On the first night of play in the Arizona Fall League, Orioles outfield prospect Heston Kjerstad crushed a homer to right-center and he’s been hitting ever since. Today it seems quite likely that he will be selected to play in the AFL’s Fall Stars game this Sunday. He is taking part in the AFL Home Run Derby on Saturday.

Through Wednesday in 19 AFL games, Kjerstad has hit .353/.385/.624 with a 1.009 OPS, eight doubles, five homers and 17 RBIs. He was tied for the AFL homer lead and ranks sixth in the league in OPS.

Jim Callis, senior writer for MLBPipeline.com, saw Kjerstad play in person earlier in the AFL season.

“On opening day, I saw him hit a massive home run at Scottsdale Stadium,” said Callis. “The good news for Orioles fans is he looks like the guy, the No. 2 pick in the draft from a few years ago. He looks like the guy I thought was the best left-handed college power hitter in that draft. I had seen him at the College World Series in the past and he’s got big left-handed power. It's power over hit (tool). He’s got about a 30 percent strikeout rate in the Fall League. He’s always had some strikeouts but still managed to hit for average if that makes sense.

“He looks like the type of guy that could hit .260 with maybe 30 homers. He’s not a blazing runner or anything, but he moves well enough. He’s got a strong arm. I haven’t talked to the Orioles since I’ve seen him, but I have to think they are quite pleased with how he’s looked.”

These stats seem pretty good. And probably just about any pitcher would take such numbers.

* Top three percent of Major League Baseball in strikeout percentage.

* Top one percent in velocity.

* Top eight percent in whiff percentage and expected slugging against.

* Ranks 10^th in the American League in ERA among pitchers throwing 60 or more innings.

If the Orioles' rebuilding efforts were and are at least partially being modeled after the Astros, is there a way to compare where Baltimore is in the process in looking at Houston’s winning run?

Sure we can look at it and it provides an interesting exercise. But it is certainly not an apples to apples comparison.

The Orioles lost 100 or more games for three straight full seasons from 2018 through 2021. Houston did that from 2011-2013. The 2014 Astros then went 70-92 taking a step forward and breaking out of the 100-loss rut. The Orioles did that going 83-79 last season. The 2015 Houston team then won 86 and made the American League Division Series, so they were in the postseason in year two post 100-loss seasons and that timeframe would put Baltimore in the 2023 playoffs. The 2016 Astros though won just 84 and missed out on the playoffs.

But that all led to 2017, a tainted World Series win, but also the beginning of a run of four World Series appearances in six years. Which team wouldn’t take that run of success? The Orioles did that once of course in yesteryear, from 1966 to 1971, winning the WS twice in the greatest run of success in team history.

So Houston had the 100-loss years, then three seasons with one playoff appearance leading into six years of consistent winning and  World Series appearances. If the O’s followed that exactly, which is unlikely of course, they would be looking at one playoff appearance over the next two years with things really humming starting in 2025.

He didn’t get anything going against the Orioles in a three-game series near the end of the year, but Aaron Judge has hammered Baltimore pitching so much over the years that if he leaves the Yankees, no one in Birdland will shed a tear.

Elation might be the prevailing emotion.

Before Birdland gets too excited about that prospect, for one, Judge might not leave. For two, the Nationals won the World Series the year after Bryce Harper left via free agency. The Astros, who once had George Springer, Carlos Correa and Gerrit Cole on their team, are in another World Series without that trio.

It’s still a team game. Stars are important, but good teams can win even as great players move on.

But seeing Judge, a free agent, sign with a National League team, would be welcoming news in Birdland. In the next-to-last series of the 2022 regular season, with Judge trying to hit his 62^nd homer to set an AL record, the Orioles pitched Judge tough, and he went 1-for-7 with five walks and six strikeouts in the series. Amid much whining from New York fans and media that they dared to not throw him a meatball.

