It is reasonable to wonder how many more stolen bases we will see in the majors this coming season with the new rules in place. Those who can run may get more chances than in previous seasons. It’s fair to wonder what that could mean for the team with the two top basestealers in the American League last year: the Orioles.

Shortstop Jorge Mateo stole 35 bases on 44 attempts to lead the AL in 2022, and his teammate Cedric Mullins was second, just one base behind, getting 34-of-44. Tampa Bay’s Randy Arozarena stole 32 bases, and then came Bobby Witt Jr. of Kansas City with 30.

By leading the AL, Mateo became the third Oriole (fourth occurrence) to lead the league in steals, joining Brian Roberts (2007) and Luis Aparicio (1963 and 1964). He is the sixth O's player (eighth time) since 2000 with at least 35 stolen bases.

As a team, the Orioles stole 95 bases (with Mateo and Mullins producing nearly 73 percent of that) to rank tied for fifth in the AL and tied for 11^th in the majors. It was a big jump from Baltimore’s 54 steals in 2021, which was tied for 12^th-most in the AL.

So they return two of the top basestealers at a time when stealing bases could become easier. Or it sure appears they could.

Right-hander Dean Kremer, who had an ERA of 7.55 in 13 starts in the 2021 season, reduced that by over four runs per game last year. It provides hope that he could again this season be a key member of the Baltimore rotation.

No one has won a job yet and a lot can happen over the next few weeks under the Florida sun, but Kremer had a strong season over 22 games and 125 1/3 innings in 2022, going 8-7 with a 3.23 ERA. His 124 ERA+ was 24 percent better than league average.

Kremer did that while posting below-average strikeout rates, but he was above average in walk rate and homer rate, and used solid spin rates to create effective pitches that provided him with a strong season.

His ERA, had he enough innings to qualify for league leaders at 162, would have ranked 11^th last year in the American League. Among pitchers throwing 120 or more innings as a baseline, his ERA was tied for 17^th. Among the 18 pitchers on that list, he ranked last in K rate at 6.2 and his strikeout percentage was 17.0 while major league average was 22.9. His walk rate, though, was 2.4 and his walk percentage of 6.6 topped the major league average of 8.5.

Kremer was particularly good when pitching on exactly four day’s rest, going 3-2 with a 1.77 ERA and .656 OPS against.

The first day of spring training for the Orioles produced the first news of a player that will miss opening day. And it comes from the O’s bullpen. We can always count on the start of spring to produce information on which players will be “slow-played” or be on a list of no play, not playing yet at all.

Bullpen righty Dillon Tate will begin the season on the injured list. He strained his right flexor/forearm in November. That will also keep him from pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.

We also learned yesterday that closer Félix Bautista is questionable for opening day as he’s been rehabbing his left knee this winter and is on a strengthening program for his shoulder. Missing one or both of these pitchers for any length of time would be a huge loss.

Also, lefty DL Hall will be slow-played due to lower lumbar discomfort, which first showed up about three weeks ago.

O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias told reporters they expect Tate back in late April or early May. Tate’s situation makes the addition of right-hander Mychal Givens maybe more important now.

The Orioles take the field today in Sarasota, Fla., for the first official workout of the new season. Yes, baseball is back. The first spring training game is set for a week from Saturday at Ed Smith Stadium against the Minnesota Twins.

With the new year comes new rules in Major League Baseball. We will see a pitch clock, restrictions on infield shifts and larger bases.

The pitch clock has at least one intended goal: reducing time of games. The average MLB game lasted three hours and seven minutes last season, and officials think there is a chance we see that time trimmed as much as 25 minutes per contest.

Requiring that two infielders be positioned on either side of second base should allow for more action in the game. More balls should get through to the outfield, leading to more hits, but infielders also will have more ground to cover, putting a premium again on range and possibly bringing more great defense back to the game. Think more diving plays and off-balance throws.

