The mailbag is stuffed again like a Thanksgiving turkey.

I’ll do my best to provide answers but at times will just have to wing it.

This is the latest sequel to the beloved 2008 original. Editing rules are trashed like a two-week-old green bean casserole.

Also, my mailbag carves the turkey at the head of the table and your mailbag heats up a Hungry Man dinner.

Which unprotected players are most vulnerable in the Rule 5 draft?
Before I begin, let’s remember that losing a player in the Rule 5 draft doesn’t mean he won’t come back to the organization. It’s hard to carry one throughout a season. OK, pitcher Alex Pham is the No. 25 prospect in the system per MLB Pipeline and he had 138 strikeouts in 119 innings at Double-A Bowie. Reliever Keagan Gillies had a 4.94 ERA with the Baysox, but he fanned 54 in 47 1/3 innings and surrendered only four home runs. He’s averaging 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings in the minors. He’s an interesting guy, but again, challenging to stash in a major league ‘pen.

Here we are again, blowing up roster projections in November. Stand back and cover your ears.

I want to cover my eyes every time one of my locks doesn’t pan out.

We learned more about the roster with yesterday's non-tender of right-handed reliever Jacob Webb. We know that Emmanuel Rivera has a $1 million contract that doesn’t guarantee him an Opening Day introduction. He’s out of options and the infield is crowded.

It appears to be the only set position. The Orioles could use a right-handed hitting outfielder and at least one starting pitcher. They need a backup catcher. And they’ve decided to make changes in the bullpen.

They seemed to have their eight relievers before removing Webb and left-hander Danny Coulombe, who combined for a 2.71 ERA and two elbow injuries. Coulombe underwent surgery to remove a bone chip and missed three months.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Orioles current longest-running minor league affiliation is with their Double-A team since 1993, the Bowie Baysox. And as of this morning, the team has a new name, the Chesapeake Baysox.

The team found during the 2024 season, that it welcomed fans from 378 zip codes and all 23 counties across the state of Maryland and from 43 states nationwide.

To better reflect its regional drawing power, the Bowie-based team now becomes the Chesapeake Baysox. The club will remain at Prince George’s Stadium where it holds a long-term lease to continue as home base.

Today’s announcement, at The Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, was made by Attain Sports CEO Greg Baroni. The announcement was attended by Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and director of minor league operations Kent Qualls.

Attain Sports, which purchased the Baysox in January of 2022, also just recently bought a controlling interest in the O’s High-A Aberdeen IronBirds club with the Ripken family maintaining an ownership stake. Attain also owns the Frederick Keys of the MLB Draft League, the Spire City Ghost Hounds of the Atlantic League and Loudoun of the United Soccer League.

Major League Baseball has reached another important deadline today, with teams required to offer contracts to arbitration-eligible players. It’s known as the “non-tender” date. Good for baseball, bad for steakhouse chefs.

The Orioles went a surprising 17-for-17 last year and they have 13 players to consider this afternoon. As usual, there are the slam dunks and the shaky on the perimeters.

The list stood at 16 before the Orioles did some whittling, including the decision to pick up left-handed reliever Cionel Pérez’s $2.2 million option for 2025. They could have declined it and negotiated a new deal.

Pitchers Matt Bowman and Burch Smith elected free agency rather than outright assignments.

At the risk of being wrong again, which never stops me from trying, I’ll predict that the Orioles go 13-for-13.

I’m about 2 ½ weeks past my open-heart surgery and progress is slow but steady.

I just typed that sentence without having to lie down.

The heavier lifting comes as we move into December, into a new year and to Sarasota for spring training. The 40-man roster has 39 players and the Orioles have multiple items remaining on their shopping list. They also need to hire a bench coach and major league coach.

Let’s look at four more topics and decisions hovering around the Orioles, with you, the reader, telling me how they’re going to turn out.

John Means is rehabbing from his second Tommy John surgery and he’s a first-timer on the free-agent market. He has a second child on the way and the same desire to pitch.

