When it comes to facing left-handed pitchers, O’s center fielder Cedric Mullins, no longer a switch-hitter, has had success in the past batting left-on-left.

But the hits were not coming to him very often against lefty pitchers last year, when he hit .209/.265/.313/.578 against left-handers. That was very different from his solid numbers of 2021, when he produced a .277 batting average and .788 OPS left-on-left.

So Mullins’ winter focus was on getting back to stats like those in this 2023 season.

“Just really kind of dug deep into how some of my at-bats went last year,” he said this week at Globe Life Field. “Kind of getting a sense of what guys were trying to do to me and kind of make adjustments from there. Tried to simulate as much as I possibly could (this winter).”

The deep dive included a closer look at how those southpaws were getting him out.

The mailbag collected questions in Boston and refused to board a flight to Arlington. Bought a seat for it and everything. Still, no.

That’s fine. I’ll share what I’ve got this morning, in the latest sequel to our beloved 2008 original mailbag.

Because I don’t want to be accused of tampering, I will continue to keep the editing to the bare minimum. Also, the bear minimum, which I guess belongs on a Cubs blog.

And finally, my mailbag runs the bases for free and yours must pay to get thrown out at second.

Do you think it's possible they kept too many players in camp for too long, which made it hard to give the actual regulars sufficient reps? Just trying to find a reason for the complete defensive flop we saw.
I feel like the regulars played a sufficient amount, and Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander got some reps in the World Baseball Classic. I don’t want to blame the conditions in Boston, but the cold, rain and wind presented some challenges. As if the outfield at Fenway Park needs more of them. But there were some botched plays in the infield, too. Maybe just write it off to a bad series.

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles will hold their final spring training workout this morning at the Ed Smith Stadium complex and board their flight to Boston. They get a full off-day Wednesday and begin the playoff hunt the following afternoon.

Opening Day rosters must be set by noon Thursday and the Orioles aren’t ready to announce their final 26. Too much can happen between the waiver wire, opt-outs and possible trades.

The final bench and bullpen spots are getting further scrutiny. The optioning of Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall finally allowed Tyler Wells to settle into the rotation and made room for another reliever. But Danny Coulombe arrived from the Twins yesterday for cash considerations, a left-handed wrench tossed into the latest projections.

The roster as it stands now has 31 players with Rule 5 pick Andrew Politi on waivers, a move that the club hasn’t announced but a source confirmed.

The placement of John Means, Dillon Tate, Mychal Givens and James McCann on the injured list would make it 27.

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Optioned INF Joey Ortiz to minor league camp.
• Reassigned RHP Kyle Dowdy, SS Jackson Holliday, and INF Connor Norby to minor league camp.

The Orioles’ Spring Training roster currently has 51 players (36+15 NRI).

SARASOTA, Fla. – The 12 roster cuts that followed yesterday’s 7-6 loss to the Phillies included infield prospects Coby Mayo and César Prieto, who weren’t making the club and now can get more at-bats and reps over at Twin Lakes Park before likely assignments to Double-A Bowie.

Mayo went 2-for-14 with a 111.5 mph double, two RBIs, two walks and five strikeouts. Prieto was 3-for-11 with a double and three RBIs.

MLP Pipeline ranks Mayo as the organization’s No. 10 prospect and Prieto 18^th. The top nine players remain in camp.

Also reassigned were first baseman Curtis Terry, outfielder Robert Neustrom, catcher Ramón Rodriguez and right-handers Wandisson Charles, Ofreidy Gómez, Morgan McSweeney Kade Strowd, Cole Uvila, Chris Vallimont and Ryan Watson. The official spring training count is down to 59 players.

“It’s time to just kind of starting reducing our camp size,” said manager Brandon Hyde. “I’m going to try to bring those guys over as much as possible. We’ll have some innings at the end of games to continue to have them play in some of our games, but we just felt like it was important to reduce the camp size a little bit. Want to see those guys get a lot of reps.”

SARASOTA, Fla. – The rest of Jackson Holliday’s teammates who stuck around for Wednesday’s exhibition game were gone from the complex or back indoors to shower and change into their clothes. The kid wasn’t ready to leave the field. He couldn’t just walk away from fans who lined up to get his autograph.