There are some aspects of baseball not up for an argument or debate. It’s simple math and right there in front of our eyes on the stat sheets to see which players won batting titles in each league, or led the league in homers, doubles or saves for instance. It’s clear which team wins the World Series as they decide that on the field.

But some honors are very subjective and up for a vote. And a debate. Like MVP and Cy Young for instance and defensive awards, some of which came out this week.

At this point in baseball we probably have more defensive stats than ever but in my humble opinion, we still struggle as a sport to quantify defense and sometimes there is no consensus about defense. And that is even when intelligent eyes are doing the viewing. And voting.

The finalists were recently announced for Gold Gloves in the American League and the Orioles' Jorge Mateo was not among them at shortstop in the AL. The three finalists were Boston’s Xander Bogaerts, Minnesota’s Carlos Correa and Houston’s Jeremy Peña.

In one advanced metric, Defensive Runs Saved, Mateo ranked ahead of two of the three AL shortstop finalists. While Peña tied for the MLB lead with 15 DRS at short (tied with Miami’s Miguel Rojas), Mateo was next, third in MLB, with 14 DRS. Bogaerts with 4 DRS ranked 11^th and Correa at 3 DRS was 12^th in the majors.

Today, I'm taking a look back at some recent stories and topics that appeared in this space while discussing some interesting potential O's developments. Such as ...

* What to do with right-hander Jordan Lyles and his 2023 team option for $11 million?

Most seem to be in favor of a return of Lyles, who pitched decently enough for the Orioles and was huge in the clubhouse.

Last season over 32 starts and 179 innings, Lyles went 12-11 with a 4.42 ERA. He allowed 26 homers with 52 walks and 144 strikeouts. His WHIP was 1.385 and he walked 2.6 per nine innings and fanned 7.2. His numbers were similar to 2021 in many respects, except his ERA went down from 5.15 and his homer rate of 1.3 fell from 1.9.

It is well documented that Lyles was a real leader for the pitching staff, and he embraced and enjoyed the role. Right-hander Tyler Wells discussed Lyles’ leadership abilities.

With the start of the World Series last night, I found myself playing around with the Stathead feature on Baseball-Reference.com yesterday checking some vary random facts and notes.

Such as which Oriole played in the most postseason games wearing the Orange and Black only? The Oriole to play the most postseason games for Baltimore was Mark Belanger, who was in 43 such games. Brooks Robinson comes next at 39 and Paul Blair is third with 35 games.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson with nine, hit the most postseason homers for the Orioles. Brady Anderson, Eddie Murray and Boog Powell each hit six to tie for second. Don Buford and Brooks Robinson hit five each.

When I checked to see the OPS leaders for the O’s in the playoffs, if the standard was just 25 plate appearances at a minimum, here is the top of the list:

1.076 – Harold Baines
1.007 – Nelson Cruz
.955 – Brady Anderson
.949 – Geronimo Berroa
.939 – Todd Zeile

While the Orioles were the surprise team in the majors this year, gaining 31 wins from 2021 to 2022, the Baltimore farm also had a strong year. But there, the win-loss record is not the standard by which success is fully achieved.

Sure, you would like to win on the farm, but developing players and advancing them forward is the top goal. Helping them get better, moving them through the farm and onto the majors. That is the ultimate way to grade the farm – how many players make the majors and are good when they get there. The farm also produces so-called “prospect capital” that can be traded to bring more talent to the organization and improve overall depth while filling holes that might exist.

Only High-A Aberdeen (78-54) made the playoffs among the full-season clubs, losing in the South Atlantic League finals. But Triple-A Norfolk (74-76) and Double-A Bowie (68-70) were near .500. The Baysox lost out on a playoff spot for their second-half record on the final day of the season. Low Single-A Delmarva (49-81) had the poorest record, but it was a roster filled with international players on the rise, many playing full season ball for the first time and taking some lumps along the way.

In midseason farm system rankings, where outlets are grading your total talent in the organization which is not based on wins and losses, Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com and ESPN all ranked Baltimore No. 1 out of 30 major league organizations.

