Today's guest: O's pitching prospect Nestor German

O’s right-handed pitching prospect Nestor German is from a school without a big name but one with a big name MLB pitcher among its former players.

In 2023, German was the Orioles’ 11th-round pick out of Seattle University. In 2018, the same school sent lefty Tarik Skubal to the Detroit Tigers. They got him in the ninth round and 254 players were selected ahead of him.

Now he’s the back-to-back Cy Young Award winner in the American League.

German doesn’t talk about winning any future Cy Young Awards, but his strong 2025 season could lead him to talk about possibly getting a shot with the Orioles during next season. And we did talk about that and much more when he joined me for my latest podcast out today.

German, age 23, pitched at three levels and in 26 games last season. First for High-A Aberdeen for six games, then for Double-A Chesapeake for 18 and he ended the year throwing two games at Triple-A Norfolk.

For the three clubs he was a combined 6-7 with a 3.93 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, .220 batting average against and 10.41 strikeout rate per nine innings.

He is currently ranked the O’s No. 11 prospect (and third pitcher) via Baseball America and No. 14 (and sixth pitcher) via MLBPipeline.com.

Those outlets give most of his pitches 50 and 55 scouting scale grades, so pretty solid across the board.

Here are German’s rankings on the O’s farm last year (min. 80 IP)

1st in WHIP (1.18)

2nd in innings (123 2/3)

3rd in swinging-strike percentage (14.8)

3rd in K/BB ratio (3.11)

4th in K percentage (28.0)

5th in K/9 (10.41)

5th in FIP (3.54)

8th in ERA (3.93)

Today is the 30th episode since April of the Steve on Baseball podcast with many more to come! I hope you enjoy this interview with German, who provided some nice insights on his career and being a pitching prospect for the Orioles.

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