SARASOTA, Fla. – Maryland Governor Wes Moore tonight said he is very confident the Orioles will soon have a new lease to play well into the future at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He said things “are moving fast” to get that done.

The Governor and Orioles Chairman & CEO John Angelos visited The Battery Atlanta on Thursday, to explore the 365-day entertainment experience around Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Braves. The Battery Atlanta is a 2,000,000-square-foot mixed-use destination, which offers an unprecedented entertainment experience including shops, restaurants, and a 4,000-seat venue for all genres of live music.

Today the Governor met with team officials and O’s players and threw out the first pitch before tonight’s spring training game at Ed Smith Stadium with Minnesota.

The Orioles current lease expires Dec. 31. Angelos has expressed confidence that a new lease could be completed by the All-Star break.

“I’m very confident that we are moving fast on this," Governor Moore said. "It should not be lost on anybody that the first trip that I took outside of the state was down here. Was to spend time with the Orioles. To make sure they understand how big of a priority this is for me and how big a priority this is for the state. So we feel very confident that we have the same goal. The goal is to make sure there is Orioles baseball in Baltimore for generations to come. I feel very good about our prospects to get this deal done very quickly.”

When I interviewed O’s Hall of Famer Mike Bordick this week to get his take on the club’s talented young infield prospects, he made some interesting points that involve the words "comfort" and "competition." 

The first was used to show that when a club like the Orioles has so many talented young players, those players can see plenty of familiar faces in the clubhouse when they get to the majors. It greatly helps in their move to and transition to the big leagues.

Bordick returned a few days ago from a stint at O’s spring training, where he was a guest instructor for the club.

”Gunnar (Henderson) said it was awesome to come to the majors last year," Bordick noted. "He said there were so many young guys there he had already played with that it gave him some familiarity and the ‘We’re all in this together’ feeling. They are learning from each other and basically knowing there is another group behind them knocking on the door.

“I think there is an overall excitement with the young players that they are going to make an incredible impact on the Orioles, as they already have in kind of elevating the minors to the best in baseball. They want to have the same impact in the majors.

When it comes to getting an opinion on the young Orioles infield prospects that are showing so well at this spring training, we could do a lot worse than Orioles Hall of Famer Mike Bordick.

A 14-year big league veteran who played home games in Baltimore for parts of 1997 through 2002, Bordick was inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame in 2011. A 2000 All-Star, he played a major league-record 110 straight errorless games at shortstop during the 2002 season.

He just spent time in Sarasota as a camp instructor for the team and got to see and work directly with top 100 infield prospects who have won much recognition: Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg, Connor Norby, Joey Ortiz and Coby Mayo.

“The Orioles really have stockpiled some of the best athletes in the country as far as shortstops and guys that can play with versatility in the infield,” Bordick told me in an interview this week. “I got to witness some of that with the young players. And I was blown away on many fronts. First of all, their skill level is at the top. A very exciting group of athletic young players.

“Connor Norby, Mayo, Jackson Holliday, and all of this is kind of spearheaded by Gunnar Henderson. Might be sooner than we think that they will talk about him as an MVP candidate in the American League. Just a skillsy, five-tool player. The speed, the power, the great arm and defensive intelligence.

It started out with a tweet I published following Sunday’s Orioles game, which took just two hours and 16 minutes to play, posing a question. What did fans think of the use of the pitch timer thus far?

Twitter didn’t disappoint in that I received a large amount of responses and I did not count up how many were positive or negative but there were plenty of both. It should come as no surprise that there were responses in the extremes – some that thought it was great and others that felt it was just terrible and ruining the game.

I would guess it’s way too soon to pass any real judgment, but I do thus far like the faster pace of play, quicker pace and shorter time of games.

Through Sunday and their first 10 spring training games, the Orioles had played six games lasting 2:40 or more and four that lasted 2:21 or less.

Through the 10 games, the average time of an O’s spring contest is two hours, 36 minutes. The average time of a game last year in the majors was 3:03 and it was 3:10 in 2021. The last year that a game time averaged under three hours was in 2015 at 2:56. So going with last year’s time and this year’s spring thus far, the O’s games are shorter from last year in MLB by 27 minutes.

In an organization loaded with shortstop prospects – with Gunnar Henderson having signed as a shortstop and others like Joey Ortiz and Jordan Westburg and last year’s overall No. 1 pick Jackson Holliday in the pipeline – a young kid from the Dominican Republic can get overlooked.

