Orioles Teammates Get Brutally Honest About Heston Kjerstad's Struggles

2025 has been an eye-opening year for the Baltimore Orioles.

After enduring multiple seasons of losing during their teardown rebuild, it seemed like everything was coming up aces for the franchise when it came to the future of the organization.

They appeared to hit on virtually every single one of their prospects, something that created the notion that this team could become a dynasty based on how strong their pipeline was even after Adley Rutschman was called up in 2022 and finished runner-up for the AL Rookie of the Year Award and Gunnar Henderson actually won it the following season.

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From Rutschman and Henderson to Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser, that core combined with the dominant Triple-A players like Heston Kjerstad, Kyle Stowers, Coby Mayo and others seemed like they would be ruling the AL East division and American League as a whole for years to come.

Unfortunately, the reality of baseball has hit the Orioles like a ton of bricks.

Rutschman has taken a major step back. Henderson is still trying to find his past form after beginning the season on the injured list. Westburg and Cowser have dealt with injuries throughout the campaign. Holliday has flashed his high upside, but he hasn't quite lived up to the billing of his former No. 1 prospect status. Kyle Stowers was traded away and the duo of Kjerstad and Mayo have not translated their minor league success to The Show.

Perhaps the most disappointing out of the bunch has been Kjerstad.

Held onto over Stowers at last year's trade deadline, Kjerstad has a career Major League slash line of .218/.284/.365 with just 10 homers and 36 RBI across 106 games.

He put together the worst slash line of his career this season -- .192/.240/.327 -- with only four homers and 19 RBI in 54 games before he was optioned back to Triple-A Norfolk.

And now that he's been sent down, his teammates have offered their thoughts.

"It's been an inconsistent year for him, no doubt. In Triple-A, it was nothing but barrels, you know?" said Maverick Handley, per Roch Kubatko of MASN. "Three-hundred with big-time pop, big-time juice. He got into a little rut, and it's tough, man."

Handley saw firsthand what Kjerstad did in the minors.

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Cedric Mullins, on the other hand, hasn't.

He offered a different perspective, and one that highlights what everyone has seen when they have watched the young slugger in the bigs.

"Some things that he needs to work on. I think he was able to see that and feel that during his time here. A lot of guys go through it. It's just part of the nature of the game," he said.

Baltimore is sending Kjerstad down with a plan of things for him to work on, and if they feel like he has solved those issues, then he'll get another crack at the Majors.

Mullins experienced that same thing for himself, getting optioned to the minors after being the Opening Day center fielder in 2019, only for him to make the All-Star team two seasons later.

"It's never easy to kind of face your flaws in the game directly, but it gives yourself a chance to kind of restart, really just face what your challenges are head-on and go from there," he added.

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Will this roster decision hurt the confidence of Kjerstad?

Handley isn't worried him.

"Really, his personality type, he understands, and he knows he hasn't been playing as well as he wants to be playing, so I think this could be a really good reset for him. Is it gonna affect him mentally? No. He's way stronger than that," he said.

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