With help from an outside source, Orioles' Honeycutt hitting his stride in Fall League

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Vance Honeycutt may have had the best all-around tools in the 2024 Draft. But his pull-heavy approach, tendency to chase pitches off the plate and in-zone swing-and-miss issues created concerns about his hitting ability, so he dropped to the Orioles with the 22nd overall pick.

After Honeycutt signed for $4 million, those worries immediately became reality in pro ball. Through mid-August of this season, he had batted a combined .175/.282/.298 with a 42 percent strikeout rate in 177 career games between Single-A and High-A. But since Baltimore promoted Honeycutt to Double-A in mid-August, mostly in an attempt to see if the move might jump-start him, he has been a different hitter.

While small-sample-size caveats apply, Honeycutt slashed .288/.381/.616 with five homers and 10 steals in Double-A games. He has continued to produce in the Arizona Fall League, where he's batting .256/.500/.535 with three homers and eight steals in 14 contests while maintaining the 25 percent strikeout rate he carried in Double-A.

He'll have to prove he can sustain this success, but this late-year version of Honeycutt can be a difference-maker at the big league level.

"It's an interesting game," Honeycutt said. "The journey is different for everybody. I never doubted the ability that I had. It was just a couple years' stretch of inconsistency. There was a lot of work that went into it and I was always confident that I'd be able to settle down, figure it out and get back to the normal Vance I'm used to and impact the game."

Honeycutt's improvements stem less from a change of scenery and more from adjustments he has made to his right-handed stroke. This summer, his University of North Carolina coaches suggested he contact Gerardo Caceres, a Maryland-based hitting coach who had helped multiple Tar Heels. Honeycutt contacted "Coach G" (as he is known on social media) and began working with him both over the phone and in person on off days.

"I kind of asked around a little bit and then just jumped on a phone call to see what he was about and got out there," Honeycutt said. "He was 45 minutes away from where I was playing, so it was great. He was pretty close so whenever I could out there, I'd go.

"The main thing was quieting down my hands. My hands were kind of moving a lot and there was a lot of wasted movement. So I'm trying to limit the movement, stay above the baseball, stay short to it."

Honeycutt doesn't have to hit for a high average to help his teams win. He hinted at his well above-average raw power by homering in four consecutive at-bats during Spring Training, and he has speed to match. Some evaluators believe he's the best defensive outfielder in the Minors and his plus arm strength is better than most in center field.

If Honeycutt can make enough contact to stay in the lineup, he has 30-30 upside and Gold Glove potential. Besides developing more consistency at the plate, he's working on the other parts of his game in the AFL. He's trying to pick up tells from pitchers to enhance his basestealing and to improve his pre-pitch setup in center to get better jumps.

Honeycutt has done a much better job of maximizing his physical ability in Double-A and the Fall League. While he says his performance has boosted his confidence, he also has tried not to get caught up in it.

"I went to Double-A, came out here, worked on the things I wanted to work on and also I kind of threw the results out, honestly," he said. "Can I stay present? Can I be good mentally? Can I do all those things? And I think if I could do those, then that was going to be a successful Fall League. I'll definitely take it into the offseason, continue to work on this stuff and take it into next year."