Mercado leading Orioles prospects
New Britain product leads Baysox against Yard Goats at Dunkin’ Park
HARTFORD — This is a rare week for Roberto Mercado. Minor-league managing is an endless trail of buses, ballparks and hotels, not of the five-star variety,
But Mercado, manager of the Orioles’ Double A affiliate, the Bowie Baysox, is home for the week.
“It’s been great, being with the wife, sleeping in my own bed,” said Mercado, who has taken the unusual path from high school coach to pro manager. “My parents happen to be here from Puerto Rico. I’ve had about 75 people here, family, friends, teachers. It’s pretty cool. It’s special to be here, get the love and support.”
Cooler still, Mercado’s old team, New Britain High, was expected at Dunkin’ Park on Thursday night for Game 3 of the Baysox series against the Yard Goats.
“A good friend of mine, Mick Chambers, who’s an attorney in Hartford, got the whole team tickets,” Mercado said. “So I’ll be able to see a lot of those guys.”
Mercado, in fact, was excited to hear that senior Alex Heidel, a freshman on the last team he coached at New Britain, threw a no-hitter against Bristol Eastern this week.
When the Orioles first called Mercado, 44, about managing their top prospects in 2022, he thought it was a crank call. But the organization was serious about developing the elite prospects it had collected in the MLB Draft, after years of lastplace finishes, and have put a good many of them in Marcado’s hands.
Last season, at Class A Aberdeen, he managed Jackson Holliday, considered the top prospect in baseball, for 57 games. Holliday, who hit .314 for Mercado, the son of former major-leaguer Matt Holliday, rocketed through the system and made his big league debut at Fenway Park on Wednesday.
“Awesome kid, elite learner,” Mercado said. “Extremely coachable and comes to work every day, man. It’s pretty cool, man. Those guys put in the hard work, and at end of the day maybe there is a piece of something our coaching staff did to help them get to that point. That’s what it’s all about, we’re servant leaders, we want to help those guys perform and get to where they want to go.”
The Double A level is a faster game, Mercado says. The pitchers make few mistakes, and the hitters don’t miss mistakes. At Bowie, 2-3 after losing the first two games of this six-game series in Hartford, Mercado is given freedom to make the lineup and manage his way, with the organization’s goals in mind.
As Mercado has moved up to Double A, so has TT Bowens, a righthanded slugger from Montville High and Central Connecticut, who has overcome a series of injuries to keep his big league dream alive. He has one hit, a homer and four RBI, after 10 at-bats.
“Going into my fourth season, I’ve gotten to experience a lot of things,” Bowens said. “But making it to this level has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’m doing my best to take care of my body, stay on the field and maximize the opportunity I have in front of me. Double A is that step where you start to see more guys who have been in the majors. You kind of get that feeling you’re making progress.”
Bowens, 26, has 33 homers and 121 RBI in 261 minor-league games. He played 21 games in the Arizona Fall League, a sign the Orioles still see potential.
“TT played for me in 2022, did a great job, had an injury bug last year, so I’m looking forward to him having a big year this year,” Mercado said. “The kid comes to work every single day, ready to play every single day. There was a stretch in 2022 when he played 45 straight days. He’s really locked in on what he needs to improve on. He controls the zone really well, has really good swing decisions. That’s part of his game, maybe too good sometimes, he needs to swing more. He’s a special talent.”
Finding the keys to unlock each player’s ability and open his path toward Baltimore is Mercado’s job this spring and summer, and he may have had enough success already to open a path for other organization to go this route, hiring high school coaches with a teaching background, to handle their prospects. In that ever-serendipitous way baseball has, two guys who’ve spent a lot of their lives in New Britain, are working together in Bowie, Md., and, this week, playing in Hartford.
“Him being my manager is more of an at-home feeling,” Bowens said. “We have a lot similarities, a lot of connections, mutual friends. In pro ball, that’s tough to find. I could have been anywhere in the country, Utah, Montana, same with him. The fact we ended up in the same place with the same team, it’s kind of crazy.”