ANNAPOLIS, Md. – So now the score is 2-2. There are two Orioles full-season affiliates that use a very specific home name, as in the Triple-A Norfolk Tides and the High-A Aberdeen IronBirds. Now two have a more regional look: the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds and, as of yesterday, the Double-A Chesapeake Baysox, formerly the Bowie Baysox.

“I think when we looked at where our fans are coming from, we wanted to be inclusive of the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Brian Shallcross, in his 20^th year as Baysox general manager. “We saw people coming from the Eastern Shore, west of the Potomac. We were surprised when we dug into the stats of just how far and ranging our fanbase was. We wanted to be inclusive of all those fans without forgetting our roots.”

Shallcross noted that the club went through a two-year process to change the name and meet all Major League Baseball approvals. The Orioles were involved throughout. They don’t own this team, but it’s their farm system.

So, what changes now?

“Well, I think what changes, basically, is we want to make sure that everybody knows they are welcome in our ballpark," Shallcross said. "Anywhere within the Chesapeake - and, heck, you saw we’ve sold tickets to fans from 42 states and Maryland – but anywhere, really, in the watershed we want to be welcoming and a destination.”

During the 2022 season, the Orioles organization got a lot of props for its farm system and player development operation. Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com and ESPN now rank its system as No. 1. They all placed Baltimore at the top in midseason rankings, the latest we have from the outlets. They could update those soon.

Now comes an MLB Pipeline poll published recently in which the outlet surveyed major league front office officials. That group also has the Orioles as having the No. 1 farm in baseball.

Half of those asked which team has the best farm in baseball responded Baltimore. The Los Angeles Dodgers came next at 21 percent, and Arizona third at nine percent. Of the 30 clubs, nine got votes for the top farm, but no club got nearly as many votes as the Orioles did.

The article states: "The Orioles have ranked as the top farm system in our last three rankings, and it looks like the industry agrees. Even with Adley Rutschman graduated, the combination of high-end prospects just about ready to impact the big league team and depth in the system has them very well-regarded, with the Dodgers not too far behind."

So we have pretty much reached a consensus here with the top outside outlets selecting the Orioles, and many of those execs inside the game doing so as well.

Doing the math is pretty easy. Interpreting what it all means can be more challenging. But we do know the sport of baseball has gravitated toward placing increased value on pitchers with big strikeout totals. And while we used to be most enamored with raw strikeout totals, now stats like strikeout percentage might tell us a bit more.

Strikeout percentage is easy to get to. Simply divide the number of batters a pitcher strikes out by the total batters he faced. A pitcher that fanned 30 of 90 batters faced has a strikeout percentage of 33.3.

This year on the O’s farm, using a standard of 50 innings pitched for the year, the Orioles had seven minor league pitchers produce a strikeout percentage of 30 or above. Four of them are now on the 40-man roster and two were just added this week.

The list of seven:

36.6 – DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez