Game 1 of the 2024 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees was seen by 15.2 million viewers on Fox television.

That number was up 62 percent from last year’s Game 1 when 9.35 million watched the Diamondbacks and Rangers. It was the most-watched World Series opening game since Astros-Dodgers was seen by 15.33 million in 2017.

A Baseball America article called the audience “massive” and noted that often the World Series total average viewership for the series exceeds the Game 1 number.

Said BA: “While 2016’s 22.8 million average viewership is unlikely to be exceeded, an average of 15 million viewers would blow away any recent World Series. Last year’s Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series averaged an all-time low 9.1 million viewers per game, and there hasn’t been a World Series to top 12 million in average viewership since 2019. A 15-million average viewership would rank as the third highest since 2010, which is impressive given TV viewership for anything but football has dwindled dramatically in the past decade-plus thanks to the demise of cable TV and the rise of streaming services and social media.”

According to Sports Media Watch, Game 2 on Saturday averaged 13.44 million viewers on FOX (13.8 million across all Fox Sports platforms). That was the largest audience for Game 2 since Dodgers-Red Sox in 2018 (13.51M) and a 65% increase from last year’s record-low 8.15 million for Diamondbacks-Rangers.

It has been true for quite a while now. While catcher Samuel Basallo is the shining star of the Orioles surging and improved international program, he is not the only possible future big league talent on the horizon.

On the MLBPipeline.com Orioles top 30 prospects list right now there is a whopping 13 international players, a high mark since Mike Elias and his staff took over in November of 2018.

Not long after, in January of 2019, Koby Perez was hired as senior director, international scouting. Now with the club for six years, in October of 2023, Perez was promoted to his latest role as vice president, international scouting and operations.

He has presided over four international signing classes. In January of 2021, the O’s signed their first two international amateurs to bonuses of at least a million dollars in Basallo and Maikol Hernandez. They now have five players that have signed for a million or more.

The latest examples that the O’s international program is becoming a bigger force came this month via Baseball America.

Well I was not there and only saw a brief story or two on Tony Clark’s comments about use of pitchers. They were made at the World Series before the opening game on Friday.

Clark is the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

"The conversations that we've had with our players have suggested that unless or until you draw a line in the sand and force change, that the decision-makers on any one particular team are going to continue to make the decisions that they're making, which is have pitchers' - starting and relievers - max effort for the period of time that they can have them," Clark said at Dodger Stadium. “As soon as they seem to run out of gas, as the data suggests that they're going to, recycle them out and (move) to burn out another pitcher."

Because I have not seen many other quotes from Clark on this topic, I am not sure how he sees teams burning out pitchers. It is certainly not from use. Most starters are held often to about 100 pitches and teams pull starters often when they reach the third time through the batting order. Only four MLB pitchers even threw as much as 200 innings in 2024. Relievers are often held to one inning and seldom pitch more than two days in a row.

From this standpoint, teams are trying to protect pitchers and their investments in them.

Five days after the end of the World Series, which began last night, teams can sign free agents. It could be an active winter for the Orioles, who have two key free agents of their own hitting the market.

They are right-handed pitcher Corbin Burnes and right fielder Anthony Santander. Both are almost certain to get qualifying offers from the Orioles, which would net the team a draft pick if they leave and sign elsewhere.

The consensus opinions seem to be that Burnes is almost certain to leave while the O’s may have at least an outside shot at retaining Santander.

But if that were to come at the price from one prediction this week, I can’t see that happening.

Former big league general manager Jim Bowden predicted who top 45 free agents will be, where they end up and at what price in The Athletic this week (subscription may be required).

On the one hand, some complained about a lack of star-power last year when No. 5 seed Texas played No. 6 seed Arizona in a World Series matchup featuring teams that played in the Wild Card round.

This year is very different.

For just the fifth time since 1995, the World Series features the winningest clubs in each league. It is the first World Series pitting the major markets of New York and Los Angeles since 1981.

While some fans may not be excited about a Yankees-Dodgers matchup, the ratings figure to be good, maybe great. Last year’s five-game World Series with the Rangers and Diamondbacks was the least watched with an average audience of 9.08 million viewers.

