Juan Soto signed with the New York Mets, not only leaving the Orioles' division, but their league too. Corbin Burnes signed with Arizona and Roki Sasaki is a Los Angeles Dodger.

But the O’s on Monday saw one of their own sign with another club and also stay in the American League East when outfielder Anthony Santander agreed to a five-year deal worth $92.5 million with the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Jays didn’t sign but tried to get Shohei Ohtani, Sasaki, Soto, Burnes and Max Fried. But they finally did get one, with Santander coming off a 44-homer season that ranked third-best in the majors.

He also drove in 102 runs last year – the first Oriole with 100 or more since Jonathan Schoop with 105 in 2017 – and produced an OPS of .814 and OPS+ of 134. Santander, who turned 30 in October, finished 2024 ninth in the AL in RBIs, 11^th in slugging and 13^th in OPS.

And his payday came Monday. I guess all that talk of his on-base percentage and defense didn’t keep him from getting some big dollars.

It's getting closer and closer with each day that goes by. The start of the 2025 baseball season. We can now say spring training begins next month. The first spring game is set for Feb. 22 and Opening Day is March 27 at 3:07 p.m. at Rogers Centre, where the O's will play the Toronto Blue Jays. 

With the Blue Jays for now projecting an all right-handed rotation and the O's possibly to face Kevin Gausman or José Berríos in that opener, I took a look recently in this space at a possible O's lineup for Game 1.

This is what I came up with:

SS – Gunnar Henderson
3B – Jordan Westburg
DH – Ryan O’Hearn
RF – Tyler O’Neill
1B – Ryan Mountcastle
LF – Colton Cowser
C – Adley Rutschman
CF – Cedric Mullins
2B – Jackson Holliday

For now I don't see anyone better to put in the top spot than Henderson. At some point in his career he will probably move more into the middle of the order. But I don't think we are there yet. Readers, many of you, seemed to like Westburg being moved up to the No. 2 spot. He batted mostly fifth last year and could hit just about anywhere. He had an .808 OPS last season versus righty pitching.

This is a bit random today and not related to any recent signings or O’s news at all. But today, just for the heck of it, I take a look at some random individual stats from the 2024 season.

Some may be surprising, many will probably not.

But in a game filled with stats - traditional, advanced and otherwise - here are a few more today.

In most cases the numbers are for only O’s players that had enough plate appearances last year to qualify for league leaders, and in most cases I left out players who during the year had only a couple of dozen plate appearances.

O’s 2024 leaders, pitches per plate appearance:

In this space yesterday I noted that Ryan Mountcastle would be expected to hit more home runs in 2025 as the Orioles are moving the left field fence closer to home plate at Camden Yards. This is after three years after they had moved the wall back nearly 30 feet from its original position.

Mountcastle hit 22 home runs in Baltimore during the 2021 season, the last one with the previous dimensions. He averaged a homer at Camden Yards every 12.77 at-bats that year. But then he hit just 28 total home homers from 2022 through 2024, hitting one every 24.86 at-bats.

I wondered how the entire team was impacted by the year-to-year home homer numbers.

Here are the stats on that from 2021 on:

Actually, the O’s got closer to their 2021 home stats each year, almost equaling them last season when the team hit 235 homers for the season, second-most in the major leagues to the Yankees' 237.

Now that 2025 has arrived on the calendar, can the baseball season be that far behind?

It will be here sooner than we think, with spring training arriving next month, the first spring game set for Feb. 22 and Opening Day 2025 scheduled for March 27 with the Orioles at Rogers Centre in Toronto.

Here are a few things to ponder and look forward to during this coming season.

The filling out of the roster: Will the O’s add a front-line starting pitcher? If they add someone or more than one, does that happen via free agency or via a trade?

Last season it was not until Feb. 1 that the deal for Corbin Burnes was announced.

Some projections when free agency was just beginning had outfielder Anthony Santander getting $100 million and maybe more whenever he signs his next contract.

Free to sign with any team, Santander is still out there for any club to sign, but maybe some recent deals provide a framework for his next one.

As free agency opened up, MLBTradeRumors.com projected that Santander, ranked as its No. 9 free agent, would get a four-year deal for $80 million. ESPN projected he would sign for three years and $69 million. FanGraphs.com predicted five years for $100 million and The Athletic put it at five years and $105 million.

An Oriole since the 2016 Rule 5 draft and for parts of eight big league seasons, Santander is expected to sign elsewhere, especially after the Orioles added outfielder Tyler O’Neill via free agency.

For his 2024 season on offense, Santander hit .235/.308/.506/.814 with 25 doubles, two triples, 44 homers, 91 runs and 102 RBIs.

On Christmas Day 2024, if I could give something to every person alive, it would be the abilities to be humble, nice and respectful to each other every day in every way.

As I traveled recently, a big smile on my face in going through another adventure, I noticed so many people just look unhappy. Many probably are unhappy.

So many seem to think of themselves first often and seldom those around them. Too bad. We never know what someone else is dealing with or what burdens they carry.

I once told Jim Palmer it warms my heart that Hall of Fame Orioles like him and Brooks Robinson were always so very nice to the fans.

“Steve, it doesn’t take much to be nice,” he told me.

Sure the Orioles, like most teams that don’t have one, could use an ace pitcher. They still hope to add one before the start of the 2025 season. 

But their current rotation has the makings of being a good one.

Here is how it looks today:

Zach Eflin: He is the probable Opening Day starter. After the trade to the Orioles, over nine starts, he went 5-2 with a 2.60 ERA. Only nine pitchers, including the Orioles' Corbin Burnes, that qualified, posted season-long ERAs under 3.00. To do it even for nine starts was impressive.

Eflin finished sixth for the 2023 American League Cy Young Award and has been among the best pitchers in the American League. Over the last two years, while Burnes posted a 3.15 ERA and 1.083 WHIP, Eflin was at 3.54 and 1.085.

When the Orioles begin the 2025 season, there is a pretty good chance right-hander Dean Kremer will be in their rotation. As he has been for the last few seasons.

Kremer posted an ERA of 3.23, a career best, in 21 starts in 2022. But he had a 4.12 ERA the next season, and last season it was 4.10.

That ERA was essentially league average: an ERA+ of 99 in 2023 and his ERA+ was 92 last year. His career mark is 4.28, so the O’s appreciate Kremer’s efforts, of course, but must wonder if he can find a higher gear.

Kremer, who turns 29 on Jan. 7, has just over three years of service time and is arbitration-eligible for the first time. He could get around $3.5 million via arbitration, per MLBTradeRumors.com. He cannot be a free agent until after the 2027 season.

In 2023, Kremer made 32 starts and the O’s had an outstanding 24-8 record in those games. They went 10-14 in his 24 starts this past season.

When the Orioles recently announced their coaching staff for the 2025 season, one of the new hires was Robinson Chirinos, who will be the team’s bench coach.

That is quite the entry into the coaching ranks for Chirinos, 40, whose last season playing in the majors was in 2022 for the Orioles.

He played in 67 games for that O’s team, and in 220 plate appearances he hit .179/.265/.287/.552. Those numbers don’t come close to telling the real story of his year. He was a major presence in the O’s clubhouse, cited often by manager Brandon Hyde as a clubhouse difference-maker for an O’s club that went from 52 wins in 2021 to 83 that season.

He helped teach the Orioles how to win.

That was the team’s first winning season since 2016, and the 31-win gain was the O’s largest in a single season since 1989, when they made a 33-game improvement from their 54–107 record in 1988.

For someone who covers the minor leagues as I do it is a question to ponder: When referring to the Baysox moving forward, do I go with Chesapeake, their new name, or in some cases is Bowie still acceptable?

A case like when I refer to a player who spent time in 2024 with the Baysox. They were still Bowie then, so do I say this player hit such and such at High-A Aberdeen and this number at Double-A Bowie? Or just use Chesapeake?

There is no handbook and there are no right or wrong answers.

But in noting some recent stories in this space, I did report on the name change to the Chesapeake Baysox.

“I think when we looked at where our fans are coming from, we wanted to be inclusive of the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Brian Shallcross, in his 20^th year as Baysox general manager. “We saw people coming from the Eastern Shore, west of the Potomac. We were surprised when we dug into the stats of just how far and ranging our fanbase was. We wanted to be inclusive of all those fans without forgetting our roots.”

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – So now the score is 2-2. There are two Orioles full-season affiliates that use a very specific home name, as in the Triple-A Norfolk Tides and the High-A Aberdeen IronBirds. Now two have a more regional look: the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds and, as of yesterday, the Double-A Chesapeake Baysox, formerly the Bowie Baysox.

“I think when we looked at where our fans are coming from, we wanted to be inclusive of the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Brian Shallcross, in his 20^th year as Baysox general manager. “We saw people coming from the Eastern Shore, west of the Potomac. We were surprised when we dug into the stats of just how far and ranging our fanbase was. We wanted to be inclusive of all those fans without forgetting our roots.”

Shallcross noted that the club went through a two-year process to change the name and meet all Major League Baseball approvals. The Orioles were involved throughout. They don’t own this team, but it’s their farm system.

So, what changes now?

“Well, I think what changes, basically, is we want to make sure that everybody knows they are welcome in our ballpark," Shallcross said. "Anywhere within the Chesapeake - and, heck, you saw we’ve sold tickets to fans from 42 states and Maryland – but anywhere, really, in the watershed we want to be welcoming and a destination.”

The hurricane damage to the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg will send the Tampa Bay Rays to a new home for the 2025 season.

When Hurricane Milton tore through Florida on Oct. 9, the storm's winds destroyed a large portion of Tropicana Field's fiberglass roof. 

The Rays will play their home games for next season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, which is about 20 miles from Tropicana Field. The Yankees use Steinbrenner Field as their spring training home, and that will continue. They also have a Low-A Florida State League team that uses that facility, and that will also continue, although they are expected to use other fields and not the stadium field. There are more than 40 days when the Rays and Tampa Tarpons will both be scheduled to play at Steinbrenner Field. 

The Rays will continue to hold spring training at Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte. Their first regular-season homestand will take place at Steinbrenner Field. They host Colorado on Opening Day March 27 and play the Rockies and Pittsburgh in those first six home games. Tampa Bay will play 16 of its first 22 games next season in their temporary home at Steinbrenner Field.

Next season the Orioles are scheduled to play the Rays on the road June 16-19 for four games, and they will play a three-game series versus the Rays in Tampa from July 18-20, the first series out of the All-Star break.

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.

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).

An Orioles offense that ranked second in the American League and fourth in the majors in runs per game in 2024, has produced three Silver Slugger finalists in Anthony Santander, Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg.

The Orioles are also up for the American League offensive team of the year. Their batters did slump in the second half and scored just one run in two playoff games.

Henderson is a finalist at the shortstop position, Santander in the outfield and Westburg for a utility spot.

The finalists for the Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Award are voted on by MLB managers and coaches. Winners will be announced on MLB Network on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Henderson and Adley Rutschman won Silver Slugger awards last year. Santander is a finalist for the third straight year and Westburg is a finalist for the first time.

With just two Gold Glove winners since the 2015 season, the Orioles will not add to that total this year. The Orioles had two finalists with Ryan Mountcastle at first base and Colton Cowser in left field, but neither won the Rawlings Gold Glove when the winners were announced tonight during a live ESPN broadcast.

Minnesota’s Carlos Santana won at first base and Nathaniel Lowe of Texas was the third finalist at that spot for the American League. Cleveland’s Steven Kwan won in left field for the third year in a row in the AL and the Yankees' Alex Verdugo was the third left field finalist.

The last time the Orioles had more than one Gold Glove winner was in 2014 when J.J. Hardy, Nick Markakis and Adam Jones were winners. Manny Machado was a solo O's winner in 2015 and Ramón Urías won at third base in 2022. Urías was the last Oriole to win the Gold Glove.

Baltimore’s 72 Gold Gloves since the award’s inception in 1957 are second-most all-time behind St. Louis with 98.

Had Cowser won the award and then later this month added the Baseball Writers' Association of America AL Rookie of the Year award, he would have been the first to win both since Ichiro Suzuki in 2001.

It's about that time. A time when I ask the readers here a few Orioles questions and get your input. Answer one question or all of them. Provide short answers or long ones. Respond to what other readers have to say.

It's not a quiz and won't be graded.

There are no right or wrong answers.

If you cannot participate today there will be other chances before Opening Day for similar blogs here.

Now, today's questions.

Five days after the end of the World Series, which began last night, teams can sign free agents. It could be an active winter for the Orioles, who have two key free agents of their own hitting the market.

They are right-handed pitcher Corbin Burnes and right fielder Anthony Santander. Both are almost certain to get qualifying offers from the Orioles, which would net the team a draft pick if they leave and sign elsewhere.

The consensus opinions seem to be that Burnes is almost certain to leave while the O’s may have at least an outside shot at retaining Santander.

But if that were to come at the price from one prediction this week, I can’t see that happening.

Former big league general manager Jim Bowden predicted who top 45 free agents will be, where they end up and at what price in The Athletic this week (subscription may be required).

When three teams that each won division titles and more than 100 games last year all lost in their first playoff series and went a combined 1-9 last October, the theory was that the long layoff was an issue.

This year three of the four division winners, teams that once again had five-day layoffs before opening their Division Series, won to advance to the League Championship Series.

In 2023, the 104-win Atlanta Braves and the 101-win Orioles and Dodgers went out quick in the postseason.

But this year three division winners - the Yankees, Dodgers and Guardians - are moving on. The Los Angeles Dodgers shut out San Diego in Game 4 and Game 5 to advance to face the Mets for the National League Championship. The American League series, which starts at Yankee Stadium on Monday, has New York versus Cleveland. 

So much for the theory that the five-day layoff is too much to overcome. That narrative was fun while it lasted.