We’re in the middle of awards week with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The Orioles’ last transaction was signing right-hander Robinson Martínez to a minor league contract on Thursday. They remain engaged in talks to add a right-handed bat and more pitching.

It’s going to heat up.

Meanwhile, I’ve written about some anticipated storylines in spring training, like how Heston Kjerstad and Coby Mayo fit on the roster, how Adley Rutschman will hit, anything Félix Bautista, rehab progress made by Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells, Grayson Rodriguez’s health after being left off the Wild Card roster, anything Jackson Holliday, what a full season of Zach Eflin could do, whether Daz Cameron can make the club as an extra outfielder, and whether Dean Kremer can take the next step.

Here are a few more.

More reaction to the left field wall.

A week of key dates brings us later today to players accepting or declining the $21.05 million qualifying offer. Decisions must be made by 4 p.m.

This one is easy to predict.

Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander are expected to decline it and dive into free agency. They have rich long-term deals waiting for them. They aren’t settling for anything less.

Burnes is the top starter on the market and the Orioles are keeping the door open for a return. Santander is coming off a 44-homer season and will attract plenty of suitors. His value has never been higher.

The Orioles will receive a draft pick if Burnes and Santander sign with other clubs. That’s why you make the qualifying offer, which only applied to players who haven’t received one in the past and spent the entire season with the team. No deadline additions.

The Orioles don’t have much of a presence in this week’s Baseball Writers’ Association of America Awards. Tonight is their one chance at a winner.

Colton Cowser is a finalist for American League Rookie of the Year with Yankees pitcher Luis Gil and catcher Austin Wells.

The BBWAA doesn’t provide odds, which would give away the result and kill the drama. However, Cowser feels like the favorite as an everyday player with the offensive and defensive resume. Gil is the stiffest competition.

Cowser, 24, already earned the Players Choice award last month as the league’s Outstanding Rookie after batting .242/.321.447 with 24 doubles, three triples, 24 home runs, 69 RBIs and 52 walks in 153 games. He became the third Oriole in four years to be recognized following Ryan Mountcastle in 2021 and Gunnar Henderson in 2023. Adley Rutschman was a finalist in 2022.

The 172 strikeouts present an area for improvement in camp and during the upcoming season. Colton can get started on it after his left hand heals from surgery to repair a fracture.

Without notes in front of him or knowledge of which questions he’d field Friday afternoon during his 27-minute video call with the local media, Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias performed a mental checklist of rehabbing players and their progress.

Colton Cowser is fine after his October surgery to repair a fractured left hand suffered in Game 2 of the Wild Card series. Grayson Rodriguez has recovered from his lat strain and shouldn’t have any restrictions in camp. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells should return in the second half.

Jorge Mateo can get lost among these names but Elias isn’t forgetting about him.

Mateo’s surgery sounds complicated enough to require a cheat sheet when talking about it. He underwent a Tommy John reconstruction procedure on Aug. 28 with an internal brace and flexor repair to fix the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. Dr. Keith Meister, on speed dial, performed it at Trinity Park Surgery Center in Arlington, Texas.

The injury was weird in nature. Mateo suffered a transient dislocation in the elbow after colliding with shortstop Gunnar Henderson during a July 23 game against the Marlins in Miami. A ground ball hit up the middle led to Mateo’s arm getting pinned between Henderson’s leg and the ground.

The big news yesterday wasn’t a free-agent signing or trade. It wasn’t impactful to the 40-man roster.

Maybe later.

Moving in and lowering the left field wall makes it easier to recruit right-handed hitters who otherwise might grew frustrated by fly balls dying on the track. The Oriole bird logo should be replaced by Ryan Mountcastle tilting back his head.

Orioles hitters lost 72 home runs over the last three years, according to Baseball Savant. Pitchers are happy. Batters are boiling.

The club isn’t returning to the old dimensions. The field will be tilted more toward neutral with the wall brought in as much as 20 feet and as little as nine.

The Orioles went a little too far in pushing back their left field wall, prompting some changes in the other direction for the 2025 season.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias announced today in a video call that the baseball operations department after careful deliberation has “decided to pursue modifications to the dimensions in left.”

