When asked about the attributes of Brandon Hyde as Orioles manager on MLB Network Tuesday morning and how he has had such an impact on the roster, O’s bench coach Fredi Gonzalez had an interesting answer.

“Well, he’s been given the opportunity to grow with the team,” he said. “That doesn’t happen in our sport.”

He noted how Hyde was that rare skipper to start with a team at the beginning of a rebuild and still be around when they were ready to win and when they did win. And in this case, be a big reason that they won.

After seeing his Orioles win 52 games in 2021, 83 in 2022 and 101 and an AL East title in 2023, Hyde was named last night as the American League Manager of the Year by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. 

Hyde and Earl Weaver are the only O’s skippers to manage 100-win teams in Baltimore. And Hyde joins Frank Robinson (1989), Davey Johnson (1997) and Buck Showalter (2014) as BBWAA Managers of the Year. The award was first handed out in 1983.

The beginnings of Gunnar Henderson truly starting to state his case to be the 2023 American League Rookie of the Year may have their origin around mid May to early June of the season.

The preseason favorite to win ROY, Henderson was batting just .170 with a .651 OPS on May 12 amid some of the fanbase wondering if a trip back to the minors was needed. It was not.

Around that time Henderson decided to become less selective and more aggressive at the plate. He stopped waiting for the perfect pitch and realized there are many pitches he could drive. If he started to become more aggressive early in counts, he could do that and keep pitchers from getting ahead of him in counts and getting to two-strike counts where they could more easily put him away.

“Yeah, there are times when I’ve been too passive,” Henderson told me during an early June interview. “Just, I’ve had times recently where I’ve been starting to swing earlier in counts if it’s in the area that I want to go and do damage with. That has helped me and if you get contact earlier in the counts, you also limit strikeouts. A big thing has been learning how to be aggressive, but not too aggressive.”

Let’s not underrate how savvy and smart this kid is beyond all the physical tools that he displays on offense, defense and the bases.

One very important and also very interesting question facing the Orioles – and no doubt for fans a very exciting question – is when will the club bring baseball’s No. 1 ranked prospect, infielder Jackson Holliday, to the big leagues?

Will he have a real shot to make the Orioles out of spring training, or will he need more Triple-A time than the 18 regular-season games and four playoff games he played in for the Triple-A Norfolk Tides?

Holliday hit .267 with a .796 OPS for Norfolk to cap a remarkable year where he played at four levels and overall hit .323/.442/.499/.941 with 30 doubles, nine triples, 12 homers, 24 steals, 154 hits, 101 walks, 113 runs and 75 RBIs.

“Yeah, I’ve got no complaints," Holliday said via a Zoom call in late September on the day he was named the Orioles' Minor League Player of the Year, winning the Brooks Robinson Award. He had earlier been named Baseball America’s Player of the Year for the entire minor leagues.

"This year has gone about as well as I could possibly imagine. My goal was Double-A, and to make it to Triple-A is quite something. It’s been quite a year," said Holliday and that might be understating it.

It is bound to happen a few more times, maybe many, many more times throughout their baseball careers. On the same night this past week, twice both Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson were honored.

On Wednesday they were two of six Orioles nominated for the all MLB team, which will be announced Dec. 16 on MLB Network. The team will be selected by a fan and media vote, each counting 50 percent. On Thursday night, Rutschman and Henderson both won Silver Slugger Awards. The first set of O’s teammates to take this honor since three O’s won Silver Sluggers (Chris Davis, Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy) in 2013.

Adley and Gunnar. Gunnar and Adley.

Linked since their draft day in 2019 when they became the first two MLB Draft selections Mike Elias made as O’s executive vice president and general manager.

Rutschman was the No. 1 overall pick in that draft with enormous expectations from the start. Henderson was the No. 42 pick in the draft, compared by some due to his position, size and style of play to Corey Seager. There were hopes for him but many fewer expectations with a pick at 42.

Back on the East Coast after a few days at the General Manager meetings in Arizona, Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias is ready to begin the work on making additions to his pitching staff, both in the rotation and bullpen.

During a phone interview Friday with MASNSports.com, Elias made it clear that a late-inning reliever is at or near the top of his wish list. Right-hander Felix Bautista, who posted a 1.48 ERA and 33 saves with a 16.2 K rate, is expected to miss the entire 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery Oct. 9.

It leaves a big hole in the back end of the Baltimore bullpen.

“It is a top priority,” said Elias. “I’m characterizing it as a back-end reliever. I think if that guy has closer experience, that’s great. It would be nice. I am worried about Bautista’s absence and I don’t believe we felt that fully in September of 2023. We are going to try like hell to bring in some help from the outside for the back of our bullpen.”

And that help could come via free agency or a trade.

Can a team that expects to be in the playoffs carry a struggling rookie on the roster? How about one in the everyday lineup?

This is sort of a natural follow up blog to yesterday when we pondered how the O’s will look to introduce some of their top prospects to regular player time. When is the right time for the Orioles to make that move?

Yes, it is easier for a losing team or a rebuilding team to carry a struggling rookie simply because they have less concern over daily wins and losses. But you still have to worry about the individual and when the struggles become too much or that player should be sent back to the minors. These are not easy calls for any club, no matter their place in the standings.

A young Orioles team with a manager with a strong player development background may be the near perfect spot for a young player like Heston Kjerstad, Colton Cowser or Jackson Holliday to break in. The clubhouse is filled with players who have been there and done that when it comes to rookies finding their way. Recent examples like Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson who had initial struggles and more established players like Cedric Mullins, not that far removed from them. Mullins can tell any young player about the time he fell all the way to Double-A before making it back to become a 30-30 talent and win a Silver Slugger award.

The other thing to keep in mind is that yes, the Orioles will be pushing to make the playoffs again. But any young player on the roster, even one as touted as Holliday, need only be complementary to the roster on a 101-win team and not the key guy. No one needs to be the straw stirring the drink here. No one needs to carry this club.

With just two Silver Slugger winners since the 2014 season, the Orioles doubled that total tonight as Adley Rutschman won the Silver Slugger Award for catchers in the American League and Gunnar Henderson was the winner in the utility player category.

It’s the most Silver Slugger wins for the Orioles since Adam Jones, Chris Davis and J.J. Hardy won in 2013. It's the sixth time in team history the club had two or more winners.

Anthony Santander was an outfield finalist, but the winners were Kyle Tucker of Houston, Seattle's Julio Rodriguez and Luis Robert Jr. of the Chicago White Sox.

Rutschman, 25, hit .277/.374/.435/.809 this season with 31 doubles, one triple, 20 homers and 80 RBIs. Among the AL leaders he finished tied for third in walks, fifth in OBP and eighth in batting average. He joins Mickey Tettleton in 1989 as the only O’s to win a Silver Slugger for catcher.

"It's pretty cool," Rutschman said on the MLB Network telecast. "It's more a testament to my teammates and coaches that this has come to fruition, and it's a lot of hard work to get here. It means a lot and I'm very thankful."

One of the biggest questions facing the Orioles for next season is how and when to turn over significant playing time to some of their top prospects? When is the right time to not only call up a player but commit to that player as a regular?

The Orioles have more than three players that are on the verge of cracking the everyday lineup or pushing to do that, but the three that are right on the cusp include two we have already seen in the majors in outfielders Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad and one we have not. That’s the big one, MLB’s No. 1 prospect in shortstop Jackson Holliday.

We have here three players ranked by at least one major outlet as among the top 25 prospects in baseball. Holliday is No. 1 by both Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com while Cowser is No. 11 by Baseball America and No. 14 via MLB. Kjerstad is No. 24 via MLB and No. 43 by Baseball America.

Sometimes an injury will determine when this player gets in the lineup and then it’s up to the player to take the chance and run with it. Sometimes a prospect will make the roster but not have regular playing time. That is always a big decision to make. Is the prospect better suited to just play every day on the farm or learn on the job in the big leagues even if not playing a lot? How will the prospect handle not playing a lot?

Cowser got into 26 games with the 2023 Orioles and hit .115/.286/.148/.433. Known for a good batting eye and patient approach with nice gap-to-gap pop, he managed a 16.9 walk rate in that limited sample with a 28.6 K rate. There is some swing and miss in his game, but this is also a player that gets at least average grades on defense and is considered a plus runner.

Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias was the latest from the organization to pick up an award yesterday. An award that really honors the entire organization for a rebuild that started with 115 losses and ended up this year with an AL East championship, the club’s first playoff berth in seven years and 101 wins.

But Elias is at the head of the club’s baseball operations department, and he put together the front office that yesterday got such deserved recognition.

And he was named MLB's Executive of the Year. 

“It’s been just really gratifying seeing Baltimore, the city of Baltimore and Maryland, back as a baseball capital, like it should be,” Elias said Tuesday morning in an interview on MLB Network. “Seeing Camden Yards back alive and our city, they love this group of players. It was a terrific regular season. We came up very short in the playoffs and I think it’s keeping us hungry as we start this offseason. But definitely a season to remember. And the recognition for our front office and our organization is really meaningful to me.”

The first two draft picks made by Elias and his regime in the 2019 MLB Draft were Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. They were such a huge part of the rebuild. To that he added much more homegrown talent, building what he said he would – an elite talent pipeline. One that now has the No. 1 ranked farm in the sport and a growing international program that this year in catcher Samuel Basallo, produced its first top 100 prospect.

The question of do the Orioles more need a starting pitcher or a reliever may well be asked but isn’t the answer probably “both.” And can’t they get both?

Not only can they, they probably will. They surely can multi-task and it’s very unlikely that any one addition will keep them from making another. Even in the same spot on the roster, that spot being the pitching staff.

What is their biggest need is subjective to all of us pondering the question and whatever we come up with may or may not match the team’s thinking and that is the one that counts the most.

And unless they make a major expenditure here and sign someone to a larger than expected contract, adding someone as a starter or reliever is not likely to impact the addition of the other.

When it comes to the market, how that plays out may also determine in what order the Orioles proceed here. It takes two to tango and sometimes players and their agents want to wait to see others sign before as they say, “setting the market.”

For a time in June, Orioles left fielder Austin Hays was leading the American League in batting average. He was hitting as high as .327 on June 20. He didn’t finish above .300 but still wound up tied for 12^th in the AL in average.

Over 144 games and 566 plate appearances, Hays batted .275/.325/.444/.769 with 36 doubles, two triples, 16 homers, 76 runs, five steals and 67 RBIs. His OPS+ of 114 ranked sixth among O’s everyday players and was his best mark in the three full seasons he has played, surpassing the 107 from 2021 and 105 from last year.

So Hays had an overall solid 2023 season, but it was another one where his stats fell off in the second half. That happened to him in 2022 also, but it was still a 2023 season where he produced career highs in doubles, runs, hits (143), extra-base hits (54) and multi-hit games (40). He tied for ninth in the AL in doubles and was 29^th in OPS.

In the first half of this year, before he made his first All-Star game appearance and started in center field, Hays batted .314 with an .853 OPS. And that fell to 228/.667 in the second half. His OPS in 2022 dropped from .779 to .626 half to half.

During spring training this year Hays said he got pull happy at times late in the 2022 season and he needed to stay with an up-the-middle and gap-to-gap approach.

The Orioles are tied for the seventh-best betting favorite to win the 2024 World Series. That is a step up from last winter when they were tied for the 17^th in odds from betonline.ag.

7/1: Atlanta

8/1: Los Angeles Dodgers

9/1: Houston, Texas

12/1: New York Yankees, Philadelphia

Now that the World Series is over, the hot stove season has just about arrived. Soon we’ll be hearing and reading rumors of potential trades and free agent acquisitions. The hot stove season can garner about as much interest as the regular season.

If the Orioles look to dip into the free agent pool and don’t want to dive into the deep end but yet get a difference-maker, I can see one out there. And this is based off salary projections from an article this week in the New York Post.

Pitchers that could be out of the Orioles' reach and/or comfort level and be in line for at least $100 million or close, per that article, are Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola, Jordan Montgomery and Eduardo Rodriguez.

But the outlet listed free agent right-hander Sonny Gray at a price tag that could be in the wheelhouse for the Orioles and a lot of other teams. The paper quoted expert No. 1 and expert No. 2, who I assume are front office execs in the sport. One projected that Gray would get a three-year deal worth $65 million and another put it at three years and $66 million.

Gray is coming off a fantastic year with the Minnesota Twins during which he went 8-8 with a 2.79 ERA and 1.147 WHIP in 184 innings over 32 starts. He ranked second in the American League and third in the majors in ERA, and was fourth in the AL in average against (.226), third in OPS (.607 behind Kyle Bradish at .605) and fifth in groundball rate.

When the Orioles took the field for Game 1 of the American League Division Series, we would be watching the eventual World Series champion. It just would not be the team in Orange and Black.

But the Texas Rangers, a team that lost 102 games in 2021 and went 68-94 last year. A team that won just 90 games this year and a team that from Aug. 16-Sept. 8 went 4-16 and was outscored by 61 runs. Yep, that team. A team that went 1-3 on the season’s final weekend to let the AL West get away and enter the playoffs as the No. 5 AL seed.

The Rangers had a losing record on the road during the regular season, going 40-41. So of course, they went 11-0 on the road in the playoffs. They had a losing record in one-run games (14-22) during the regular year. So of course, they went 3-1 in one-run games during the postseason and 2-0 in two-run games. A team that entered the postseason with the bullpen ranked 11^th in the AL. And of course, during the postseason, the trio of Jose Leclerc, Aroldis Chapman and Josh Sborz pitched to a combined 2.14 ERA.

Remember when we thought the O’s might find an edge in that while Texas’ team OPS at home ranked first in the AL, they were just seventh on the road.

The Rangers this year had the 10^th-best team ERA in the American League at 4.28. That is 10th as in better than just five clubs. We should all remember that the next time someone says the O’s pitching is not good enough to win the WS.

Recently I wrote here about some players that were surprises this year for the Orioles as they made their way to an AL East title. On the farm there always seem to be a few surprises, if for no reason other than we have more teams and players to choose from.

This year was no different, but I think two of the biggest surprises on the farm were two players that both ended their years with Double-A Bowie in outfielder Billy Cook and right-handed pitcher Alex Pham.

Both ended the year in the O’s top 30 via MLBPipeline.com with Cook at No. 27 and Pham at No. 29. Cook is currently unranked by Baseball America, but Pham made it all the way to No. 17 via BA.

They were players on the rise during the 2023 season and both are hidden gems no more. They’ve found their way onto the radar and will be watched closely in 2024.

Both were college draft selections in the 2021 MLB Draft – Cook out of Pepperdine in round 10 and Pham in round 19 out of San Francisco. So, neither will need to be added to the 40-man roster to be protected from the Rule 5 draft until the Rule 5 draft in 2024.

When the Orioles played the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series, O’s shortstop Gunnar Henderson was in the opposite dugout from a player he has been compared to for several years.

The comps started well before Henderson would be selected No. 42 overall by the Orioles in the June 2019 MLB Draft. That big kid at shortstop from Alabama’s John T. Morgan Academy in Selma was compared to then Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager, who had been the 2016 National League Rookie of the Year.

In the 2012 MLB Draft, the Dodgers had selected Seager No. 18 overall out of a North Carolina high school. He was named NL ROY in his age 22 season. Henderson, who turned 22 in June, is the heavy favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year Award later this month.

The Henderson-Seager comps are still out there.

In early September, in a very flattering article on the Orioles for Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci wrote that “Henderson has hit more homers (23) already than any 22-and-under rookie shortstop except Cal Ripken (28), Corey Seager (26) and Troy Tulowitzki (24). He is Seager with a better glove and more speed,” said Verducci.

In most World Series we can probably find an ex-Oriole or two or three to watch play on baseball’s biggest stage. Among the former Birds in this World Series is one of the real good guys, Arizona first baseman Christian Walker. He has found a home in Arizona since they acquired him in March of 2017 and the last two years he has hit 69 homers.

While he has not had a great offensive performance this postseason, he is a middle-of-the-order fixture for the 2023 National League champs. When the Orioles were in Arizona in early September, I caught up with Walker, someone I had interview numerous times when he was trying to work his way through the O’s minors.

Baltimore drafted him in round four of 2012 out of the University of South Carolina, where he was on two NCAA championship clubs. He was often ranked among the O’s top 20 prospects and went as high as their No. 3 prospect in 2015 via Baseball America.

But with the Orioles he had Chris Davis in front of him at first base and when the club signed Davis to the long-term contract before the 2016 season that kind of sealed his fate with the organization. Walker wound up getting just 27 at-bats with the big club over parts of the 2014-2015 seasons. After the Davis contract was final, the club moved him to the outfield at Triple-A for the 2016 season. But that did not lead him back to Baltimore.

The Orioles DFA'd him on Feb. 21, 2017 and four days later Atlanta added him via waivers. About 10 days later, Cincinnati added him and about three weeks later, on March 28, 2017, Arizona claimed him off waivers. Yep, he was with four teams in about six weeks.

With the Orioles set to play the entire 2024 season without closer Félix Bautista, which pitchers replace him in the ninth inning and how well they do next year will have a lot to say about the O’s team performance for the year.

Obviously, we don’t know yet the makeup of the 2024 bullpen and if the team will look to acquire via trade or free agency someone that could pitch the ninth. But one pitcher that will be in that late-inning mix is right-hander Yennier Cano, mentioned in this space yesterday as a player that surprised us in the 2023 season.

He sure did. He was not even on the Opening Day roster and in the 2022 season, between the Twins and Orioles in brief action, he had posted an 11.50 ERA and 2.333 WHIP. Then that same guy began his 2023 O’s season with 17 straight scoreless outings. That is about as surprising as it can get.

After Cano became more hittable in the second half – somewhat expected when you are almost unhittable – he no doubt has some doubters entering the winter.

But let’s look at some numbers first.

On their way to 101 wins, an American League East championship and the club's first playoff berth since 2016, the Orioles featured several players who had strong seasons ranging from good to great. Some were expected, some came as surprises. Some were big surprises.

Yennier Cano: No one, I mean no one, could have predicted that Cano, who was not even on the Opening Day roster, would begin his season with 17 consecutive scoreless appearances. 

They were not just scoreless, impressive in itself. They were completely dominant.

He was almost unhittable from his April 14 season debut through May 19. Over 21 2/3 scoreless, Cano allowed just four hits with no walks and 25 strikeouts. He allowed an .061 batting average and .150 OPS against.

Cano tied the club record set by Fred Holdsworth in 1976 by setting down the first 24 batters he faced to start the season in order. He set the O’s record with 32 hitless at-bats to begin a season, the most by a major league pitcher since Milwaukee's Josh Hader (35) to begin 2020. His streak of 20 straight games without a walk to start the season was the second-longest in O’s history, behind a 22-game streak by Jamie Walker to open the 2009 campaign.

In one sense it was a bit unexpected that an O’s pitching staff that performed so well in the second half of the 2023 season would perform poorly in the playoffs. But they gave up 21 runs as Texas swept the Orioles in three games. They gave up 18 in the last two games as starters Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer combined to allow 11 runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Texas is a good hitting team, but Orioles pitchers seemed to be hitting their stride the longer the season went on. This time Texas got the better of them.

For the 2023 season, the O’s team ERA was 3.89 to rank fifth-best in the American League. Baltimore was just a few points behind third-place Tampa Bay's 3.86 and a bit further back of first-place Minnesota's 3.74.

In the first half of the season Orioles pitching went 54-35 (.607) with a 4.15 ERA. In the second half the staff went 47-26 (.644) with a 3.58 ERA of 3.58 that was first in the AL and third in the major leagues. The O's played at a 104-win pace after the All-Star game.

The O’s team ERA by month in 2023: