt and hanging dead center.

And the hanging seems to be what colors Money. He gave up two home runs when I saw him and a couple more that probably would’ve been home runs at a higher level. His HR/FB rate in his Double A appearances sits close to 20 percent, with a BABIP near .400 after running BABIPs above .300 in most of his other stops. This could always just be luck, but the eye test matches what the statline hints at — more Money, more problems⁵ giving up loud contact.

The stuff is hardly overwhelming but the arsenal is in line with some of the backend pitchers that the Baysox have graduated to the Orioles over the last few years. But in order to get there, someone’s going to have to fix the hard contact issue.

1  Most attractive to them is the throwing station, newly replete with a several thousand dollar Stalker radar set-up that measures velocity and spin. In case you’re curious, my 5 year-old daughter sits 18 and tops 20 with her fastball, and my 3 year-old son sits 15 and tops 17 with a pitch that’s got a ton of spin on it. Putting up the flag… it’s time to open the FAAB wallets in open universe leagues for these two.

2  Struggling to find a citation for this. I think it was mentioned on either Rates and Barrels or The Craft, maybe by Lance Brozdowski?

3  Kudos — or something — to Matt R. on the DD Discord for this one.

4  Though not as funny as his brother, whose name is apparently Cash.

5  Can't blame Matt for these ones, unfortunately.