Hi everyone! I’m Conor McGovern, the Dynasty Dugout’s scout/correspondent for the AA Eastern League. I’ll be attending Bowie Chesapeake Baysox games throughout the season and writing my observations of prospects who caught my eye. I’m a social scientist and statistician by day, and I also occasionally blog at my site, Green Spreadsheets of the Mind, with longform articles about certain players with particularly weird or interesting profiles.

The Altoona Curve, the AA affiliate of the Pirates, who take their name both from curveballs and the Skyline wooden roller coaster just beyond their right field wall, visited the Baysox in Bowie this week. Unfortunately, Chesapeake’s most exciting prospect, OF Enrique Bradfield Jr., is on the 7-day IL with a hamstring injury, but the game I attended still featured plenty of drama. The Baysox trailed 1-0 before a home run by DH Adam Rentzbach put them up 2-1. Termarr Johnson tied it up 2-2 with a solo shot in the 8^th , but the Baysox pulled ahead 3-2 on a wild pitch in the 9^th and put the Curve away for the final out.

This being my first time covering a game for DD rather than chasing my kids around as they played on the inflatables, I learned some lessons myself. Notably, I need a backup battery or two for my camera, because it was out of juice by the 5^th inning!

Po-Yu Chen (RHP, PIT)

5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 33.3% CSW

Unfortunately, I missed a start from the more highly-regarded Curve pitching prospect Hunter Barco earlier this week, and Anthony Solometo is on the 7-day IL. But on Friday night, Po-Yu Chen, a less-heralded 23-year-old signed from Taiwan in 2020, didn’t disappoint.

Chen throws with an easy cross-body motion from a three-quarters slot, which imparts a natural cut to his throws. He features an old-school pitch mix, starting with a sinking fastball sitting around 92-93 and topping 95. The fastball’s notable for how well he commands it. He has walked just five batters so far this season in 16.2 IP. Two of those walks came last night, and frankly, I thought he got jobbed on both. He nibbles low, but will occasionally rear back and throw mid-90s at eye level, particularly ahead in counts, and the pitch seems to go where he wants it.

His secondary offerings are a splitter, a curveball, and a slider. He tends to pitch backwards, opening with secondaries before turning to the fastball later in counts. The splitter is his best pitch, working like a diving change-up and living in the mid-80s, with excellent command. It plays very well off the fastball. He locates the two similarly, catching batters guessing with the good gap in velocity and vertical movement.

The strong command of the splitter and the fastball means Chen is rarely behind in counts. He opened with a ball on just seven of the 20 batters he faced, and he followed it up with a second ball on just three of them. By my count, 25 of his 75 pitches (33.3%) were called strikes or whiffs, and many of the balls were very close misses.

The breaking balls are a mixed bag. He only threw a few mid-80s sliders, and they were always the first pitch of the at-bat and only against right-handed batters. Of the three, two resulted in one-pitch at-bats that led to easy grounders and the other in a called strike. It looks like a nice pitch against righties that could perhaps be used more often. The curveball is a classic mid-70s rainbow arc with very nice spin that he uses against both lefties and righties. It does appear to be easy for batters to see it out of his hand, and it was the cause of a couple of the hits he gave up. He managed only a single whiff with the curve, but it was a good one as he made Jeremiah Jackson look silly. (Unfortunately, my camera died right before this at-bat!)

There was a moment in the 4^th inning where it seemed like Chen was laboring, as his fastball velocity dipped to the high 80s and his delivery seemed less pitch-and-catchy than it had earlier in the game, but after a conference on the mound, he recovered nicely. Also notable is that Chen got a runner caught in a pickle to end an inning, showcasing an advanced pickoff move for a player his age:

After last night’s game, Chen has a season K-BB% of 22.7%. While the stuff isn’t eye-popping, he has a nice throwback arsenal with the potential to be a regular in an MLB rotation who lives off his command, and a small velocity gain on his fastball could make him even more interesting. The Pirates organization has recently showcased success at developing pitching, and Chen appears to be an ascending prospect. His continued development is worth keeping an eye on.

Termarr Johnson (2B, PIT)

1-4, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI

Termarr Johnson, Chris’ #4 prospect in the Pirates system, saved the best for his last at-bat of the night on Friday. Down 2-1 in the 8^th, Johnson stepped to the plate, worked a count to 3-0, then lined up and blasted a solo homer opposite field against Preston Johnson. Traveling at least 420 feet, the ball bounced off the left field video board:

Earlier in the game, Johnson just barely missed beating out a throw to first on a weak, mishit grounder up the middle that required a nice play by the second baseman. Later, he soared a flyout at the center field warning track that traveled about 400 feet. Every at-bat he had was competitive.

The most notable thing with Johnson, though, is it feels like every cut he makes is big, the type of sold-out, uppercut, for-the-fences swings a guy (me) makes in a beer league softball game who wants to show off to the other dads. You can see that cut in the video above when it works out.

