In the biggest transaction of the Orioles’ tumultuous trade deadline in July 2025, Baltimore received six players from the San Diego Padres in return for All-Star designated hitter Ryan O’Hearn and outfielder Ramón Laureano.
One of the players, first baseman Victor Figueroa, led all Orioles minor leaguers with 27 home runs. Another, left-hander Boston Bateman, is the 11th-ranked prospect in the system, according to MLB Pipeline. Three right-handed relievers — Cobb Hightower, Tyson Neighbors and Tanner Smith — were also part of the deal.
So was Brandon Butterworth, at 5-foot-9, one of the smallest players in the Orioles’ system.
Butterworth had been taken in the 12th round by the Padres out of North Carolina State, and he was taken aback to be included in a trade for two accomplished big leaguers.
“It was crazy. It was probably one of the last things I expected,” Butterworth said. “Especially the first deadline in my first full year. Your life completely doing a 180.”
He was playing well in Fort Wayne, Indiana in High-A, and quickly moved to Double-A Chesapeake.
“I had to pack my things up that night and leave the next morning to go play eight hours away for a different team in a completely different organization,” Butterworth said.
It took him two or three days to grasp the new setting.
“I was waking up, like ‘I can’t believe this happened.’ I was still in shock.”
Butterworth was hitting .267 with a .782 OPS, 11 home runs and 46 RBIs for Fort Wayne, and when he moved to the Baysox, he hit only .215 with a .677 OPS, two home runs and 16 RBIs.
Butterworth hit .269 with an .875 OPS for the Baysox in 2026, with 10 home runs and 23 RBIs in 52 games, and .208 for Triple-A Norfolk in 28 games with five homers and 11 RBIs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said of his time at Chesapeake. “My body was feeling good when I came back from injury. I was seeing the ball well, playing good defense.”
He missed time this year with a left knee injury, and to make up for lost at-bats, Butterworth has spent the first part of his offseason playing for the Peoria Javelinas in the Arizona Fall League, joining Orioles minor league prospects Vance Honeycutt, Ike Irish and Patrick Reilly.
The Orioles, Padres, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, and Seattle Mariners combine on a 35-player roster and support roster.
“I’m having a blast here,” Butterworth said. “We’re playing five games a week. Our team is very close even though we’re from different organizations.”
In 16 games, he’s batting .186 with a home run and eight RBIs and 13 walks.
“We’re treated like big leaguers here,” he said. “When we’re treated so well, you want to show up to the field every day with a great attitude.”
He’s discovered that other organization’s teaching is similar to the Orioles.
“There’s many ways to teach a swing. There’s many ways to teach how to throw a slider, but at the end of the day, it’s still a baseball swing, and it still is a slider.”
Butterworth played six positions this season—second base, shortstop, third base and the three outfield spots. At N.C. State, Butterworth played just shortstop and second, and San Diego had begun playing him in the outfield just before the trade. The Orioles doubled down on his versatility.
“It’s something I hope they value just as much as I value,” Butterworth said. “I love being on the field. I love being available. At any given moment, I feel like I can go out there and play any different position at a pretty high level.”
The Orioles have a similar player in Blaze Alexander, who also can play six positions, and with so many infielders in the big leagues, it’s a way Butterworth, the Orioles’ 30th-ranked prospect, according to Baseball America, can stand out.
“I understood why they wanted me to do it,” Butterworth said. ‘I loved it. I had a positive attitude about it the whole entire time.”
Butterworth knows not only about Alexander’s versatility but his reputation as a high-energy player, which he saw in August when Alexander rehabbed his broken left hand at Norfolk
“I’m always going to be the quick-twitch player with positivity,” he says. “I love the way Blaze plays. Just being around him, you can tell the energy that he brings.”
He had a rough start with the Tides, hitting just .122 (5-for-41) in August. In September, he hit .273 with three homers and seven RBIs.
“Triple-A, it’s a lot harder. The guys are a lot smarter,” Butterworth said. “They understand what to do. They have better reports. They have better execution.”
Butterworth has excellent speed, stealing 23 bases in 25 attempts this year.
“My speed, that’s important for my entire game,” Butterworth said. “Defense, trying to beat out a ground ball, stretching those singles into doubles and doubles into triples … I’m always trying to get that extra base.
“That gets the other team thinking a lot. It makes them rush. It makes them get uncomfortable.”
Now that Butterworth has reached Triple-A, it doesn’t seem like Camden Yards is far away.
“The confident answer that I’d like to give to any Orioles’ front office guy if they ask me, is I’m ready to go tomorrow,” he said. “Send me to Camden tomorrow. I think I’m always going to have that chip on my shoulder…I’m always going to have that confidence that I can go play in the big leagues tomorrow because when I so get that opportunity, I want in my head to think that I’m 100 percent ready, and I’m 100 percent prepared to be there.”
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