Minor League Podcast: An interview with rising outfield prospect Cedric Mullins

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Be honest, you want to know more about him.

If you’re an Orioles’ fan, you’ve been hearing a whole lot about Double-A Bowie Baysox outfielder Cedric Mullins. He couldn’t be a hotter commodity right now among O’s fans.

He was originally a bit of an afterthought, a 13th round pick in 2015 out of Campbell (N.C.) University. But Mullins raised eyebrows with his performance last season at Low-A Delmarva, batting .273 with 37 doubles, 10 triples, 14 homers and 30 stolen bases.

He already was on the organization’s radar, but then really caught the attention of manager Buck Showalter this spring, showing a tremendous combination of power, speed and defensive abilities. Showalter was at a “B” game this spring when the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Mullins smashed a home run high off the batter’s eye in deep center field. A couple days later, he tripled in a Grapefruit League game, running full force as soon as he left the batter’s box.

Watching him excel, the organization decided to push Mullins, having him skip High-A Frederick and play center field/left field for the Baysox. In his first at-bat for Bowie, he homered. This past week he was named Eastern League Player of the Week, fueled in part by a 10-game hitting streak. Pretty impressive for a guy who wasn’t even supposed to be at Double-A yet.

Yeah, so we wanted to know more about Mullins. And we figured you did, too.

And who better to talk about — and with — Mullins than our Adam Pohl, the voice of the Baysox, who has seen all of Mullins’ games this year?

In this week’s Minor League Podcast, Pohl spends several minutes interviewing the O’s budding phenom. We learn about his background, when he first picked up a bat and glove – cute story — his approach at the plate and his mindset about defense.

The kid is well spoken, and definitely worth your listen.

But that’s not all in today’s podcast. There’s more, a whole lot more (written in my best hawker typing).

In the second segment, Pohl talks with BaltimoreBaseball.com’s minor league writer Dean Jones Jr., about the comings and goings this week in the Orioles’ farm system.

Jones discusses Frederick’s Jomar Reyes’ hot start (.358 through 13 games), the addition of Miguel Castro (big arm, little cost) and the emergence of unheralded outfielder Jake Ring at Delmarva (a 31st rounder hitting .400 with the Shorebirds), among other topics.

It was a busy week in the Orioles’ organization, and so this podcast is brimming with interesting info. And, even more important, it features Mullins, the “next greatest thing” down on the farm.

How do you not want to listen to that?

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.