Last year teams shifted a combined 60,765 times on the infield, with more shifts coming versus lefty batters on the right side of the infield. Now there can only be two infielders on each side of second base, and they must be on the infield dirt. The MLB batting average for 2022 of .243 should go up a bit. That was the lowest in the game since 1968. On the other hand, minor league teams last year saw just a two-point gain in batting average – from .247 to .249 - with the shift-limiting rules in place.

While the Orioles' stated goal for this year is to take their 83 wins from last year, build on that and make the playoffs, not everyone believes that will happen. Or at least their predictions and projections lead you to believe they are skeptical.

The Orioles gained 31 wins last year to get to 83, and that was the second-biggest win gain from one year to the next in team history. The 1989 Orioles won 87 games, a year after the club won just 54 in 1988, for a plus-33.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 2022 Orioles were the first team since 1900 to win at least 77 games in a season after losing 110 or more games the previous year. And they were also the first team in major league history to win more than 70 games after finishing each of the previous three full seasons (150+ G) with 100+ losses.

But while Birdland is excited to see if their club can get back to the playoffs in 2023, others being heard from are trying to throw some cold water on the whole thing.

We can always count on the PECOTA projections for this.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards will host another major concert in September. Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have announced additional North American dates for their 2023 international tour in 18 cities.

“As a lifelong fan of Bruce Springsteen and of my hometown, it’s an honor to announce that on Sept. 9, 2023, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will play their first ever outdoor stadium show in Baltimore at Oriole Park at Camden Yards,” said Orioles Chairman and CEO, John Angelos. 

The newly added shows will begin at Chicago's Wrigley Field on Aug. 9 and running through Dec. 8 at San Francisco's Chase Center. Multiple nights have been scheduled for Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park (Aug. 16 and 18), New Jersey's MetLife Stadium (Aug. 30 and Sept. 1), Toronto's Scotiabank Arena (Nov. 14 and 16) and Los Angeles' Kia Forum (Dec. 4 and 6). Tickets for the 22 added North American shows will go on sale over the course of the next two weeks.

For many cities, the tour will be using Verified Fan via Ticketmaster. Verified Fan requires pre-registration at verifiedfan.ticketmaster.com/springsteen and is open through Sunday Feb. 19 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Verified Fan is intended to make it easier for fans to get tickets, and harder for resellers and bots.

For more information about Verified Fan visit blog.ticketmaster.com/bruce-springsteen-e-street-band2023/.

He is one of a host of Orioles' rotation candidates that number about 10 to 12 as spring training is set to begin, but right-hander Kyle Bradish may have a leg up on some of his competition. His strong finish to the 2022 season is one big reason for that.

On the year, over 23 games and 117 2/3 innings, he went 4-7 with a 4.90 ERA, allowing 119 hits with 46 walks and 111 strikeouts. He recorded a 1.402 WHIP with a 3.5 walk rate, 8.5 K rate and 1.3 homer rate. He had a 45.3 groundball rate and his Fielding Independent Pitching of 4.39 was an improvement on his overall ERA.

But late in the year he was throwing quite well. Over his last 13 games, after returning in late July from right shoulder inflammation, he went 3-3 with a 3.28 ERA and 1.16 WHIP. In those games he allowed a batting average of .212 and .607 OPS.

But in his last eight games he really had a strong finishing kick, going 3-2 with a 2.76 ERA and he allowed just two homers over 45 2/3 innings. In those eight games, he recorded four quality starts, posted a 1.01 WHIP, allowing a .169 batting average and OPS of .500. All just about dominant numbers.

And those eight games were against in order Houston, Cleveland, Toronto, Boston, Toronto, Houston, Boston and the New York Yankees. In the two starts versus the eventual World Series winning Astros, he pitched a combined 16 2/3 scoreless innings allowing just four hits with two walks and 16 strikeouts.

The 2022 season may have seen the Orioles produce their first winning record since 2016. And it saw them lose fewer than 100 games in a full-season for the first time since 2017.

