SARASOTA, Fla. — Samuel Basallo was determined, almost as if he’d been challenged.

The topic of conversation was his English, and the towering 20-year-old didn’t need help to show how far it’s come. With team interpreter Brandon Quinones to his side, Basallo conducted the eight-minute interview entirely in English.

A year earlier, Basallo, a Dominican Republic native, gave all his answers in Spanish. He understood the questions, but he was sometimes self-conscious about speaking in English.

“Last year in spring training, I didn’t have the confidence to do the interviews in English,” Basallo said while standing in front of his locker in the Orioles’ spring training clubhouse. “Now I have the confidence to speak with anybody here. Sometimes I use Brandon to translate a couple little things, but now I feel really good.”

It can be helpful for any Latin player to learn English, but it’s pivotal for a catcher — especially for a youngster like Basallo, who is rated as baseball’s best catching prospect. He’s proved that hype real this spring with loud batting practice sessions and towering home runs in exhibition games.

But it’s how he’s handled himself away from the batter’s box that’s stood out most to his coaches. From manager Brandon Hyde to bench coach Robinson Chirinos to catching instructor Tim Cossins, they’ve all remarked about Basallo’s improving English. Even Quinones, who stood silently with a smile during the interview, is impressed.

“Pfft, you’re gonna leave me without a job pretty soon,” Quinones joked as he put his hand on Basallo’s shoulder when the conversation concluded.

As a child in Santo Domingo, Basallo’s mother put him in English classes when he was 8 years old. But even then, it was difficult to prioritize learning a foreign language, and he stopped a few months later.

“I didn’t have too much time,” Basallo said. “I had baseball, activities, whatever, there wasn’t time.”Shortly after the Orioles signed him at 16 years old, swooping in to convince the physically imposing backstop to join them instead of the New York Yankees, Basallo refocused on learning English, knowing it would be an important part of his development and perhaps expedite his path to the big leagues.

“It’s really important. I’m a catcher. I have to talk with almost everybody,” Basallo said. “I have a lot of meetings. You don’t need somebody to translate. The meetings are more short. Everything is just more easy.”

Early in spring training, Orioles coaches took note of Basallo’s confidence in his English. It first hit Cossins, Basallo said, during catching drills, while Chirinos was shocked when Basallo conducted an entire meeting with the coaching staff in English.

Hyde didn’t get to spend much time with Basallo last spring training, but even he’s noticed the improvement.

“His English is really impressive,” Hyde said. “I don’t need a translator with him. He understands everything. He speaks well.”

Basallo spent his first few years with the Orioles in the Dominican Summer League, surrounded almost exclusively by Spanish-speakers. The organization employs two English teachers, who are aptly listed on the staff website under “player development,” and Basallo said those classes at the Orioles’ facility in the Dominican Republic were beneficial.

He’s kept up with his English in the offseason, too, taking classes with one of his sister’s friends, who is an English teacher. It finally clicked for him while he was in Double-A last summer, and that’s when he began using it more regularly with his American teammates.

“English is harder than Spanish because sometimes you have to use the same word for a lot of things,” Basallo said with a laugh. “But when you get it, it becomes easy.”

English is far from the only thing that’s come easy to Basallo.

Growing up with baseball: After Basallo’s one-on-one meeting early in camp, Hyde was taken aback.

“That’s really impressive,” he recalled saying to Chirinos.

Basallo has the face of a kid, the 6-foot-4 frame of an adult and the mind, his coaches say, of a player much wiser than someone who can’t yet legally consume alcohol.

“It was really mature,” said Hyde, a former minor league catcher. “He’s got a really good head on his shoulders and understands his strengths and maybe some things that he needs to work on. I have been impressed with how mature he’s been.”

That’s always been the case for Basallo off the field. His makeup was an integral part of why the Orioles gave him a then-franchise record $1.3 million as a teenager.

On the field, though, growing up has been a journey for Basallo.

He didn’t hit the way he was capable of in the DSL as a teenager. Then, at 18, he shot out of a cannon when he came stateside for full-season ball, dominating with Delmarva and Aberdeen before reaching Double-A.