The big problem is that the raw power isn’t there for an approach where he’s aiming exclusively for those big, all-out, slamjam cuts, and at a generously listed 5-foot-8, it’s not entirely clear that his frame will support much growth in that department. That said, Johnson won’t even be able to drink legally until mid-June, so there’s still plenty of time to develop. The other tools are clearly there, and after Friday, he’s slashing .262/.360/.431 in AA with three homers and five stolen bases at age 20. His most likely outcome is a super-utility player given his middling infield defense, but his relative youth introduces a lot of volatility to that assessment.

Jeremiah Jackson (SS, BAL)

1-4, 1 2B, 2 K

Jeremiah Jackson was the 57^th overall pick in the 2018 draft to the Angels, so he’s been kicking around the minors for practically forever despite having turned 25 just last month. Once a borderline top-10 prospect in the Angels system, he was traded to the Mets for Dominic Leone at the 2023 deadline and after a nondescript 2024 in Binghamton, he joined the Orioles this offseason on a minor league deal.

Jackson’s always had rare power for a guy who can play at least passable shortstop, especially one who’s as stringy as he is—he’s listed at just 165 lbs and it’s fully believable, notably blasting 27 homers in AA in 2023. The problem has always been a 20-grade hit tool, with strikeout rates around 30 percent, sub-10 percent walk rates, and contact percentages in the 60s.

This year, though, Jackson must have been reinvigorated by the salty scents of the Chesapeake Bay. While still taking only the rare walk, he’s struck out in just 6 of his 75 plate appearances, two of which came on Friday night. Strikeout rates stabilize around 100 plate appearances, so we’ll have to closely watch Jackson’s next series to see if this is just a mirage. From April 13 through Friday, he’s batted .341 and struck out only four times. Last night, he added a double, smoked down the left field line. He almost had an infield hit as well, but was a half-beat behind a good throw from third.

That said, I’m not convinced these gains are real. He came up to bat five times (one was reset because he was at the plate for Chen’s pickoff to end the inning) and only two balls were recorded against him. He swung at the first pitch as a matter of course. He’s a fun player to watch because of how hard he can hit the ball, but he’s probably destined to be a career minor leaguer.

Silas Ardoin (C, BAL)

2-2, 1 1B, 1 2B, 2 BB, 1 R

Silas Ardoin is in his third season in Bowie and is one of my favorite players to watch, less for his bat than for his glove. Strong defensive catchers are like unicorns in the minors, and Ardoin is a strong defensive catcher. He’s a very strong blocker and receiver, and he has top-tier pop, arm strength, and throws darts to second. Last year, he caught 29 of 54 baserunners stealing, and he’s caught 4 of 11 this year. (Should’ve been 5 of 11 but he was let down by a bobbled ball last night.)

Unfortunately, 24-year-old Ardoin’s bat has always been a bit below average, lacking in the pop you’d want from the position. But last night it was his offense that made him the hero of the game, and ultimately proved decisive for the Baysox. He demonstrated an advanced eye against Chen’s nibbles to record two walks, and timed one of his big arcing curves for a nicely-hit line drive.

In the 9^th, he demonstrated mature instincts to score the go-ahead run from third on a pitch in the dirt. He showed some surprising footspeed, too. In the end, he was the hero of the game.

Ardoin’s 2025 has the early hints of a breakout campaign offensively in the direction you’d want to see to be an MLB catcher. He’s getting on base nearly 40 percent of the time with an .840 OPS. (He added two walks in Saturday’s game.) He has two homers and a stolen base while playing typically excellent defense behind the plate. In another organization where the future of the catching position wasn’t already accounted for twice over, his mature profile might be on a fast track to a backup catching position in the big leagues, or at least the emergency catcher on the AAA taxi squad. That said, getting to develop in AA for a few years and DH when Basallo was catching last season may have been a blessing in disguise for Ardoin’s offensive development. He’s unlikely to be fantasy-relevant, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has an MLB future as a longtime backup.

Keagan Gillies (RHP, BAL)

1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 3 K

I have one note from watching Keagan Gillies pitch last night. It just reads “trebuchet.” Built like an NBA power forward at 6-foot-8, 255 pounds, Gillies has an almost comically exaggerated overhead delivery where a mid-90s fastball or high-80s cutter leaves his hand at the height of a small skyscraper with enough force to knock down the walls of a castle.

Video: [The Verge- An Orioles MiLB Podcast on X: "8 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 10 K I'd classify this Keagan Gillies season stat line as pretty good. https://t.co/TOfSOtmuc6" / X ]

Some pitchers manage to make fastballs at that velocity look graceful, with pretty spin and artistic movement profiles. Not Gillies. His pitches are simple, violent things. They are intended only to destroy.

At 27 and Rule 5 eligibility, it’s probably now or never for Gillies to make a move for the bullpen up the Parkway in Baltimore. He’s certainly making the case that it should be now, with 10 strikeouts and no walks in 8 IP so far this season. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him moved to Norfolk soon, and pitch in Baltimore by the end of the year. He probably comes up a little short of the arsenal to be a high-impact late-inning reliever, but he has the look of someone who could stick in the Majors and be useful in leverage situations if this April proves to be his true talent level.