Some areas will be pulled in as much as 20 feet, and others 11 or at a maximum of nine. A rendering shows the wall lowered from 13 to eight feet.

The initial renovations moved back the wall 30 feet and raised it about eight.

“We made the change between the 2021 and 2022 seasons as we were trying to pursue a more neutral but also more pitcher-friendly array at Camden Yards,” Elias said, “and we were doing so under the time constraints of a single offseason and seeking a way to make at that time our extremely homer-prone park more neutral and perhaps erring to the side of pitcher-friendliness. And given the uncertainties of the game, offensive environments, et cetera, it became clear to us and me and our staff, our coaches and players, the feedback that we received over three years of lived experience, that it was a directionally correct move, but we overcorrected.

A few questions stuck to the bottom of the mailbag again.

An attendant at Sinai Hospital told me that eight ounces or more of cherry juice lowers blood pressure. The bottle must have leaked.

It never should have been inside the mailbag. That’s my fault.

You ask and I answer. Here we go.

Any new minor league signings to report?
Yes. The club announced yesterday that right-hander Robinson Martínez signed a minor league deal. Martínez, 26, pitched in the Phillies system from 2015-19 and in the Marlins system in 2021-22. He has a 4.92 ERA and 1.502 WHIP in 133 games (seven starts) and averages 5.2 walks, 9.6 strikeouts and 0.6 home runs allowed per nine innings. He hasn’t pitched above Double-A. The Orioles assigned him to the Bowie Baysox.

Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias wants to tackle the major league roster again but he’s also diving for depth.

The club announced yesterday that it signed infielder Vimael Machin to a minor league contract. No word on whether the deal includes an invitation to spring training.

Machin is 31 years old and two removed from his last big league exposure. He appeared in 112 games with the Athletics from 2020-22 and batted .208/.290/.261 with 14 doubles and a home run in 361 plate appearances.

On the defensive side, Machin made 81 appearances at third base, 15 at shortstop, seven at second base and one at first. Most of his minor league experience also is at third.

Machin played in 52 games with Triple-A Lehigh Valley in the Phillies’ organization in 2023, but he also made stops in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. He spent most of this year in Mexico and hit .401/.495/.579 with 31 doubles, one triple, seven home runs and 54 RBIs in 85 games.

Questions are flowing into the mailbag. It’s like a valve is open.

Major League Baseball hosts its quarterly owners meetings next week in New York. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America will begin announcing winners of its four major awards Monday with Rookie of the Year in both leagues.

Colton Cowser is a finalist and will try to give the Orioles back-to-back winners for the first time in club history and eight winners overall.

The offseason is pretty tame at the moment beyond the usual roster deadlines. The Nov. 4 waiver claims of catcher René Pinto and pitcher Thaddeus Ward didn’t move the needle. Lots of work is done behind closed doors with the Orioles putting together their major league and minor league coaching staffs and filling other positions.

Let’s fill this space with the mailbag, which is the latest sequel to the beloved 2008 original.

After producing a 44-homer season, hitting 11 more than he ever had previously, O's outfielder Anthony Santander tonight was named an American League Silver Slugger Award winner.

A finalist the last three years, Santander is a first-time winner and joins Yankees Aaron Judge and Juan Soto as AL outfield winners.

The O's had two other Silver Slugger finalists, but Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg did not win.

Santander’s 44 homers ranked second in the AL and third in the majors. He hit .235/.308/.506/.814 with 91 runs and 102 RBIs, both career bests. He became the eighth Oriole to hit 40 or more homers and first since Mark Trumbo in 2016. And the first to drive in 100 or more since Jonathan Schoop in 2017. His 35 homers starting June 1 were third in the majors.

Santander was also the eighth switch hitter (12th occurrence) in MLB history to hit at least 40 homers in a season and one of four (five occurrences) with at least 44. He became the ninth player in O’s history with multiple 30-homer seasons. His 105 homers since the start of 2022 lead MLB switch hitters and rank sixth overall in the majors.