But with a smooth-looking left-handed swing that is now producing some impressive stats, and a solid glove, we should not discount Frederick Bencosme from Moca, Dominican Republic.

Bencosme, 20, who could begin this year as starting shortstop at High-A Aberdeen, was indeed a bit overlooked before the Orioles signed him for just $10,000 on Aug. 14, 2020.

But he has put together a batting line of .311/.376/.425/.801 in two seasons on the O’s farm. He played 44 games in the Dominican Summer League in 2021 and 73 last year with two in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League, 59 for low Single-A Delmarva and 12 to end his year with Aberdeen.

Bencosme said he has gained a lot in two years on the Baltimore farm.

Courtesy: Baltimore Orioles

He is now ranked as highly as No. 12 on one Orioles top 30 prospects list, but young O’s catching prospect Samuel Basallo from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is aiming even higher.

“When the list came out, my agent actually sent it to me, so I am aware of the rankings. I feel really proud of that because of all the hard work I have been putting in and you know trying to be the best baseball player that I can be. But to tell you the truth I want to try to finish this year being in the top five of that list,” Basallo told me in an interview last week with the help of Orioles translator Brandon Quinones.

Basallo’s No. 12 ranking is from MLBPipeline.com, which had seven international O’s signees among its latest top 30 that dropped last week. Basallo was the highest-rated among that group. He is also ranked as the club’s No. 14 prospect by FanGraphs.com and No. 15 by Baseball America. And this year he's ranked No. 1 on our second annual MASNSports.com ratings of the Orioles' top 20 international prospects.

At age 18, Basallo is drawing rave reviews for his big power potential and a big right arm. Both get 60 grades from scouts on the 20-80 scouting scale. That means those tools are well above average.

Basallo recalled for me that his involvement with baseball in the Dominican Republic goes back to his very early years.

When we published the Orioles' top 20 international prospects list Saturday with players we have ranked No. 2 through No. 10, there were no pitchers, but several do make this list as we wrap it up today.

Among the final 10 players here are six pitchers, five right-handers and a lefty. Several can bring some heat for such young players but most have to work on deliveries and command to lower walk rates as they move up the minor league ladder.

No. 11 - RHP Luis Sánchez: The Orioles signed Sanchez for $200,000 on Jan. 15, 2019. He turns 20 on March 4. He had some small, nagging injury issues and did not pitch in an official minor league game in 2022 while working on a strengthening program. But he did throw innings against live hitters at instructional league after the season and pitched well and impressed, showing some upper-90s velocity.

From San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, Sánchez brings a fastball that has been up to 99 mph and often sits in the mid-90s. His slider has become a solid secondary, and he throws an average changeup at this point. Between the Florida Complex League and Dominican Summer League in 2021, he went 0-4 with a 7.23 ERA. In 37 1/3 innings he walked 29 and fanned 39, allowing a .268 batting average. But the stuff is plus at times and he needs to just harness his command and stay healthy. He could be a starter for low Single-A Delmarva this year. 

No. 12 – Infielder Joshua Liranzo: A right-handed hitter, he was part of the January 2023 signing class and, at $500,000, got the second-highest bonus from the Orioles in this class after Luis Almeyda, who received $2.3 million and is fourth on this list.

Sometimes on the international amateur market, because players sign at such a young age, teams can get a big talent off a small investment. Players who may not command a big signing bonus when the deadline to sign players arrives, but then mature fast or grow into solid players quickly and produce much more than their signing bonuses might indicate.

The Orioles sure seem to have such a player in 20-year-old shortstop Frederick Bencosme, a young man that I found has an engaging personality to match a smooth left-handed swing. Signed for the small sum of $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic on Aug. 14, 2020, Bencosme was among the best hitters for average last summer on the Baltimore farm, which, considering the bats they have, is saying something.

In fact, among O’s farmhands with 250 or more at-bats last year, no one outhit Bencosme’s average of .311 between his 59 games at low Single-A Delmarva, two in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League and 12 to end the year with High-A Aberdeen.

He is our No. 2-ranked O’s international prospect as today I unveil more of our top 20 international prospects rankings.

