The World Series remains unsettled and free agency is on hold until five days after the conclusion of it. However, a mailbag can be sorted and shared at any time.

Let’s begin a new month with a fresh batch of questions.

Some of the responses might be stale. Some might prove inaccurate. I’m counting on short memories in these cases.

You should remember that I do minimal editing. Tampering with clarity is a rarity. I’d walk miles to maintain your unique styles.

Also, my mailbag hands out full-size candy bars at Halloween and yours gives out toothbrushes.

Triple-A Norfolk manager Buck Britton summoned Colton Cowser to his office following a July 4 game and told the outfielder to pack his bags. He was joining the Orioles in New York. The wait was over.

Cowser’s time in the majors met the same fate on Aug. 14, with the Orioles optioning him to create roster space after Aaron Hicks' reinstatement from the injured list. Cowser had seven hits in 61 at-bats, with three coming in his first five games.

“It’s not always a terrible thing to have a guy come up here and experience what big league pitching is like and what major league life is like and understand how to go through adjustments,” manager Brandon Hyde said while explaining the decision. “We saw Grayson (Rodriguez) do that earlier this year and he came back a different guy.”

Cowser came back on Sept. 1 but lasted only two days on the expanded roster and didn’t play. Hicks returned from a second stint on the IL. Cowser had to leave again.

He wasn’t on the playoff roster. He wasn’t on the taxi squad. But it wasn’t a total loss.

A World Series that supposedly was going to be boring and a ratings killer began last night with Corey Seager’s game-tying two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning and Adolis García’s walk-off homer in the 11th that gave the Rangers a 6-5 win over the Diamondbacks.

The first extra-inning game of the 2023 postseason, and it was an instant classic.

The Diamondbacks’ lineup included first baseman Christian Walker, the Orioles’ fourth-round draft pick in 2012 out of the University of South Carolina. A delayed success story.

Walker appeared in only 13 games in 2014-15, his path blocked by expensive veteran Chris Davis and prospect Trey Mancini. He made only six starts at first.

The Braves claimed Walker off waivers in February 2017, and the Reds claimed him a month later. Arizona claimed him three weeks after that.

Part of the ripple effect from the Orioles’ wave of promotions today within the scouting department is a change in roles for Anthony Villa.

Villa is replacing Matt Blood as director of player development, according to an industry source. Blood has been promoted to vice president of player development and domestic scouting.

Villa was put in charge this year of overseeing the entire system as minor league hitting coordinator after working at the lower levels. He played in the White Sox system from 2016-18 and came to the organization prior to 2020 as hitting coach at Aberdeen before the pandemic forced the cancellation of the minor league season.

Among the announced promotions is the following:

Koby Perez is vice president of international scouting and operations. Mike Snyder is senior director of pro scouting. Gerardo Cabrera is director of Latin American scouting. Kevin Carter is manager of pro scouting. Hendrik Herz is manager of domestic scouting analysis. Chad Tatum is manager of domestic scouting. Will Robertson is special assignment scout. Alex Tarandek is a senior analyst in scouting. Michael Weis is a senior data scientist of draft evaluation. And Maria Arellano is senior manager of international operations and baseball administration.

The Orioles are making changes to the pitching side of their major league coaching staff.

According to a source, Chris Holt won’t serve as pitching coach in 2024 but maintains his duties as director of pitching, a title pinned to him prior to the pandemic 2020 season.

Assistant pitching coach Darren Holmes is leaving the organization, per the source, creating a second opening on the staff.

Holt was hired in 2019 as minor league pitching coordinator, following executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias and vice president and assistant general manager Sig Mejdal from the Astros organization, where he was assistant pitching coordinator. The Orioles promoted Holt to pitching coach in 2021 as Doug Brocail’s replacement.

The latest switch enables Holt to concentrate fully on supervising the rest of the organization in the quest to develop more pitching, leveraging his skill set and experience. He retains access to and authority over the minor league pitchers while also able to work directly with the major league staff.