They handed him pieces of paper or baseballs shoved through a gap in the protective netting. One after another. Adults and children.

Holliday has looked the part since he arrived at his first major league camp, with maturity that belies his youthful face. And he’s keeping his locker, surviving yesterday’s first round of cuts that claimed 12 non-roster invites.

He came off the bench again yesterday in Clearwater, replacing Gunnar Henderson at shortstop and grounding out in the eighth inning. He’s 3-for-9 with a double, three walks, two strikeouts and a handful of impressive plays in the field that highlight his range and cannon arm.

“It’s been great,” he said. “It’s been a good learning experience and been pretty awesome to be part of this organization and with all these talented guys and getting to know them and building relationships for the future.”

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.

SARASOTA, Fla. – The schedules for players leaving Orioles camp for the World Baseball Classic are clearer after this morning’s media scrum with manager Brandon Hyde.

Center fielder Cedric Mullins will play Friday and Sunday before joining Team USA in Arizona. Right fielder Anthony Santander will play Friday, Sunday and Monday before driving to Miami and beginning workouts with Venezuela.

Dean Kremer, who’s pitching for Israel, will work two-plus innings Friday in relief of starter Kyle Gibson. He’s also headed to Miami.

Left-hander John Means said his first half-mound session will be early next week, perhaps on Monday. We’re told there are no setbacks following his Tommy John surgery.

Closer Félix Bautista’s next bullpen is Saturday. The knee and shoulder are fine.

LAKELAND, Fla. – Terrin Vavra didn’t have or need much time today to get comfortable at third base. He seemed right at home, as if roaming the corner put him on familiar ground.

Vavra made two diving stops to record outs against the Tigers and singled twice to stay hot at the plate.

In his first game at third beyond a rehab inning last summer with High-A Aberdeen.

Must be a natural.

Leadoff hitter Riley Greene was robbed twice by Vavra, first on a diving backhand stop and then a lunging grab to his left.

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles eventually will reach the stage of spring training when prospects are sent to the minor league side at Twin Lakes Park to get ready for their season. They received the necessary camp exposure. They got the full experience. The major league coaches became more familiar with them. Zero downside to it.

In a spontaneous contest to create the loudest buzz at the Ed Smith Stadium complex, the young infielders ganged up on the competition.

I keep hearing how much the coaches are impressed with the group. The message has been passed along by many people. The level of talent, the polish and the maturity blow them away.

It’s hard to live up to the hype, with so many high draft choices, but they’re doing exactly that – proving worthy of their rankings in the top 100 lists.

Jackson Holliday is only 19, a year removed from high school, and observers can’t stop talking about him. The way he takes ground balls, his swings, his calm demeanor. No moment has been too big.

SARASOTA, Fla. – Heston Kjerstad stood in the batter’s box and twisted his waist as if trying to guide his fly ball inside the left field foul pole.

Two home runs were nice, but he wanted a third.

He came so close.

The ball hooked foul to keep Kjerstad at the plate in the eighth inning. No problem. He lined a single into right field to go 3-for-3 in his first major league spring training game in the Orioles’ 10-5 victory over the Twins at Ed Smith Stadium.

“Definitely a good day,” he said later while sitting at his locker. “First day at the yard. There’s a lot more to come, so definitely a good little start, but I’ve got to remain focused. It’s a long year, and just keep showing up to the park and try to have good ABs and execute my plan.”

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.

SARASOTA, Fla. - The 12 pitchers on the Orioles’ 40-man roster competing for starting jobs remain in camp. The first cuts aren’t happening anytime soon. The first exhibition game isn’t until Saturday afternoon against the Twins in Sarasota.

Don’t rush it.

Kyle Bradish isn’t checking the calendar or crunching the numbers. He isn’t worried about his spot in the rotation. What good would that do?

“I’m not really thinking about that too much,” he said. “All the guys in the rotation, they’re all my friends, so just going out there and compete and whatever happens happens. I trust the work I put in this offseason and going off what I did the second half.”

He did plenty after the break, posting a 3.28 ERA and 1.164 WHIP in 13 starts. He had a 2.76 ERA in his last eight games and became the fourth rookie in club history to toss at least seven scoreless innings in back-to-back starts.

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles moved to the next phase of spring training today with the first full-squad workout. Drills of every kind, with players grouped by position. Live batting practice sessions on multiple fields, including inside Ed Smith Stadium.

“I feel like we’ve been out here a couple weeks,” manager Brandon Hyde said with a laugh.

“Guys are really excited. Really love the talent here. It’s a great character group. Just walking around, talking to guys this morning, they’re excited to get going. Saturday’s going to come quick, so we’ve got to get ready to go.”

Hyde gathered everyone in the clubhouse before the workout began for the traditional talk, covering how the team exceeded expectations last summer and what he expects from it in 2023.

“Honestly, just want us to build off last year,” he 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.

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.

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.”

The Orioles sent out their list of non-roster invites to spring training yesterday with the understanding that other names could appear later. Thirty wasn’t a set number. There’s always room for Jell-O and more lockers at the Ed Smith Stadium complex.

Within hours, left-hander Darwinzon Hernandez cleared outright waivers and was assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. He, too, will be in Sarasota, giving the Orioles 38 pitchers in camp, including 12 of the non-roster variety.

The possibility still exists that the Orioles make a waiver claim, sign a free agent or consummate another trade. They aren’t shutting down.

“We’re still working on stuff,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said yesterday during a Q&A with fans at Wilde Lake High School.

Could be pitching, an infielder or an outfielder. And it could be a major league contract.

Now another outlet has been heard from. Keith Law released his top 100 prospects list on Monday via The Athletic and six Orioles populate his list. Where once that would have been a haul for the Orioles, six is actually the fewest number they have on any major list out thus far.

Gunnar Henderson, the No. 1 ranked prospect per Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com and Baseball Prospectus, is No. 2 via The Athletic. Arizona outfield prospect Corbin Carroll is ranked No. 1. Henderson was No. 73 on The Athletic top 100 before the 2022 season.

Click here to check out the list (subscription may be required).

Here is the rundown for the Orioles, who have had 10 players get mentioned on at least one of the four lists. I will list going left to right how players have been ranked by Baseball America/Baseball Prospectus/MLBPipeline.com/The Athletic.

* Gunnar Henderson ranked 1/1/1/2

It doesn’t take long when interviewing young O’s shortstop prospect Jackson Holliday to realize this young man is mature beyond his years. He turned 19 on Dec. 4. He may look younger than 19 but he handles himself as an older, more experienced player might.

And to say the least the player the Orioles selected No. 1 overall in the 2022 draft is trending up. And trending up big.

The son of seven-time big league All-Star Matt Holliday, Jackson became the third No. 1 overall O’s MLB Draft pick joining Ben McDonald in 1989 and Adley Rutschman in 2019 last July.

Then he went out and in yes, a small sample of 20 pro games, lived up to the hype.

He hit .297/.489/.422/.911 with five doubles, a homer and nine RBIs. And a stunning walk rate which was 30.3 in the rookie-level Florida Complex League and 26.3 with low-A Delmarva. For the 20 games, he walked 25 times with just 12 strikeouts. He played his first FCL game on Aug. 10 and first for the Shorebirds on Aug. 25.

The Orioles have the best farm system right now in Major League Baseball. This according to several outlets ranking them that way. And if one big standard in determining that is most prospects on a top 100 list, the Orioles last night matched their Baseball America performance by getting eight ranked on the latest MLBPipeline.com list.

Gunnar Henderson, still prospect-eligible and eligible for the American League Rookie of the Year award this season, was ranked No. 1 by both outlets, and by Baseball Prospectus as well recently.

MLBPipeline.com places three O’s in the top 12, four in the top 40 and eight among the top 99.

Pitcher Grayson Rodriguez is No. 7, Jackson Holliday No. 12 and Colton Cowser No. 40. Jordan Westburg comes in at No. 74, Heston Kjerstad at No. 80, DL Hall at No. 97 and Joey Ortiz at No. 99.

The list doesn’t even include Kyle Stowers, Coby Mayo or Connor Norby, who might well have merited consideration. The Orioles ended the 2022 season with six on the MLBPipeline.com top 100, and Henderson was No. 2 to end the season.