Still, throughout that season, the everyday failures of baseball — a sport in which going 1-for-3 is a good day — weighed on Basallo. The strikeout an inning earlier would eat at him, and his mind would race. Then, perhaps subconsciously, the pressure of wanting to provide for his family back home adds weight to a game that’s already difficult enough.

His performance on the field, it seemed, was outpacing his ability to manage the up-and-down nature the sport demands.

“I was worrying about everything,” he said. “If I miss an [at-bat], I think about what just happened. Before, I was thinking about what I’m doing, what I did before, what I’m doing next. Now, I feel like I can move on and think about what I’m doing now or what I’m doing next.”

Sherman Johnson, Basallo’s hitting coach when he reached Double-A in 2023, said he was first “worried” when this 18-year-old arrived as the youngest player at the level. Johnson wondered whether Basallo would be able to adjust to the level and understand the scouting report, but during their first meeting, the left-handed slugger recited part of what the report said without even seeing it.

“It’s hard to believe that he’s still the age he is. He’s still very young,” said Johnson, who is now the Orioles’ assistant hitting coach, earlier this spring. “Obviously, the body has filled out, but the mentality has changed. He’s a lot more patient now.”

Basallo said it’s “special” to hear the way his coaches speak highly about his maturity. It’s something he’s known about himself for years, even going back to his days as a pre-teen in Santo Domingo.

At 12, he began waking up at 4:30 a.m. for two-a-day workouts at his academy. He lived at the facility, away from his family, during the week so he could participate in the workouts that began at 5 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m. For four years before he signed with the Orioles, Basallo stopped living the life of a kid and, effectively, began his life as a professional baseball player.

“That process when I was 12 to 16 when I was in the academy,” Basallo said, “it helped mature me.”

One call away: Despite the analytical takeover of the sport, there are still aspects of this game that baseball people — scouts, players, coaches — see with their eyes, and they’ll tell you those things matter.

Hyde is obviously impressed with Basallo’s power, which he’s showcased twice this spring with mammoth home runs. The first traveled over the scoreboard at Ed Smith Stadium; the second went so far that Jackson Holliday emphatically declared the measurement of only 403 feet was way off.

But, for Hyde, there’s an intangible — something that also can’t be tracked by Statcast — that gives the skipper entering his 14th year in the major leagues goosebumps.

“I like the way he walks around like a big leaguer at 20 years old,” Hyde said. “He’s not overly impressed. The moment’s not too big for him. It reminds me of what a major league player looks like at 20. Those guys are just built a little bit differently where they feel like they should be here.”

A decade ago, Gary Sánchez was right where Basallo is now. Sánchez, now 32 and the Orioles’ backup catcher behind Adley Rutschman, was the Yankees’ top prospect, a power-hitting catcher from Santo Domingo.

“Well, a lot of talent, and you can see that from the far away,” Sánchez said through Quinones. “He can hit really well, catches really well, there’s a lot of talent there. He still has so much to learn and grow into, but you can very clearly see all the talent that’s there and he likes to work really hard, which is really impressive.”

Pitcher Charlie Morton, the oldest player on the Orioles at 41, is more than twice the age of Basallo. Morton was in his third professional season when Basallo was born in August 2004.

One of the right-hander’s first bullpen sessions as an Oriole was to Basallo, and the two had never really met.

“Man, who is this?” Morton, who was impressed by Basallo’s catching ability, remembers asking, only to learn that he’s one of the best prospects in the game.

Chirinos, who caught for 11 seasons in the big leagues, said Basallo is “close” to being big league ready. Whether he gets that chance in 2025 or he has to wait for 2026 might depend on the productivity and health of Rutschman and Sánchez. But as general manager Mike Elias put it to open camp: “If you’re doing well in Triple-A, that’s your timeline right there.”

With each day that Hyde sees Basallo speaking English with pitchers, tanking home runs and walking around with the swagger of a big leaguer, he realizes even more the talent that’s just one call away.

“It’s just a matter of time.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at jameyer@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.