It is pretty clear that the Orioles are excited to be taking part in spring training and fired up for a season in which expectations are raised after the team went 83-79 last year. They had the best record of any American League non-postseason team.

Now they take aim at their first playoff berth since the 2016 AL wild card game.

“Guys are really excited. Really love the talent here. It’s a great character group,” manager Brandon Hyde told reporters Tuesday at Ed Smith Stadium.

He was asked about his message to the team, which wants to show it can be a contender after the Orioles gained 31 wins from 2021 to 2022.

“Honestly, just want us to build off last year,” Hyde 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 is reasonable to wonder how many more stolen bases we will see in the majors this coming season with the new rules in place. Those who can run may get more chances than in previous seasons. It’s fair to wonder what that could mean for the team with the two top basestealers in the American League last year: the Orioles.

Shortstop Jorge Mateo stole 35 bases on 44 attempts to lead the AL in 2022, and his teammate Cedric Mullins was second, just one base behind, getting 34-of-44. Tampa Bay’s Randy Arozarena stole 32 bases, and then came Bobby Witt Jr. of Kansas City with 30.

By leading the AL, Mateo became the third Oriole (fourth occurrence) to lead the league in steals, joining Brian Roberts (2007) and Luis Aparicio (1963 and 1964). He is the sixth O's player (eighth time) since 2000 with at least 35 stolen bases.

As a team, the Orioles stole 95 bases (with Mateo and Mullins producing nearly 73 percent of that) to rank tied for fifth in the AL and tied for 11^th in the majors. It was a big jump from Baltimore’s 54 steals in 2021, which was tied for 12^th-most in the AL.

So they return two of the top basestealers at a time when stealing bases could become easier. Or it sure appears they could.

Right-hander Dean Kremer, who had an ERA of 7.55 in 13 starts in the 2021 season, reduced that by over four runs per game last year. It provides hope that he could again this season be a key member of the Baltimore rotation.

No one has won a job yet and a lot can happen over the next few weeks under the Florida sun, but Kremer had a strong season over 22 games and 125 1/3 innings in 2022, going 8-7 with a 3.23 ERA. His 124 ERA+ was 24 percent better than league average.

Kremer did that while posting below-average strikeout rates, but he was above average in walk rate and homer rate, and used solid spin rates to create effective pitches that provided him with a strong season.

His ERA, had he enough innings to qualify for league leaders at 162, would have ranked 11^th last year in the American League. Among pitchers throwing 120 or more innings as a baseline, his ERA was tied for 17^th. Among the 18 pitchers on that list, he ranked last in K rate at 6.2 and his strikeout percentage was 17.0 while major league average was 22.9. His walk rate, though, was 2.4 and his walk percentage of 6.6 topped the major league average of 8.5.

Kremer was particularly good when pitching on exactly four day’s rest, going 3-2 with a 1.77 ERA and .656 OPS against.

The first day of spring training for the Orioles produced the first news of a player that will miss opening day. And it comes from the O’s bullpen. We can always count on the start of spring to produce information on which players will be “slow-played” or be on a list of no play, not playing yet at all.

Bullpen righty Dillon Tate will begin the season on the injured list. He strained his right flexor/forearm in November. That will also keep him from pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.

We also learned yesterday that closer Félix Bautista is questionable for opening day as he’s been rehabbing his left knee this winter and is on a strengthening program for his shoulder. Missing one or both of these pitchers for any length of time would be a huge loss.

Also, lefty DL Hall will be slow-played due to lower lumbar discomfort, which first showed up about three weeks ago.

O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias told reporters they expect Tate back in late April or early May. Tate’s situation makes the addition of right-hander Mychal Givens maybe more important now.

The Orioles take the field today in Sarasota, Fla., for the first official workout of the new season. Yes, baseball is back. The first spring training game is set for a week from Saturday at Ed Smith Stadium against the Minnesota Twins.

With the new year comes new rules in Major League Baseball. We will see a pitch clock, restrictions on infield shifts and larger bases.

The pitch clock has at least one intended goal: reducing time of games. The average MLB game lasted three hours and seven minutes last season, and officials think there is a chance we see that time trimmed as much as 25 minutes per contest.

Requiring that two infielders be positioned on either side of second base should allow for more action in the game. More balls should get through to the outfield, leading to more hits, but infielders also will have more ground to cover, putting a premium again on range and possibly bringing more great defense back to the game. Think more diving plays and off-balance throws.

Last year teams shifted a combined 60,765 times on the infield, with more shifts coming versus lefty batters on the right side of the infield. Now there can only be two infielders on each side of second base, and they must be on the infield dirt. The MLB batting average for 2022 of .243 should go up a bit. That was the lowest in the game since 1968. On the other hand, minor league teams last year saw just a two-point gain in batting average – from .247 to .249 - with the shift-limiting rules in place.

While the Orioles' stated goal for this year is to take their 83 wins from last year, build on that and make the playoffs, not everyone believes that will happen. Or at least their predictions and projections lead you to believe they are skeptical.

The Orioles gained 31 wins last year to get to 83, and that was the second-biggest win gain from one year to the next in team history. The 1989 Orioles won 87 games, a year after the club won just 54 in 1988, for a plus-33.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 2022 Orioles were the first team since 1900 to win at least 77 games in a season after losing 110 or more games the previous year. And they were also the first team in major league history to win more than 70 games after finishing each of the previous three full seasons (150+ G) with 100+ losses.

But while Birdland is excited to see if their club can get back to the playoffs in 2023, others being heard from are trying to throw some cold water on the whole thing.

We can always count on the PECOTA projections for this.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards will host another major concert in September. Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have announced additional North American dates for their 2023 international tour in 18 cities.

“As a lifelong fan of Bruce Springsteen and of my hometown, it’s an honor to announce that on Sept. 9, 2023, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will play their first ever outdoor stadium show in Baltimore at Oriole Park at Camden Yards,” said Orioles Chairman and CEO, John Angelos. 

The newly added shows will begin at Chicago's Wrigley Field on Aug. 9 and running through Dec. 8 at San Francisco's Chase Center. Multiple nights have been scheduled for Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park (Aug. 16 and 18), New Jersey's MetLife Stadium (Aug. 30 and Sept. 1), Toronto's Scotiabank Arena (Nov. 14 and 16) and Los Angeles' Kia Forum (Dec. 4 and 6). Tickets for the 22 added North American shows will go on sale over the course of the next two weeks.

For many cities, the tour will be using Verified Fan via Ticketmaster. Verified Fan requires pre-registration at verifiedfan.ticketmaster.com/springsteen and is open through Sunday Feb. 19 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Verified Fan is intended to make it easier for fans to get tickets, and harder for resellers and bots.

For more information about Verified Fan visit blog.ticketmaster.com/bruce-springsteen-e-street-band2023/.

We are now a little over three weeks away from the start of the fifth World Baseball Classic. The now expanded to 20-nation tourney begins with four pools of five teams each playing games in Taiwan, Tokyo, Phoenix and Miami.

Team USA will play in Pool C at Chase Field in Phoenix along with Canada, Colombia, Mexico and Great Britain. The two top teams in each of the four pools advance to the quarterfinals and play is then single-elimination, one and done, from that point on. The semi-finals are March 19-20 in Miami with the championship game set for March 21.

Here are past winners:

2006 – Japan

2009 – Japan

When it comes to scoring runs, the Orioles were slightly below American League average in 2022 – due in large part to a scoring drought late in the year.

The AL average for runs per game last season was 4.22 and the Orioles were at 4.16. They ranked 10^th in the league in runs scored, up from 2021, when the Orioles were 14^th.

And for much of last season they were about league average in runs, or just above. They were scoring 4.20 runs per game at the All-Star break and were at 4.24 per game at the end of August. But when they scored just 3.97 per game in the last month that brought the final season average down.

So there is progress to make here.

And yes, some of it, maybe much of it, can come from full seasons of Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. They combined for 559 plate appearances last year and they could double that this coming season.

Outfield prospect Heston Kjerstad is trending up, and he’s soaking in all of it. After all, he had to wait 27 months between his last game for the University of Arkansas and his first pro game, which he played June 10 for the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Orioles' Single-A affiliate.

In between the two, a pandemic ended his 2020 Arkansas season early. Then myocarditis kept him out of the 2021 season and a hamstring issue kept him off an opening day roster last year. Talk about a long wait to play. But the 23-year-old lefty hitter started to look like his old self late last year. He had a strong finish for High-A Aberdeen, carried that into the league playoffs and then was named MVP of the Arizona Fall League.

So it was easy to understand his emphatic answer when he was asked if he is limited at all physically as spring training is about to begin.

“No chance. I’m feeling good, feeling great,” Kjerstad said during last Saturday’s happy hour Birdland Caravan stop in Baltimore. “Luckily, got everything else behind me and just ready to focus on this season. Play a lot of baseball and, hopefully, work my way up.”

And for him it will start at major league spring training. He was one of the non-roster invitees to big league camp.

When it comes to how much a team may be improved from one year to the next we often look at what offseason additions they made. Did they get better there? We seldom look at improvements players already on the roster could make.

During a media session with reporters last Friday at the Warehouse, O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias discussed two important, and still young, players on his roster and their abilities to take a step forward in 2023. He was talking specifically about Ryan Mountcastle, whose .729 OPS last season was five percent over the American League average, and outfielder Austin Hays, whose .719 OPS was three percent above league average.

Both players got off to good starts that didn’t hold up in 2022. Mountcastle had an OPS of .786 in the first half and .659 in the second half. He hit just five homers total in July and August. Hays posted an OPS of .779 in the first half and .626 in the second half.

In Mountcastle’s case, his homer total dropped from 33 in 2021 – which was an Orioles rookie record – to 22 a season ago. His homer percentage dipped from 5.6 percent to 3.6.