According to a Forbes article, the TV ratings have been mostly good this year.

During spring training, I asked O's center fielder Cedric Mullins to ponder a possibility. And that was that the 2024 season could be the last together for the trio of Mullins, Austin Hays and Anthony Santander. 

We knew then that Santander would be a free agent at the end of the season. We didn’t know then that Hays would be traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in July. The gang is already broken up.

On Opening Day next year, it’s possible that Mullins will stand alone. Hays is gone and Santander could be next.

“It’s has definitely popped into my head, that this could be the last go around,” Mullins told me during that March 2024 interview. “At the same time, we want this to be the best one if that is the case. We know how the business works. It is what it is. There is always that hope, that possibility that we stick around for the long haul. But if that is the case, let’s go out with a bang," said Mullins.

Winning 10 fewer games and winning none in the postseason is not what Mullins had in mind then.

Early this month, not long after the Orioles were eliminated from the American League playoffs by the Kansas City Royals, I expressed an opinion about the Orioles offense.

An offense that produced solid stats over the full season but fell off big time late in the year.

One way to break it down is with facts and going through a period where it was really good and then going through the period when it was not.

Through July 31, the Orioles were 65-44 (.596) with the third-best record in the majors. They were on a 97-win pace. In those 109 games, or 67 percent of the season, they scored 5.07 runs per game (third in MLB) and posted an OPS of .774 (first in MLB).

So, a top three record and offense.

Jumping around the baseball world with a few random notes and takes.

Well at least this year the narrative that the top teams don’t win in baseball and that it’s hard to have a five-day layoff before the playoffs for division winners, were blown all to heck.

We need a new narrative!

Last year wild card teams played in the World Series when No. 5 seed Texas beat No. 6 seed Arizona.

This year’s matchup is the top-seed New York Yankees from the American League and No. 1 seed Los Angeles Dodgers from the National League.

The Orioles have some important roster decisions coming soon. Within five days of the end of the World Series they have to decide if they will pick up club options for 2025 on a few players to include reliever Seranthony Domínguez.

It comes down to a $7.5 million dollar decision. He’ll get $8 million if they pick up his option and a $500,000 buyout if they do not.

Looking at his overall numbers for 2024, where Domínguez went 3-4 with a 4.45 ERA in 58 2/3 innings with a career-high 1.8 homers allowed per nine, you might say do not pick up this option at that price.

On the other hand, he was better with the Orioles than Phillies despite still giving up a lot of home runs and provides another big bullpen arm in the late innings to join returning Félix Bautista. The O’s are hopeful Bautista will be his old self but bringing back Domínguez could provide some buffer. And added depth.

The O’s added Domínguez and since departed outfielder Cristian Pache from the Phillies for outfielder Austin Hays on July 26.

When I wrote about the Orioles' success in the early years of the American League Championship Series, in this story on Friday, it was a fun story to do.

It reminded me of my youth and falling in love with this sport watching the likes of Brooks, Cakes, Frank and Boog. Earl Weaver was there to run the show and fire us all up. Four 20-game winners, four World Series appearances in six years from 1966 through 1971.

The young tyke wearing his school tie heading off each morning to St. Michael’s in Fullerton was excited to talk about the Orioles with his classmates. Maybe my first version of taking calls on the Orioles! With no commercial breaks!

In 1960, the Orioles, who of course played for the first time in Baltimore in 1954, had their first winning season. They won 89 games but were eight games out. The 1964 club won 97 and finished two games out. Remember, the teams with the best records in the American and National leagues went straight to the World Series back then. The 1966 Birds, now with Frank Robinson on the club, won 97 games and then swept the favored Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, pitching shutouts in games two, three and four.

It was the first of three WS wins for the Orioles to also include 1970 and 1983. 

The Orioles acquired Ryan O’Hearn from the Kansas City Royals on Jan. 3, 2023 for cash considerations. And now, whether he remains an Oriole in 2025, will have a lot to do with how they consider using their cash.