With so much said and written about the Orioles throughout the offseason and spring training, it’s hard to remember how much the media got right, wrong or stuck in a gray area.

The internet makes it a lot easier to keep score.

So does a good memory.

On a Sunday spent on the Eastern Shore, with my mother’s cooking a coma-inducing risk – her Italian chicken and spaghetti, preceded and followed by a table full of snacks, have laid out larger men than me – I decided to revisit some of my thoughts and predictions while I’m conscious.

Adley Rutschman’s workload behind the plate.

Former Orioles closer Zack Britton didn’t pitch this summer after failing to reach agreement on a free-agent contract, providing him with the opportunity to spend more time with a family that’s grown to include four children ranging in age from nine to two. And to more easily follow along on his older brother’s journey to a Triple-A championship.

He knew that Buck Britton was wired to coach and manage. That the short-circuiting of the former infielder’s playing career wasn’t the end of his baseball life.

It was just the beginning.

The Tides set a franchise record with 90 victories, won their first International League title since 1985 and secured their first Triple-A crown since 1983.  Britton was selected as the league’s Manager of the Year, following his award in 2019 with Double-A Bowie. He’s 164-135 in two seasons with Norfolk and 381-312 in five years in the Orioles’ system, beginning in 2018 at Single-A Delmarva.

The gig fits like a fielder’s glove.

The Orioles will try again for their first multiple Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners since 2014.

They have three candidates this year – catcher Adley Rutschman, first baseman Ryan Mountcastle and left fielder Austin Hays.

Rutschman is pitted against the Rangers’ Jonah Heim and the Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk. Mountcastle joins the Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo and the Rangers’ Nathaniel Lowe. Hays joins the Blue Jays’ Daulton Varsho and the Guardians’ Steven Kwan.

Winners are determined from voting by the managers and coaches in each league who are prohibited from choosing their own players. A sabermetric component accounts for about 25 percent of the vote total.

The results will be announced on Nov. 5 beginning at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight.”

The task of constructing a 26-man roster for 2024, and it’s never too early to begin the process through staff meetings, is easier in some ways for Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias.

The backup catcher already is in place with another season left on the four-year deal that James McCann signed with the Mets. The Orioles usually hold a camp competition that involves players on one-year contracts and minor league deals, or with salaries set via the arbitration process. But next spring’s drama will be reduced to determining who’s the next man up in case of injury.

Anthony Bemboom headed north with the team again after McCann went on the IL with a left oblique strain.

The outfield already is crowded and Elias could be dissuaded from pursuing a veteran. He’s got to figure out how to potentially fit Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad. Not to block them.

The infield also is deep, and Jackson Holliday has a chance to make the Opening Day roster. Second baseman Connor Norby put up big numbers in Triple-A. Third baseman Coby Mayo mashed in Double-A and Triple-A, hitting a combined .290/.410/.564 with 45 doubles, three triples, 29 home runs and 99 RBIs in 140 games, and earning Most Valuable Player honors in the Eastern League.

The Orioles’ swift exit from the Division Series brings us to the first mailbag of the offseason. Tailor made if you’re the Rangers, also bringing us to the first Taylor Swift pun.

I'll get to ERAs later.

(Her current tour is called Eras. Try to keep up and be cool like me.)

The organization doesn’t go dark. Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias and his staff are plotting their roster strategies and, after the weekend news about Brad Ciolek taking a job with the Nationals, how to find their next director of draft operations.

A scout from outside the organization texted me yesterday that the Orioles have “plenty of in-house candidates.” Maybe that’s the solution.

It used to be said that the Orioles worrying about a closer was akin – as opposed to Keegan Akin, which wasn’t said – to putting shiny hubcaps on a rusted Ford Pinto.

They had far bigger issues than worrying about ninth inning leads. Like, trying to get a ninth inning lead.