The Orioles got to the top, and now we'll find out if they can stay there as the team no doubt will use the farm in some different ways with a major league team ready to win now. You can’t force development, so they won’t be rushing players. But some could join the major league roster faster now as needs arise. And for the first time under Mike Elias, we could see him trading from his surplus of minor league talent to help the major league roster this winter. Up to about now, the team was in the position to try and add prospects of all ages to bolster the farm. It was all about rebuilding.

At one time, great things seemed to be in the future for O’s lefty reliever Cionel Pérez. He signed for big dollars as an international amateur out of Cuba in late 2016. He was signed by a Houston staff that included current O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias. One of his minor league pitching coaches was Chris Holt.

He would be reunited with that duo and others from Houston when the Orioles claimed him off waivers from Cincinnati on Nov. 24, 2021.

But no one could have predicted his time with the Orioles would go as well as it did. Or that he would even make the opening day roster out of spring training. But he did do that, and had an ERA of 0.00 through his first 11 O's games into early May. What would turn out to be a great year for him had gotten off to a great start.

We can’t know for sure what exactly allowed Pérez, on the Orioles' watch, to pitch so much better than he previously had, but he lived up to the signing bonus he once signed. Twice.

Houston signed Pérez for $5.15 million on Sept. 12, 2016. But after a medical review produced big concerns over his left elbow, that bonus was reduced to $2 million and Pérez signed again.

The upcoming announcements of the winners for the major awards in Major League Baseball for the 2022 season could provide both some excitement and some frustrations for Orioles fans.

There could be excitement next Monday Nov. 7 when the finalists for the Baseball Writers' Association of America awards are announced. The O's, it seems likely, will have finalists for the AL Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year awards in Adley Rutschman and Brandon Hyde.

The frustration could come if both come close to, but do not win, those awards. 

Seattle's Julio Rodriguez seems to be the favorite for the ROY award and there is some sentiment that Cleveland's Terry Francona will be named top manager.

The BBWAA awards announcements begin on Nov. 14 with the rookies in each league and the AL and NL manager winners will be announced Nov. 15. 

There will be some rules changes coming to Major League Baseball in 2023 and among them is essentially the elimination of infield shifts. Starting next year, two infielders must be on each side of second base and they have to be no deeper than the back-edge of the infield which touches the outfield. Also, teams cannot switch defenders and for instance move a shortstop to the second base spot on the right side against a pull lefty batter.

This change should add some offense and some defense to the game.

The shift takes hits away from batters that are pull happy with groundballs and mostly unable to hit against the shift. Had they been able to do that, they would see fewer shifts. But we know how that turns out.

I went back and looked at the MLB number for Batting Average of Balls in Play (BABIP) every year since 2010. For most of the seasons between 2010 and 2019, the final BABIP was between .297 and .300. But teams kept shifting more and more and that number dropped to .292 in the shortened 2020 season and in 2021. The BABIP was .290 last season.

Now that lefty batters won’t face a seeming picket fence on defense on the right side moving forward, some hits will be added to their up-to-now sinking batting averages. That could create more scoring in the game in general and more scoring chances. More runners can mean more pressure on pitchers, who then make more mistakes in some of those spots and more runs are scored.

Right-hander Jordan Lyles, who was the 2022 Orioles team leader in wins and innings, could return to the Orioles for the 2023 season. The decision will solely be made by the front office as the O’s hold a team option on Lyles for next year.

Should they decide to allow him to leave via free agency, Lyles will get a $1M buyout. Should they pickup that option they will add $10 million to that for a total outlay of $11 million. They are going to owe him $11 million to stay and $1 million to go.

This past season, in 32 starts over 179 innings, Lyles went 12-11 with a 4.42 ERA. He allowed 26 homers with 52 walks and 144 strikeouts. His WHIP was 1.385 and he walked 2.6 per nine and fanned 7.2. His numbers were similar to last year in many respects, except his ERA went down from 5.15 and his homer rate of 1.3 fell from 1.9.

