The Nate George hype could not be contained in 2025
The 16th round pick is coming off a Player of the Year campaign
Written by: Nick Stevens
My journey through recapping the Baltimore Orioles 2025 minor league season prospect by prospect has traveled through Delmarva and is now working its way through Aberdeen, the now former High-A affiliate of the Orioles, and has reached the prospect whose stock arguably rose the highest among all Orioles prospects in 2025: OF Nate George.
Not much attention typically gets paid to 16th round draft picks, especially 16th round draft picks that come out of the high school ranks, but Nate George’s first pro season captivated the prospect world in 2025 and has everyone paying attention to the right-handed hitter out of Minooka Community High School in Illinois.
We may not have known much about George initially when he was selected by the Orioles in 2024, but his brief draft blurb detailed a young prospect of intrigue- “One of the faster players in the Draft, George is at least a plus-plus runner and a gifted athlete with strength and a quick right-handed stroke. He didn’t participate in a lot of showcase events, so evaluators aren’t quite sure of how he’ll fare versus quality pitching on a consistent basis.”
George also wasn’t committed to a major Division-I program at the time of the draft, having decommitted from Eastern Illinois and electing to begin his collegiate career at Northwest Florida State Junior College, but the Orioles still gave him a $455,000 signing bonus, needing to dip into their bonus allotment for $305,000 of that.
The very early return has been fantastic.
The then 18-year-old began his pro career in the Florida Complex League this year, hitting .383 with a .451 OBP, a 179 wRC+, and 3 home runs in 23 games.
He was challenged with a promotion to Low-A Delmarva after those 23 games, where he refused to take his foot off the gas. In 43 contests, George hit .337 with a 163 wRC+, and while he hit just one home run, he collected eight doubles and seven triples over that span, while maintaining his near 10% walk rate and 15.6% strikeout rate.
George would be rewarded with yet another promotion, ending his first season as a 19-year-old in High-A. He closed out the season with 21 games in Aberdeen, hitting .291 with a 133 wRC+ and six extra-base hits.
In all, George collected 28 extra-base hits, hit .337 with an .896 OPS and 159 wRC+, and stole 50 bases across three levels with the Orioles, skyrocketing him up every national prospect list.
Once beat writers and local media began to take note of George, you saw George mention a few things over and over in each interview: he’s always been the “under-the-radar” guy, which I don’t think is a thing anymore, he plays with a chip on his shoulder and how he’s just scratching the surface on what he’s capable of as a player.
George has discussed the work that’s been required to make the jump from high school to the big leagues, learning how to read and react to scouting reports on opposing pitchers, learning the analytical ways of the organization and how to incorporate that into his preparation, and learning from professional hitting coaches for the first time, noting during the season that his dad was his hitting coach through high school. Dad clearly created a fantastic foundation.
The 19-year-old will enter 2026 as the reigning Orioles Minor League Player of the Year and will find himself ranked highly on just about every national top 100 prospects list (finished ranked 78th on Baseball America’s) and likely ranked as a top five prospect in the Orioles system on every single list. But his 2025 campaign was just the start.
The term “electric” may get thrown around a little too liberally when describing players, but it’s truly fitting for Nate George. He’s going to challenge fielders on routine groundballs. One slight hesitation in the outfield and he’s turning a single into a double, or a double into a triple. He’s as high energy type of a player as you will find. One thing that I fully expect to see from George in 2026 is harnessing that energy a little more as he continues to get more comfortable and slows the game down a bit.
He stole 50 bases this season, but he was caught 25 times. Some of that could have been the organization giving him more of an open green light on the bases just to get comfortable in the FCL and in Low-A. Some of that will also improve with experience. He also posted a 46.7% groundball rate on batted balls, which was the 12th highest in the organization among 55 hitters who registered at least 200 plate appearances last season. He was 18/19 years old. The over-the-fence power will come.
George’s 11.8% swinging-strike rate was middle of the pack in the organization, he had the 6th lowest strikeout rate, and he led all Orioles minor league hitters (min. 200 PA) with a .337 average. The hit tool and contact skills (a question many had about George coming out of the draft), showed real promise in year one. He will likely begin next season back in High-A with the Frederick Keys, where I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the same sort of path we saw fellow Orioles prospect Aron Estrada take in 2025- strong start at the plate without a ton of power, working on the defense, smoothing out some of the edges of his game, and then all of a sudden, the home runs start to come in bunches.
We’ll see what 2026 ultimately brings, but expectations will be high after all of the impressive numbers and accolades in year one.
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