My energy level isn’t allowing for a deep dive into anything beyond my couch, but Danny Coulombe’s removal from the bullpen adjusts the Opening Day projections.

Not too soon to post them and not too soon to pivot.

It isn’t common for a team to stand pat with its ‘pen, and I’d expect executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias to check the markets for at least one reliever that he can bring to camp and boost the competition and depth.

The Orioles claimed left-hander Tucker Davidson on waivers from the Royals in October 2023, three weeks after bringing back left-hander Luis González on another minor league deal. González was just added to the 40-man roster.

Jonathan Heasley was acquired in a December trade with the Royals and Wandisson Charles agreed to a minor league deal, but securing Craig Kimbrel at the Winter Meetings was the big haul. It just didn’t work out for more than half of the season.

With one American League rookie award secured already, Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser tonight was named a finalist for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America's American League Rookie of the Year award for 2024.

The other finalists are both Yankees: pitcher Luis Gil and catcher Austin Wells. The award winner will be announced a week from tonight, on Nov. 18.

The O's had no other finalists for the four major awards. 

Should Cowser win the BBWAA award, the Orioles will get a bonus draft pick for next summer. The Orioles got a Prospect Promotion Incentive selection this past July after Gunnar Henderson won the 2023 AL Rookie of the Year. And with that pick, No. 32 overall, they selected University of Virginia infielder Griff O’Ferrall.

If Cowser wins next week, this will be the first time the Orioles have had back-to-back BBWAA Rookie of the Year winners.

So, what did I miss?

I’m using open-heart valve-replacement surgery as a convenient, albeit painful, excuse for being so far behind on transactions and other news. It’s also why I’m resting after every sentence that I’m typing.

A quick but heartfelt thank you to everyone who cared for me at Sinai Hospital, beginning with Dr. Peter Cho, who removed my faulty valve and gave me one from a cow. I just hope that one day I get to meet its family and show my appreciation.

My gratitude extends to Woodholme Cardiology’s Dr. Jonathan Rogers and Dr. Charles Cummings, who remained patient as the Orioles dictated when I could schedule pre-surgery appointments and the actual procedure. They were skilled and tremendous comforts. And everyone at Sinai who gathered after the surgery and yelled at me to “breathe!”

Can’t remove the tube unless you’re breathing on your own, and that’s solid advice in any situation.

As the MLB free agent process plays out this winter, Orioles fans will be watching closely to see what their team does. They may also be watching a player from another team closely.

What Oriole fan would not be happy to see Juan Soto leave the New York Yankees? Even if he wound up with another team in the American League East, it would badly hurt the current division champs.

The New York offense seemed like a two-man show at times in 2024 and any O’s fan would be happy to see that as a one-man show next year.

Soto had a monster year on offense, batting .288/.419/.569/.989 with 31 doubles, four triples, 41 homers and 109 RBIs. His OPS ranked third in the majors and was his best since posting a .999 for the Nats in 2021.

He is the rare player who walked (129) more than he struck out (119), posting an 18.1 walk percentage.

If the Orioles lose right-hander Corbin Burnes via free agency, they could turn to free agency to find his replacement, or at least find someone that is in his class of pitchers.

They are not in abundance but there are a few available in this free agent class. A list that includes lefty Max Fried, who will be 31 next Opening Day.

A former first-round MLB Draft pick, Fried has never pitched for anyone save Atlanta. But if they didn’t sign him to an extension by now, there is an assumption that he will be pitching elsewhere in 2025.

MLBTradeRumors.com listed numerous clubs that could make a play for Fried, including the Orioles. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman said he will get looks from American League East clubs including the Orioles, Toronto and Boston, and that the Yankees have already “checked in” on him. So where are the Rays?

MLB Trade Rumors also listed the Mets, Giants, Red Sox, Padres (who originally drafted him), Cubs, Tigers, Angels and Dodgers as possible destinations for Fried. And the outlet noted that six-year deals for pitchers beginning at age 31 or later are rare, with only five in the past decade (Zach Greinke, Aaron Nola, Stephen Strasburg, Yu Darvish and Jon Lester).