In the end there were 83 wins for the Orioles, and a winning percentage of .512. But it didn’t start all that well.

They were 0-3 after being swept to start the year in St. Petersburg, Fla. and 1-5 after two series. They were 3-8 after 11 games and 7-14 at the end of April. They were 21-30 when May ended and did not reach the .500 mark until getting to 44-44 on July 12.

But the group of Orioles heading to spring training this week has designs on playing well right from the jump this year and the schedule could play into those hopes.

The Orioles officially begin their 14^th spring training in Sarasota, Fla. this week. Pitchers and catchers are due to report by Wednesday, but no doubt the camp is bustling already with players reporting early and the small group of prospects taking part in an early hitting camp.

We are now a little over three weeks away from the start of the fifth World Baseball Classic. The now expanded to 20-nation tourney begins with four pools of five teams each playing games in Taiwan, Tokyo, Phoenix and Miami.

Team USA will play in Pool C at Chase Field in Phoenix along with Canada, Colombia, Mexico and Great Britain. The two top teams in each of the four pools advance to the quarterfinals and play is then single-elimination, one and done, from that point on. The semi-finals are March 19-20 in Miami with the championship game set for March 21.

Here are past winners:

2006 – Japan

2009 – Japan

When it comes to scoring runs, the Orioles were slightly below American League average in 2022 – due in large part to a scoring drought late in the year.

The AL average for runs per game last season was 4.22 and the Orioles were at 4.16. They ranked 10^th in the league in runs scored, up from 2021, when the Orioles were 14^th.

And for much of last season they were about league average in runs, or just above. They were scoring 4.20 runs per game at the All-Star break and were at 4.24 per game at the end of August. But when they scored just 3.97 per game in the last month that brought the final season average down.

So there is progress to make here.

And yes, some of it, maybe much of it, can come from full seasons of Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. They combined for 559 plate appearances last year and they could double that this coming season.

Outfield prospect Heston Kjerstad is trending up, and he’s soaking in all of it. After all, he had to wait 27 months between his last game for the University of Arkansas and his first pro game, which he played June 10 for the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Orioles' Single-A affiliate.

In between the two, a pandemic ended his 2020 Arkansas season early. Then myocarditis kept him out of the 2021 season and a hamstring issue kept him off an opening day roster last year. Talk about a long wait to play. But the 23-year-old lefty hitter started to look like his old self late last year. He had a strong finish for High-A Aberdeen, carried that into the league playoffs and then was named MVP of the Arizona Fall League.

So it was easy to understand his emphatic answer when he was asked if he is limited at all physically as spring training is about to begin.

“No chance. I’m feeling good, feeling great,” Kjerstad said during last Saturday’s happy hour Birdland Caravan stop in Baltimore. “Luckily, got everything else behind me and just ready to focus on this season. Play a lot of baseball and, hopefully, work my way up.”

And for him it will start at major league spring training. He was one of the non-roster invitees to big league camp.

When it comes to how much a team may be improved from one year to the next we often look at what offseason additions they made. Did they get better there? We seldom look at improvements players already on the roster could make.

During a media session with reporters last Friday at the Warehouse, O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias discussed two important, and still young, players on his roster and their abilities to take a step forward in 2023. He was talking specifically about Ryan Mountcastle, whose .729 OPS last season was five percent over the American League average, and outfielder Austin Hays, whose .719 OPS was three percent above league average.

Both players got off to good starts that didn’t hold up in 2022. Mountcastle had an OPS of .786 in the first half and .659 in the second half. He hit just five homers total in July and August. Hays posted an OPS of .779 in the first half and .626 in the second half.

In Mountcastle’s case, his homer total dropped from 33 in 2021 – which was an Orioles rookie record – to 22 a season ago. His homer percentage dipped from 5.6 percent to 3.6.

But when it came to expected stats, a formula that uses a combination of exit velocity and launch angle, Mountcastle looked strong on the stat sheet.

He is the pride of Valdosta, Ga., and now has his own Orioles-produced short film to prove that. He was the 21^st overall player selected in the 2017 MLB Draft. He can throw a fastball 100 miles per hour and his name has been consistently on top 100 lists, most of them, since his draft day.

But Dayton Layne Hall, known better as DL, still has some doubters. It seems sometimes he actually prefers it that way. This kid is out to prove people wrong. It’s been that way for a long time.

If you feel he is a longshot to make the Orioles' opening day rotation, what with 12 or so candidates competing for those jobs, this kid, with his quiet confidence and intensity, is out to prove you wrong.

“Just to go out there and compete and earn a spot in the rotation,” he said of his approach to spring training this year. O’s reporters interviewed the 24-year-old lefty during Saturday’s Birdland Caravan. “Just (want to) continue to build off what I learned and did last year in the big leagues.

“I mean, the focus for me is to be a starter. I think I can be a big league starter. That’s what I am focused on and that’s what I’m going to do.”

It began yesterday and will run right up until the start of the Orioles major league spring training. Five of their top hitting prospects, none that have seen the majors just yet, will take part in an early hitting camp at Ed Smith Stadium.

It will run through Feb. 14 in Sarasota. It will allow the young talent to be seen by manager Brandon Hyde and some of the big league coaches and other instructors before the official report date for pitchers and catchers on Feb. 15.

The camp is not open to the public or media.

The players participating in the camp are outfielders Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad and infielders Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo and Connor Norby. All five recently were ranked by at least one publication as a top 100 player and all five are also among the Orioles non-roster spring training invitees.

Among all O’s minor league batters in 2022 this group ranked well up there in final OPS numbers for the year, including players with a minimum of 200 plate appearances. Gunnar Henderson was first at .946 with Norby, who led the organization with 29 homers, next at .886. Cowser was fourth at .874 with Kjerstad seventh at .851 and Mayo 13^th at .782.

O’s catcher Adley Rutschman said the fans at Birdland Caravan this weekend brought “an energy and a buzz” that was great for the players to see. The fans might say the same about their catcher.

Rutschman’s 2022 season began with him on the injured list but ended with him on American League MVP lists. He finished 12^th in voting for the MVP after finishing second for AL Rookie of Year.

It was a debut season where his 5.3 fWAR ranked third-best among rookie catchers in MLB history. Mike Piazza was first at 7.4 in 1993 and Carlton Fisk was at 6.6 in 1972. And then Adley. Keeping not good, but great company.

“I mean, it really worked out well,” he said of getting past the strained right triceps that kept him out of the majors until May 21. “I think I was put there for a reason and I went through what I went through for a reason. To be able to have the season I did and be able to see the team progress, the coaches and everyone come together, it was a special, special year.

“My goal is always to be the best version of myself – the best baseball player, the best human. There is always going to be room to improve. That’s the thing about baseball and life, you are always going to have things to improve on. So, in that offseason, work as hard as you can, and we’ll see how this year goes.”

It seemed that Birdland Caravan may have hit another gear on Saturday afternoon in downtown Baltimore. A packed crowd, some braving long lines in the frigid cold, greeted the Orioles at their happy hour event at Checkerspot Brewing Company.

It is not far from that spot, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, that those fans hope some of those players will lead the Orioles back to the playoffs as the countdown is on for the 2023 season.

Adley Rutschman, fresh off his second-place finish for American League Rookie of the Year and 12^th-place finish for AL MVP, appreciated the passion he saw from the fans.

“Absolutely, the players feel that," he said. “It’s just a buzz. You know, and energy that you feel coming to events like this. You see the people are excited, and when you feel that kind of encouragement and support, it only helps everyone come together and continue to try and do great things.”

After a season when he batted .254/.362/.445 with 35 doubles and 13 homers, Rutschman produced 5.3 Wins Above Replacement, according to FanGraphs.com. That led the Orioles and tied for ninth among all AL hitters. And Rutschman played just 113 big league games. But he spent his offseason still looking for ways to improve his play.

