As a player with big size, big power and big exit velocities, the Orioles’ Samuel Basallo started flying up prospect rankings in the 2023 season. That year he posted a .953 OPS at three minor league levels.

He reached Triple-A Norfolk late last year and is now a consensus top 20 national prospect and the O’s No. 1.

He will play most of next season at age 20, having signed for $1.3 million out of the Dominican Republic in January of 2021.

Ranked No. 13 in the top 100 by MLBPipeline.com and No. 14 via Baseball America, Basallo’s highest-ranking was No. 3 via The Athletic in Keith Law’s top 100, released recently.

And while most fans by now realize how this kid hits the ball far and loud – producing 90^th percentile exit velocity of 106 mph – it’s the praise for his defense by Law and The Athletic recently that was a bit eye-opening.

That evaluation must be very exciting for O’s fans to read. That it came from talking with scouts on other teams might be better yet.

“Absolutely,” said Law in an interview this week.

During several interviews the last two seasons with Basallo, I find a young player who is always upbeat and really wants to continue at catcher, even though he has also made 59 starts at first base the last two years.

“I want to stay at catcher. It motivates me to hear people say I can’t stay as a catcher. Want to prove them wrong,” Basallo told me through Double-A Bowie manager Roberto Mercado during an interview last year for an article on MASNSports.com.

On the 20-80 scouting scale, the player with elite 70-grade power gets a 45 grade (just below average) for his defense and a 70 for his throwing arm from MLBPipeline.com. He gets a 50 (MLB average) and 70 from Baseball America.

But Law recently wrote of Basallo: “He’s got at least a 70 arm and is athletic enough to become a 55 receiver and blocker, although right now he’s succeeding more on his pure physical ability and needs more polish on the finer points of catching.”

This encouraging evaluation of his defense led Law to rank Basallo as the sport’s third-best prospect in his new top 100, he told me this week during a one-on-one interview.

“It’s the position, more than the defense,” Law told BaltimoreBaseball.com. “Simply being a catcher is worth a ton. Whether you are talking an actual WAR calculation or a sense of trade value. Everyone needs a catcher and there are never enough to go around. If you can be a 45 defender at catcher and you can hit, you’re a really good big leaguer. There are 20 teams that will want you.

“Jorge Posada ([ormer Yankee] was never a good defensive catcher and he had a helluva career. Because he could physically handle the position, and he could really hit.”

Law told me scouts he has talked with believe Basallo has that 55 grade potential for blocking and receiving.

“He’s always had the arm strength,” he said. “And this was much more based on reports from other teams and other scouts. I have barely seen him catch. I’ve seen him hit at games where he is DH, but tough to evaluate a guy catching when he is not.

“So, this is much more from other teams. And other teams are pretty clear. They’d take that guy in a heartbeat. He’s an everyday catcher. Maybe not right now, but he’s pretty close. If you are were a team that needs a catcher for 2026 and beyond, you’d be all over him.

“Everyone around him says he has the acumen and the intellect to do it, and he’s been getting better. That is always the biggest factor. If a player has made adjustments, then he can continue to make them. If he has already improved in an area, he will probably continue to improve as long as his body allows him to do that.

“When he first signed it was, ‘I don’t know if he’s going to catch, but he can really hit.’ Well, he’s still catching and he can really throw, and he wants to do it.”

If Basallo’s bat lives up to expectations, the Orioles someday soon are going to have to decide when this kid comes to the majors and in what role. Is he Adley Rutschman’s backup? Is there some time-share at catcher, or will he play some at first base? A lot to be decided.

But I have written numerous times how those throughout the O’s organization are confident he could stay as a catcher. Law’s assessment – and he was formerly a scout and special assistant to the general manager for the Toronto Blue Jays – is very encouraging.

“The difference between say an analyst side and a scouting side, and I try to mimic them and talk to them, it’s more forward-looking and more expansive. What could be. Analysts are trying to figure out what will be through predictive models. I used to work on that side and I understand it, but this is where you have to blend,” he said.

Most teams don’t have one top catcher. The Orioles could soon have two.

“The Orioles are in the sunny position where they have a catcher that is really good. So they are probably going to have to get creative, because I don’t have any sense they want to trade Basallo. I wouldn’t trade Basallo unless I was getting Cy Young back,” Law said.