He has a $8.0 million dollar club option for next season. It was originally $7.5 million but that could expand by $500,000 if he exceeded 120 games played, which he did at 142.

On the one hand, some might consider that pricey after he played for $3.5 million last season, an amount that was settled in February to avoid an arbitration hearing. On the other hand is it that pricey for a key player who took 76 percent of his plate appearances in the 2024 season by hitting either third or fourth?

It's a decision the club must make within five days of the end of the World Series. 

He's a middle-of-the-order bat on a team with an above-average major league offense.

There was a time in Major League Baseball when there were no divisions – just the American League and National League. The two winners “won the pennant” and went to the World Series.

In MLB, the first “modern” World Series was in 1903 and one team from each league would play in the World Series through the 1968 season.

But that all changed in 1969 – the beginning of divisional play in baseball and now there was an AL East and AL West, same in the National League. Now four teams would make the playoffs. Now for the first time ever there would an American League Championship Series. It was a best-of-five series. That changed when it became best-of-seven in 1985.

The Orioles played in, hosted and won, the first AL Championship Series game on Oct. 4, 1969 at Memorial Stadium. Led by Earl Weaver, they beat manager Billy Martin’s Minnesota Twins 4-3 in 12 innings and went on to a three-game sweep.

In that first-ever ALCS contest, lefty Mike Cuellar (23-11) started for Baltimore and Jim Perry (20-6) for the Twins, who sported a lineup featuring Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva.

Will a team be slugging their way to a World Series title over the next couple of weeks. Do home runs now play well in the playoffs?

For years a narrative was that teams that hit a lot of homers won’t in the playoffs and that type of offense won’t work.

Are the 2024 Orioles evidence of that. They finished second in the majors in homers this year but hit just one and lost two games to Kansas City scoring one run on that homer.

But other slugging teams are winning and have won. The 2023 Texas Rangers finished the 2023 regular season third in the majors in homers and OPS (.790) and runs per game at 5.44.

On their way to the World Series, they swept the Orioles three straight out-homered them 5-3 in that series. For the postseason Texas hit 30 homers in 17 games, produced a .792 OPS and averaged 5.70 runs per game. They put up big offense during the year and in the postseason too. Their postseason team ERA was a respectable 3.83 and sure you are going to need some solid pitching too.

As the Orioles didn’t win as much in the final months of the season, the focus was often on the offense which was not performing at earlier levels.

But also, during those last two months and the in the postseason the team was without a key rotation pitcher (several of course) in right-hander Grayson Rodriguez.

Up until he got scratched for a start Aug. 6 at Toronto right before game time, he was having a pretty solid season. And I will post some stats later that make it look like he is trending toward becoming a top-of-rotation starter. Maybe Rodriguez will turn out to be that next ace the organization drafted, developed and produced.

His last start this season was July 31 and then he was out with right lat/teres discomfort, a similar injury that cost him three months on the farm during 2022. The O’s were hopeful he would get back late in the year, but he didn’t make it. He is expected to be a 100 percent full go to start 2025.

Rodriguez went 13-4 with a 3.86 ERA over 20 starts in 2024. In 116 2/3 innings he posted a 1.243 WHIP with a 2.8 walks per nine and 10.0 strikeouts.

It came up again during Game 1 of the AL Wild Card round playoffs when the Orioles hosted the Kansas City Royals. The Orioles, who issue some of the fewest intentional walks in the majors, had a chance to walk Bobby Witt Jr. with a base open in a key spot.

They pitched to Witt with a man on third and two outs in the top of the sixth of a 0-0 game. Witt singled to left off Corbin Burnes to score the game’s only run as Kansas City beat the Orioles 1-0 and they were halfway to a series win.

Witt batted the next day with runners on first and third and two outs in the sixth of a 1-1 tie. This time he singled in a go-ahead run again. There was a base open here – just not first-base – so that would have been a real unconventional intentional walk to load the bases, but it was there if the O’s wanted it.

The O’s were not beat in that series because they pitched to Witt, it was more about scoring one run in two games. But when you are not scoring, every run against you seems magnified.

I would have walked Witt in that spot in Game 1.

They are two of the most important players on the Orioles roster. They both have had some struggles in their short careers. We are talking here about Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman.

If one player got turned around in Gunnar, can’t Rutschman do the same in 2025?

Sure he can and after producing an OPS of .814 in 2023 to rank 15^th in the American League and .893 in 2024 to rank seventh, does anyone even remember Gunnar’s struggles?

Yep, probably not.

But early in the 2023 season there were even fans calling for Henderson to be sent back to the minor leagues. From Opening Day 2023 through May 12, Henderson had this batting line - .170/.341/.310/.651 over 33 games. Through June 8 and 54 games he had started to turn it around but still was batting just .206 although his OPS was up to .732. The rest is history.

When three teams that each won division titles and more than 100 games last year all lost in their first playoff series and went a combined 1-9 last October, the theory was that the long layoff was an issue.

This year three of the four division winners, teams that once again had five-day layoffs before opening their Division Series, won to advance to the League Championship Series.

In 2023, the 104-win Atlanta Braves and the 101-win Orioles and Dodgers went out quick in the postseason.

But this year three division winners - the Yankees, Dodgers and Guardians - are moving on. The Los Angeles Dodgers shut out San Diego in Game 4 and Game 5 to advance to face the Mets for the National League Championship. The American League series, which starts at Yankee Stadium on Monday, has New York versus Cleveland. 

So much for the theory that the five-day layoff is too much to overcome. That narrative was fun while it lasted. 

An Oriole since the December 2016 Rule 5 draft and an Oriole now for parts of eight major league seasons, the 2025 season could open with outfielder Anthony Santander playing for another major league club for the first time.

He’s finally reached the service time to become a free agent and Santander’s chance to cash in on a 44-homer season is almost at hand.

Can the Orioles re-sign him and how far should they go to do just that? No doubt the team would love to have a middle-of-the-order bat back for their 2025 lineup. Not to mention a team leader who seems universally loved within the clubhouse. The fans admire and appreciate Santander greatly as well.

His loss would be big.

As usual, it may come down to years and price. If he gets a three-year deal, say in the $75 million range, would the O’s be in the hunt at those dollars? If the years and dollars go up from there which is possible, maybe very possible, how competitive will they be? Should they be?

Late in the year, and for much of the 2024 season, O’s fans saw right-hander Corbin Burnes take the mound and pitch as the ace he was said to be.

You can earn ace status when you win a Cy Young Award, as he did with Milwaukee in 2021. From 2020 through 2023, Burnes finished sixth, first, seventh and eighth for the award. He should be in line for another finish up the board this winter too.

Over 32 O's starts, Burnes went 15-9 with a 2.92 ERA over 194 1/3 innings. He recorded 22 quality starts and had a 1.096 WHIP while averaging 2.2 walks per nine and 8.4 strikeouts per nine.

His K per nine has dropped every year since 2020 and yet he posted a sub 3.00 ERA in four of those five seasons. The guy is just good with a big strikeout total or not.

Look at what might be his last two O’s starts, one in the regular season at Yankee Stadium where he was held to five innings and one in the playoffs against Kansas City.

If the Orioles are to maintain a highly rated farm system, they will need to keep producing premium prospects. First there were Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman and they sort of turned it over to the likes of Coby Mayo, Jackson Holliday and Samuel Basallo.

The O’s hope more is on the way through their 2024 MLB Draft class. A class headed by their top selection, North Carolina center fielder Vance Honeycutt, who they picked No. 22 overall in July.

On the last day to sign draft picks, which was Aug. 1, he signed a $4 million dollar bonus deal, just over the No. 22 slot amount of $3,802,200.

To say the least, Honeycutt had some adjustments to make to pro ball and had his struggles in a small 13-game sample, eight with Low-A Delmarva and five in early September with High-A Aberdeen.

He went 9-for-51, batting .176/.250/.196/.446. When I interviewed Honeycutt, 21, in early September in Aberdeen, he talked about his first few pro games.