Bencosme has a sweet-looking left-handed swing and some solid contact skills. His strikeout rate was just 11.4 in 2021, when he hit .310 in the Dominican Summer League. It was just 12.4 with a 10.8 walk rate during an impressive 59-game run with the Shorebirds last year. With Delmarva he hit .336/.410/.432/.842. He moved to Aberdeen on Aug. 27. And while he only hit .154 in 12 games with the IronBirds, he would show off that smooth and polished swing in the playoffs, where he had a three-hit game. He projects to start this year as the shortstop at Aberdeen and also mix in some games at second and third base.

It was last August on a back field at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota. O’s top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez was going to throw a couple innings of live batting practice in working his way back on rehab toward his September minor league return from a lat issue.

One of the hitters he faced that day was from the O’s Rookie-level Florida Complex League roster, a lefty-hitting catcher named Samuel Basallo. He is a touted young Dominican-born prospect who was signed in January 2021 for $1.3 million, the highest bonus for the club in that international class.

Basallo, now 18, had obviously already grabbed the Orioles' attention with his big power potential and strong right arm. And then he garnered more attention that afternoon when he took the stud pitching prospect opposite field for a big fly.

At Ed Smith Stadium a few days ago, Rodriguez, ranked as the No. 6 prospect in the sport by Baseball America, recalled that one at-bat against Basallo.

“Some of the staff in Florida, I was asking about some of the kids I would face that day and they mentioned Basallo," Rodriguez said. "They were joking around with me. They said, ‘You better not throw him fastballs.’ I went out that day - and I think it was an FCL off-day - and I only got to face two hitters. He was one.

When Baseball America recently released a new top 100 prospects lists, the Orioles had eight players ranked, with three among the top 15. That included the No. 1-ranked prospect in baseball: Gunnar Henderson, who for now still holds prospect eligibility.

On the strength of those rankings, and with a farm showing strong depth as well, Baseball America now ranks the Orioles as having the top-ranked farm system in the major leagues. The Orioles are No. 1, followed by Arizona, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland and the New York Mets.

The next-highest-rated American League East team is Tampa Bay at No. 6. Boston is No. 10 with New York at No. 15 and Toronto No. 17.

According to Baseball America, since 2005, 17 of the 18 teams to have the No. 1 farm system made the playoffs within two years. The only team that took longer, the 2011 Kansas City Royals, made back-to-back World Series appearances in years three and four, winning the Fall Classic in 2015. Five of the last 15 No. 1 farms saw their major league organization win the World Series in the near future after their No. 1 ranking, and there were a total of 13 World Series appearances over the following five seasons between the 15 selections.

With Henderson at No. 1 on the Baseball America top 100, the O’s also have Grayson Rodriguez at No. 6, Jackson Holliday No. 15, Colton Cowser at No. 41, DL Hall No. 75, Jordan Westburg No. 76, Connor Norby at No. 93 and Joey Ortiz ranked No. 95.

He is still officially a rookie, but a versatile one with the glove and a player that had some nice moments during his Orioles' debut in 2022.

That might give Terrin Vavra a leg up on his chance to grab a bench role on the 2023 Orioles. They need a player that can play multiple positions and Vavra spent all winter working on that after he started 11 games last year at second base and 10 in the outfield – nine in left and one in right field.

Already this spring he made a start at third base, entered the opening game at second base and yesterday in Bradenton got the start in left field and batted leadoff.

He knows there is plenty of good competition and some of the highly-ranked prospect young bucks are close to getting to Baltimore.

“You can’t shy away from it (competition), you have to embrace it and attack it head on,” he told us during Birdland Caravan.

Last year the Orioles had one veteran pitcher in their rotation for most of the year, a guy to try and give them some quality innings while also helping the numerous young pitchers around him on the staff. That was Jordan Lyles, who was very well respected in the Baltimore clubhouse.

This year they feel they have two pitchers like that in lefty Cole Irvin, acquired in a trade from Oakland and right-hander Kyle Gibson, signed to a one-year deal in free agency.

Irvin went 9-13 with a career-best 3.98 ERA last year over 181 innings. Had he remained with Oakland he may have been the A’s Opening Day starter. He recorded strong numbers in WHIP (1.160) and walk rate (1.8) while making 15 quality starts. He produced 1.4 fWAR to rank second among A’s pitchers.

He does that with a lower velocity fastball, one that averages 90.7 mph on his four-seamer. But he is pitch efficient and his 14.4 pitches per inning were the second fewest in the American League, while his 1.79 BB/9 ratio ranked sixth-best among qualified AL hurlers.

When I interviewed O’s assistant pitching coach Darren Holmes Thursday on WBAL Radio, the Hot Stove show, he said his early impressions of Irvin were very good.