It is well documented that Lyles was a real leader for the pitching staff and he embraced and enjoyed the role. For this article late in the year, Tyler Wells discussed Lyles’ leadership abilities.

“He is invaluable in so many ways,” the right-hander said. “You can’t really put a price on what he has done for us as a starting staff, as a team, and as a mentor for a lot of us. He really teaches us what it’s like to be a starter and how he has made a 10-year career into what he has. All based on certain principles – like going deep into games and giving your team a chance to win every single time.

We’re back. Yes, already. A few more questions today for our readers and O’s fans among us.

Hope most of you are both – readers and O’s fans.

Enough with the small talk.

On to today’s questions:

* What will be the season-ending OPS next year for both Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson?

On the MLB transactions wire last November, the Orioles registered two small blips. Small blips that later made big impact during the 2022 season. On Nov. 8, they claimed right-hander Bryan Baker on waivers from Toronto. On Nov. 24, they added lefty Cionel Pérez via waivers from Cincinnati.

They were part of a Baltimore bullpen filled with waiver claims that was among baseball’s best for most of the year. In fact on Aug. 16, the O’s ‘pen had an ERA of 3.05, which was among the lowest in all of the majors. That would not hold up and there was some leakage and falloff late in the year.

The final ‘pen ERA of 3.49 was still seventh-best in the American League and ninth-best in the majors. The Orioles ranked last in bullpen ERA in 2021 at 5.70, so this over two-run improvement was massive and a huge difference between 110 losses and 79.

The two AL teams still playing in postseason, Houston (2.80) and New York (2.97), ranked 1-2 in the league in bullpen ERA. But in a stat via Baseball-Reference.com called Wins Above Average, the Orioles ‘pen ranked first at 4.1 followed by Houston 2.7 and New York 1.9.

But here is a big difference between these three clubs: While the Houston bullpen threw the fewest innings in the AL and New York’s pitched the fourth-fewest, the Orioles ‘pen accumulated 631 innings, which was fourth-most in the league.

When Rays right-hander Tyler Glasnow took the mound on Oct. 8 in the American League Wild Card Series against the Guardians, no doubt one Orioles pitcher was watching closely. We don’t know that for certain but can assume that Baltimore lefty John Means watched with great interest.

Glasnow has gotten to where Means wants to go - to the end of the rehab process and back to a big league mound after Tommy John surgery. And he did it rather quickly.

In that game versus Cleveland, Glasnow threw five scoreless innings on two hits and 63 pitches. That was a nice success story for his comeback. No doubt the Rays may have handled him differently if his surgery had not taken place on Aug. 4, 2021. That meant if he could come back in around 13 months, he might help the Rays before this year was out. And Glasnow hit that deadline.

He pitched in four Triple-A games, starting out with a one-inning outing for Durham on Sept. 7, returning to a pro mound at about exactly 13 months out. He pitched seven innings in four games for Durham and then joined Tampa Bay for two late-season starts that led to that playoff outing. He threw three innings on 50 pitches Sept. 28 for the Rays and threw 3 2/3 on 64 pitches on Oct. 3. Then he made a successful playoff start 14 months and four days after his procedure.

If Means could be back throwing well in a big league game 14 months after his procedure – which took place April 27, 2022 – he would be back with the Orioles in late June next year. The team would probably be delighted with such a timeline especially if Means could quickly get his usual stuff back. It would be like making a mid-year trade for a top starting pitcher.

With some of the top pitchers in the majors pulling in some of the biggest salaries, short of signing a pitcher for $25-30 million or more, how do the Orioles get a frontline pitcher?

Well, potentially via trade.

But to get something good you have to be prepared to give up something good. Fans for years have suggested trades where their team gives up six mediocre players to get one good one. But teams don’t look to add mediocre players, so acquiring several of them at once is no incentive. What they want is players who have two or three years (or more) of team control left and are good players now. If they are in the prime years of their careers, all the better. If their salary is reasonable, even better yet.