But we’ve moved past bad teams. The Orioles won 101 games this season. They are expected to be the favorites to win the division again in 2024. Their odds to win the World Series won’t be 100/1.

The Orioles have tried their own relievers in the past, most recently Félix Bautista, who went from imposing setup man to imposing closer and made the All-Star team. Averaged an obscene 16.2 strikeouts per nine innings and entered the Cy Young conversation before tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and undergoing surgery that removes him from next year’s roster.

Jorge López went from starter to closer before Bautista replaced him. Jim Johnson was a minor league starter in the Orioles’ system and later a closer who saved 50-plus games in back-to-back seasons. Zack Britton was Zach Britton while starting and later closing for the Orioles, going 47-for-47 in 2016 and finishing fourth in Cy Young voting.

Mike Elias confirmed this week that he’s returning as Orioles executive vice president/general manager, and Brandon Hyde remains the manager following a 101-win season.

However, the scouting department won’t go untouched.

An industry source confirmed today that director of draft operations Brad Ciolek is joining the Nationals as senior director of amateur scouting.

The hire is part of a massive shakeup by the Nats, who also are replacing director of player development De Jon Watson. Johnny DiPuglia resigned as international scouting director in September. Twelve scouts were told later that month that their contracts wouldn’t be renewed.

Ciolek will report directly to former Orioles scout Danny Haas, hired last week as vice president of amateur scouting. Kris Kline, who held the job since 2009, moves into a scouting position on the professional side.

Matt Swartz at MLBTradeRumors.com created a model to project salaries for arbitration-eligible players, which the site has published for 13 years. Is it 100 percent accurate? Of course not, because that would be impossible. But he nails some and comes darn close with others.

That's to be expected with an algorithm that, as the site describes it, “looks at the player’s playing time, position, role, and performance statistics while accounting for inflation.” We’re also warned against using it as a “scorecard.” But does that stop us?

Of course not.

Anyway, the Orioles have an astounding 16 players eligible for arbitration, tied with the Rays and Mets for second most behind the Yankees’ 17. My unscientific projection is there’s zero chance that the club retains all of them.

Anthony Santander’s salary could jump from $7.4 million to $12.7 million. Starter Kyle Gibson led the club this season at $10 million, since the Yankees carried the bulk of Aaron Hicks’ salary and the Mets handled the bulk of James McCann’s.

The reflection period after the last playoff game also covers press conferences in the auxiliary clubhouse at Camden Yards, where the ballpark was eerily quiet yesterday. No one milling around the concourses. No prep work for Game 5 of the American League Division Series.

Sort of like a bug-out but without taking down the tents.

The place will be hoppin’ again next spring. The Orioles open at home against the Angels on March 28.

In the meantime, out of the public eye, team officials are gathering to discuss various points of business. You want specifics? Check back later.

“This is very fresh,” said executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias. “We just got off a plane.”

More players arrived at Camden Yards this morning to pack their belongings. Others hopped in cars or boarded flights home. Félix Bautista arrived before 11 a.m. to get further instructions on rehabbing his right elbow, an arduous task that begins in a few days in Sarasota.

The Orioles’ offseason is in its infancy stages, which precludes executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias from offering specifics on targeted areas of improvement, payroll, handling arbitration-eligible players, the status of front office personnel and the coaching staff, replacing Bautista and roles for other pitchers.

Elias didn’t tap dance during today’s season-ending press conference, but he chose his words carefully and warned that he would be “kind of boring today with positional roster questions.”

It’s just too soon. The wounds are fresh after being swept by the Rangers in the Division Series.

“I just want to thank our players,” Elias said in opening remarks during his 30-minute session. “Just tremendous group of individuals I’ll never forget. Getting a chance to work with these guys, and luckily we’re going to be working with many, many, many of them going forward. We asked a lot of them and they delivered, so, any shortcomings that anyone perceives with the 2023 campaign should be directed towards me.

The end was laid out early for us, the six runs scored over the first two innings in Game 3 of the American League Division Series. And yet, it felt so abrupt. Funny how that works.

A strikeout with two down in the top of the ninth inning, Rangers sprinting out of the dugout to celebrate, Orioles staying in theirs to watch and maybe learn. The hurt so evident later.

“It doesn’t really feel real right now,” said catcher Adley Rutschman.

Everyone looked like they were in a haze.

I could carry away so many images from the 2023 season, but I may be stuck with the sight of players sitting in front of their lockers after the media entered. Pretty much a full room, which is highly unusual. It actually was jarring. And not a sound made. Just blank stares.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Rookie Jordan Westburg struck out on three pitches, and the Orioles ran out of comebacks. Out of chances to keep playing. They’re going home, and not to host the decisive game.

A team that wasn’t swept in its last 91 series couldn’t squeeze a win out of the ALDS.

Dean Kremer allowed six runs in 1 2/3 innings, with homers by Corey Seager and Adolis García traveling a combined 863 feet, and the Rangers rolled to a 7-1 win in Game 3 before an announced sellout crowd of 40,861, the largest ever at Globe Life Field.

The 101 wins in the regular season and first division title since 2014 must suffice. The launch out of the rebuild and the promise of many playoff teams in the future.

Players had to deal with the present as they sat in the dugout and watched the Rangers celebrate, then made the painful walk back to their clubhouse. The best record in the league didn’t give them a pass.

ARLINGTON, Texas – The temperature of the Orioles hasn’t changed in the Texas heat or the air conditioning inside Globe Life Field.

They aren’t in a panic after losing the first two games of the American League Division Series. They aren’t consumed with doubts.

They aren’t paying attention to the skeptics and doomsayers.

“Obviously, this is different because of the playoffs, but we've been in this spot before,” said catcher James McCann. “We've lost two games in a series and we've bounced right back. I think that's the mindset we have to have today. We can't change our mindset. We can't change who we've been for 162 games, the success we've had coming into the playoffs. Just because we're down 0-2 doesn't mean we need to change who we are. Staying true to who we are, having each other's back and go out and play the game hard. See what happens.”

“Every game we play, we're trying to win the game. I feel that way,” said Ryan O’Hearn, who’s serving as designated hitter tonight.

ARLINGTON, Texas – A must-win Game 3 for the Orioles brings changes to their lineup against Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi.

Ryan O’Hearn gets his first start, batting fifth and serving as designated hitter. Adam Frazier is playing second base and batting ninth.

Gunnar Henderson is leading off.

Cedric Mullins is batting seventh, followed by third baseman Jordan Westburg.

Dean Kremer gets the call over veteran Kyle Gibson. He’s posted a 3.59 ERA in his last 26 starts.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Orioles manager Brandon Hyde knew that Dean Kremer wanted the ball in Game 3 of the American League Division Series. The high stakes, the confidence he brings to the mound, the impressive starts in two clinchers last month.

Hyde approached Kremer yesterday, prior to Game 2, and updated him on the team’s plans. He was the choice. But Hyde checked back this morning amid the violent conflict with Hamas in Israel, where at least 900 people were killed over the weekend in a surprise attack. Israel declared war on Sunday.

Kremer has Israeli dual citizenship and makes yearly visits to his family. He pitched for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic during spring training, his proudest moment in a baseball uniform.

“I saw him at breakfast this morning,” Hyde said at today’s workout at Globe Life Field. “We had a nice conversation. Gave him my support and sympathies for him and his family that's involved, and he seemed OK. He seemed like he was ready to pitch. He seemed like he felt comfortable with where his family situation was at with the whole thing.

“Obviously, he's very disturbed and there's a lot of things going on, but I didn't sense that it was going to affect (him). I think he's really looking forward to pitching tomorrow, so I didn't think it was going to affect him.”