When asked yesterday about his Orioles having higher expectations for this season, executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said his own words are one reason for that.

The Orioles take on the season ahead is not one to temper, but rather take on the expectations of a fan base expecting their team to make a run at the playoffs. After all, winning and playing in October is the obvious goal. And this team is ready to take on the challenge of both higher expectations and the fact that no one considers them a pushover anymore.

“Part of that is based on stuff I’ve been saying,” Elias said. “Because I’m excited about the future of the team and the fact that I believe that our rebuild is behind us and we’ve got an incredible chance now to be a very, very competitive team for years. I think we are all excited about that.

“So, the front office and the manager, when we talk to media, we feed those expectations. But we also live in the reality of our business. We approach things very carefully. We have a lot of smart and experienced people in our front office working on our plan. And that includes growing the team over the next few years, managing our payroll, trying to get into contracts that make sense for the long haul.

“So, we have to navigate all those factors too. And a team like the Orioles in particular has to be careful about. A lot goes into it. The bottom line is we want to win, and everything we’ve done since, going back to 2018, has been about getting us to that point. And we’re going to continue applying our know-how to take the next step.”

One thing the Orioles did in adding right-hander Kyle Gibson and lefty Cole Irvin this offseason is replace one innings-eater starting pitcher - Jordan Lyles - with two of them. We’ll see how they fare with the Orioles, but we can say it’s pretty clear the club would love to see those two take the ball about a total of 60 times combined in 2023.

If they do, and if they provide some quality innings and outings along the way, the Orioles will be well on their way to getting more starter innings this coming season. Their starting pitchers averaged 5.0 innings per start last year, ranking ahead of only three other American League clubs. Houston led the way, averaging 5.9 innings.

So there is room for improvement in that area.

With Lyles and his 32 starts and 4.42 ERA out of the rotation, the Orioles head to spring training in less than two weeks with six pitchers that made 20 or more big league starts in 2022. Here are the six, ranked by ERA:

3.23 – Dean Kremer (21 starts)

BEL AIR, Md. – The 2023 Birdland Caravan is underway. Tonight, Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde answered fan questions and took part in some other fun activities with fans at Bel Air High School in Harford County.

Tomorrow, Birdland Caravan continues as O's players, coaches and staff meet and greet fans from around the state and region. It continues through Sunday.

A fan at Bel Air tonight asked Elias how the team will handle its strong prospect group now that the club has the playoffs in mind.

“We are in a mode now where we are really, really focused on winning and trying to increase our chances to get into the playoffs as much as possible," Elias said. "And it is going to start coming more at the expense of the player development side in the minor leagues. We just traded a prospect (Darrell Hernaiz) that we really liked for (A’s pitcher) Cole Irvin. So we’re starting to make those tradeoffs a lot more.”

The Orioles won 83 games last year, the most by any non-playoff American League club.

When the Orioles begin spring training workouts later this month in Florida, their initial spring training roster will number 70 players, and that could get larger with any additional signings or acquisitions.

The club today announced that they have invited 30 non-roster players to big league spring training in Sarasota at Ed Smith Stadium. The list includes one left-handed pitcher, 10 right-handed pitchers, four catchers, 10 infielders and five outfielders.

The list includes numerous players who were signed to minor league contracts. It also includes 2022 No. 1 overall draft pick Jackson Holliday and all 11 players recently named to at least one top 100 prospects list by a major outlet. Some of those players were already scheduled to go as part of the 40-man roster. 

PITCHERS (11)

RHP Eduard Bazardo
RHP Wandisson Charles
RHP Kyle Dowdy
RHP Reed Garrett
RHP Ofreidy Gómez
RHP Morgan McSweeney
LHP Cade Povich
RHP Kade Strowd
RHP Cole Uvila
RHP Chris Vallimont
RHP Ryan Watson