SARASOTA, Fla. – Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and his staff have several decisions coming when spring training nears the end and the regular season is about to begin.

Not only do they have to set the 26-man roster for the big league squad but also for Triple-A where they get callups and reinforcements throughout the year. And the Norfolk team should see numerous top 100 prospects on its roster through the season. Players like Colton Cowser, Joey Ortiz, Connor Norby and Jordan Westburg could be there and others could find their way later in the year such as Heston Kjerstad and Coby Mayo.

The top young prospects will need to get their at-bats, so where does that leave roster room at Norfolk for veteran non-roster players in camp, who might also go there as injury insurance and to provide more depth. A list that could include a Nomar Mazara, or Daz Cameron, Josh Lester or Lewin Díaz for instance. Can the club try to keep the vets too or will some leave via opt outs or other avenues if they don’t make the Opening Day roster.

“It really depends on a case-by-case basis,” Elias said during Saturday's live broadcast on the Orioles Radio Network, heard in Baltimore via WBAL and 98 Rock. “Some of them do not have any type of opt out. Others, by virtue of their service time, have opt outs, several of them that are mandated by the collective bargaining agreement. Some of them are at the end of camp, some in May, some in June. Mazara fits that bill. And there are others that have negotiated a couple of opt outs or what are called assignment clauses. Which is, sort of, a step down from an opt out.

“That is going to impact some of these guys staying in the organization, if they don’t make the team. We recognize that not all of them are going to make it out of the chute, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

SARASOTA, Fla. – For young Orioles infield prospect Coby Mayo, it was not just another spring training game. It was his first chance to be in the starting lineup wearing an Orioles jersey.

In an interview before yesterday’s spring training opener with the Twins, Mayo recalled he had gotten one previous spring at-bat against the Yankees and had played one inning in the field versus the Phillies last spring. But Saturday he got the start, batting eighth for the Orioles and playing at third base.

He is a non-roster player at O’s spring camp and his day to make this team is not quite yet at hand, but for now Mayo, 21, is soaking up all he can in a clubhouse with big leaguers.

“Just being in this environment has been great,” he said in the Baltimore clubhouse. “Really cool to watch these guys last year do what they did and have a lot of success during the season. Coming in and being a part of this environment this spring – it’s been really good. It’s a fun group to be around and cool to see how everyone acts with each other. This (a playoff chase) is hopefully the next big thing for this team.”

On a day the Orioles beat the Twins 10-5, Mayo had a somewhat uneventful day. He went 0-for-1 with a walk and played five innings at third base, but no balls were hit his way. 

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles' 2023 spring training schedule begins today at Ed Smith Stadium. They host the Minnesota Twins at 1:05 this afternoon to begin a Grapefruit League schedule that runs through March 27 in advance of the club’s March 30th regular-season opener at Boston.

So the battle for rotation spots and pitching staff jobs takes another step today with the start of spring games. While veterans like Cole Irvin and Kyle Gibson – barring injury – almost certainly have a starting-five spot secure, there are a host of others battling for only three other spots.

There are more strong candidates than just three for those jobs, including Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells and DL Hall. And then there are Spenser Watkins, who made 20 O’s starts last year, Austin Voth, who made 17, and Bruce Zimmermann, who took the mound as a starter 13 times.

On Thursday night I hosted the "Orioles Hot Stove" radio show on WBAL and one of the guests was assistant pitching coach Darren Holmes, who is beginning his fourth season with the club and third in his current role.

Holmes said the entire pitching staff seemed to report in pretty good shape, and all did good work on their games and pitches over the winter.

It’s been less than a month since he was traded to the Orioles. But over the next month we’ll see lefty Cole Irvin pitch in spring training games for his new team as he hopes to make a mark in the Orioles rotation this year.

On Jan. 26 the Orioles traded minor league infielder Darell Hernaiz, their No. 16 prospect at the time via MLBPipeline.com, to the Oakland Athletics for Irvin and A-ball right-hander Kyle Virbitsky.

Irvin went 9-13 with a career-best 3.98 ERA and 15 quality starts for the A’s in 2022. He threw 181 innings – the 12^th-most in the American League – and recorded a 1.16 WHIP with a low 1.8 walk rate and low 6.4 strikeout rate. His ERA was 17^th-best in the AL among qualifying pitchers.