The Orioles have at least one such player. And when it is suggested the team consider trading Anthony Santander to get something they like in return, it makes some in Birdland nervous. They get worried when there is talk of trading productive players. But if the team wants to acquire a pitcher they can slot at or near the top of their rotation, one with some track record of success in the majors and not a prospect who hasn’t done it yet, they need to give up something.

This is where Santander or someone similar could come in. Not because the Orioles want to “get rid of him” or they want to “move him,” but when you talk about “trade chips” that have some significance and could get another club's attention, well, he could.

Of the many aspects of baseball for which we can produce statistics, for me, defense is the hardest to quantify and hardest to find reliable stats. There may be some numbers – advanced or otherwise – that some fans swear by, but I have often struggled to find any to really suit myself.

Many defensive metrics are hard to understand and which one (s) should we rely on? That is not easy to determine either.

But one defensive stat that seems more in the norm now or one used more often now is Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). Maybe O’s fans will like this stat even more when they realize that while their team ranked among the worst in baseball in that stat in the most three recent full seasons, this year Baltimore ranked tied for ninth in team DRS in MLB.

Here are the top 10 teams in DRS from 2022:

129 – New York Yankees
84 – Los Angeles Dodgers
77 – Cleveland Guardians
70 – St. Louis Cardinals
67 – Houston Astros
55 – Arizona Diamondbacks
51 – Milwaukee Brewers
43 – Toronto Blue Jays
38 – Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners

It’s a random-take Tuesday around here. A few thoughts, yes on baseball, for your reading interest. 

Will this become a regular thing here? Even I don't know that answer, but random-take Tuesday has a nice ring to it. Of course, we don't need a special day to express opinions around here. But I digress. 

The playoff format is fine: Just because the Los Angeles Dodgers got upset in the MLB playoffs doesn’t mean we need to make any changes to the playoff format.

Play better. Win more.

The Dodgers had to wait five days to play San Diego as the wild-card round was being played out. They then won just one of four games. Was the layoff an issue for the LAD? Well, the Houston Astros, who won five fewer games than the Dodgers this year, had the same layoff and then went out and went 3-0 against Seattle. No problems for them with the layoff.

In evaluating Ryan Mountcastle’s 2022 season, it is easy to note that his homer total dropped from 33 in 2021 – a new O’s rookie record – to 22 last season. His OPS dropped from .796, which was 14 percent above league average to .729, which was five percent above the league.

In 145 games Mountcastle, who will turn 26 in February, hit .250/.305/.423/.729 with 28 doubles, one triple, 22 homers and 85 RBIs. His homer percentage – the percentage of balls he hit out – dropped from 5.6 in 2021 to 3.6 last season.

Mountcastle’s offense really fell off in the second half when his OPS dropped from .786 to .656. It was .541 in July and .630 in August, and he hit a total of five home runs in those two months.

With the glove Mountcastle, via the eye test, got better. Via the data he got a lot better, going from the the bottom two percent in Outs Above Average (and he did make 18 starts in left field then) to the top 20 percent. Mountcastle tied for first in the AL and tied for third among MLB first basemen with his three outs above average.

“Defensively, I feel like I made some huge strides over there at first base and want to keep improving on that. Hitting, I hit the ball hard all year. It didn’t fall as much as I hoped. It is what it is. Got to keep learning, it’s a tough game and I will try to get better this offseason,” said Mountcastle, during the final series.

Sometimes our fine readers ask me questions in the comments section, and I enjoy trying to answer most of them or form an opinion to pass along. Today is one of those days I ask the questions and seek answers and opinions from the readers.

Welcome to our first offseason edition of “A few questions for O’s fans.”

Feel free to answer all the questions and provide feedback and comments on the opinions of other readers as well.

On to today’s questions:

* Is O’s biggest need a frontline pitcher or hitter? Give reasons for your answer.