Irvin’s command and control are very good and his walk rate was the sixth-best among AL qualifying pitchers. And among pitchers that threw 100 innings or more last season, his walk rate was 18^th-best. In 2022 he walked two batters or fewer in 29 of 30 starts, and eight times he didn’t walk a single batter.

And his 14.4 pitches per inning, which would be 86 for six innings and 101 pitches over seven frames, ranked second-best in the AL last season and third in the major leagues. He needed just 15.0 pitches per inning during the 2021 season. He's the model of pitch efficiency.

We have about come to the end of “prospects ranking season” in baseball with the release on Wednesday of the FanGraphs.com top 100 prospects list. It actually goes 112 players deep.

The Orioles placed six players on this list, all among the first 66 ranked players. Infielder Gunnar Henderson got another No. 1 ranking and is the consensus top prospect in baseball, and he still holds rookie eligibility as 2023 begins. He is among the favorites to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award this November.

On the FanGraphs list, he also got just one of two 65 FV player rankings, meaning their Future Value number. FanGraphs calls Henderson “a well-rounded star and franchise cornerstone.”

Young Jackson Holliday, an O’s non-roster spring invitee about to enter his first full pro season, is ranked No. 9 and is one of 12 players on the FanGraphs list getting 60 FV grades.

Here is recap of where six major outlets ranked 11 different Orioles who got a top 100 listing from at least one outlet. I abbreviate BA for Baseball America, BP for Baseball Prospectus, MLBP for MLBPipeline.com and Athl for The Athletic. The rest are self-explanatory.

It is pretty clear that the Orioles are excited to be taking part in spring training and fired up for a season in which expectations are raised after the team went 83-79 last year. They had the best record of any American League non-postseason team.

Now they take aim at their first playoff berth since the 2016 AL wild card game.

“Guys are really excited. Really love the talent here. It’s a great character group,” manager Brandon Hyde told reporters Tuesday at Ed Smith Stadium.

He was asked about his message to the team, which wants to show it can be a contender after the Orioles gained 31 wins from 2021 to 2022.

“Honestly, just want us to build off last year,” Hyde said. “We have a (large) core group of guys, they got a lot of confidence from last year. It’s pretty much just building off a season where nobody expected us to do anything.

He is not only the oldest player on the Orioles’ 40-man roster, but he is also the only one born before 1990. He is right-handed pitcher Kyle Gibson, signed to a one-year contract in December.

After a year where his ERA was 5.05 over 31 starts, many may consider him a back-end of the rotation talent, even if he slots higher than that in the Orioles' Opening Day rotation.

But I can present some stats that might surprise you – they did surprise me.

It starts with this: Yes, Gibson’s ERA was 5.05 for all of last year. But it was 4.08 entering September. The average MLB ERA for 2022 was 3.96, so at that point he was not too far off. But in six starts to end his season – from that point on – Gibson allowed an ERA of 9.73. That meant his ERA ballooned up to end his year. It also meant his first-half ERA of 4.35 looked much better than the second-half number of 6.01.

Gibson, 35, is a former first-round pick in the 2009 draft out of the University of Missouri who has registered a 4.52 career ERA and 1.385 WHIP in 10 MLB seasons. He spent the first seven with the Twins, parts of the next two with the Rangers and parts of the last two with the Phillies.

If the question is can someone surprise us and make the Orioles’ Opening Day roster, no doubt that answer is yes. Nothing is completely set and we haven’t seen one pitch thrown in a spring game yet. Jobs can be won, even by non-roster players and we can and may well see surprises.

This leads to another question – how important will spring training stats and performances be?

In the past my impression has been that the O’s front office doesn’t put much stock in spring stats. No one is likely to win a job based for the most part on spring numbers. But as always in spring, the numbers mean more to fringe players and that those out to win jobs. If Anthony Santander bats .150 this spring or Ryan Mountcastle goes without a homer or is not driving the ball as Opening Day approaches, their spot in the Game 1 lineup is likely pretty secure at that point.

Even newcomers like Adam Frazier and James McCann have track records the team already likes to have acquired them in the first place. They seem to have, in my humble opinion, little to prove or show in spring games.

The other aspect that is always tricky about spring training is who were the stats acquired against. Did a pitcher roll through the Rays B team for three innings or did he roll through a couple of innings against mostly starters in a road game? Some veteran players may be working on certain pitches or certain hitting approaches that could lead to poor stats but lead them to learn about tweaks or adjustments they will need when the season starts.