But when it came to expected stats, a formula that uses a combination of exit velocity and launch angle, Mountcastle looked strong on the stat sheet.

He is the pride of Valdosta, Ga., and now has his own Orioles-produced short film to prove that. He was the 21^st overall player selected in the 2017 MLB Draft. He can throw a fastball 100 miles per hour and his name has been consistently on top 100 lists, most of them, since his draft day.

But Dayton Layne Hall, known better as DL, still has some doubters. It seems sometimes he actually prefers it that way. This kid is out to prove people wrong. It’s been that way for a long time.

If you feel he is a longshot to make the Orioles' opening day rotation, what with 12 or so candidates competing for those jobs, this kid, with his quiet confidence and intensity, is out to prove you wrong.

“Just to go out there and compete and earn a spot in the rotation,” he said of his approach to spring training this year. O’s reporters interviewed the 24-year-old lefty during Saturday’s Birdland Caravan. “Just (want to) continue to build off what I learned and did last year in the big leagues.

“I mean, the focus for me is to be a starter. I think I can be a big league starter. That’s what I am focused on and that’s what I’m going to do.”

It seemed that Birdland Caravan may have hit another gear on Saturday afternoon in downtown Baltimore. A packed crowd, some braving long lines in the frigid cold, greeted the Orioles at their happy hour event at Checkerspot Brewing Company.

It is not far from that spot, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, that those fans hope some of those players will lead the Orioles back to the playoffs as the countdown is on for the 2023 season.

Adley Rutschman, fresh off his second-place finish for American League Rookie of the Year and 12^th-place finish for AL MVP, appreciated the passion he saw from the fans.

“Absolutely, the players feel that," he said. “It’s just a buzz. You know, and energy that you feel coming to events like this. You see the people are excited, and when you feel that kind of encouragement and support, it only helps everyone come together and continue to try and do great things.”

After a season when he batted .254/.362/.445 with 35 doubles and 13 homers, Rutschman produced 5.3 Wins Above Replacement, according to FanGraphs.com. That led the Orioles and tied for ninth among all AL hitters. And Rutschman played just 113 big league games. But he spent his offseason still looking for ways to improve his play.

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.”

One thing the Orioles did in adding right-hander Kyle Gibson and lefty Cole Irvin this offseason is replace one innings-eater starting pitcher - Jordan Lyles - with two of them. We’ll see how they fare with the Orioles, but we can say it’s pretty clear the club would love to see those two take the ball about a total of 60 times combined in 2023.

If they do, and if they provide some quality innings and outings along the way, the Orioles will be well on their way to getting more starter innings this coming season. Their starting pitchers averaged 5.0 innings per start last year, ranking ahead of only three other American League clubs. Houston led the way, averaging 5.9 innings.

So there is room for improvement in that area.

With Lyles and his 32 starts and 4.42 ERA out of the rotation, the Orioles head to spring training in less than two weeks with six pitchers that made 20 or more big league starts in 2022. Here are the six, ranked by ERA:

3.23 – Dean Kremer (21 starts)

It could be a tough year for spring training non-roster players looking to break north with the Orioles for opening day 2023. And while the non-roster invitees list has not been announced yet, maybe a reserve lefty-hitter at first base has the best chance to make it among several NRI candidates.

But among those signed to minor league deals to try and make the club in the outfield, one interesting candidate is 27-year-old lefty hitter Nomar Mazara.

Interesting because he has a bit of a resume, even though the Orioles are his fifth team in five years following Texas, the Chicago White Sox, Detroit and San Diego. Once a top 100 rated prospect, Mazara has been a reserve corner outfielder the last two seasons for the Tigers and Padres.

Mazara was once a bonus baby, signed for a then record $4.95 million for an international amateur by the Texas Rangers in 2011 out of the Dominican Republic. He first made the majors at age 20 in April of 2016 and went on to finish fifth that year for the AL Rookie of the Year honor with a .739 OPS and 20 home runs.

On his way to the big leagues, Mazara was a Texas Rangers' top 30 prospect every year from 2012 through 2016. He was ranked in the top 100 at No. 87 by Baseball America in 2015. In 2016 he was No. 9 via ESPN and No. 21 by Baseball America when he was the Rangers' third-ranked prospect.

When some fans around Birdland see the Orioles doing well on top 100 prospects lists, the obvious follow-up question is whether getting such big numbers will lead to major league wins.

If history is an indicator, not only could it lead to wins, but it could lead to a World Series championship.

There are no guarantees in sports, of course, but there is a history of a team reaching the No. 1 farm system ranking in the Baseball America listing and going on to big things.

The first year that the publication rated farm systems was 1984, and the New York Mets - with Dwight Gooden, Lenny Dykstra and Ron Darling - were No. 1. Two years later the Mets were World Series champions.

We could go back to when Toronto was the No. 1 farm in 1987 and 1988. Then in 1992 and 1993, the Blue Jays won two straight World Series titles.

As the Orioles pitching staff made vast improvement last season – a team ERA of 3.97 after the club had ranked last the year before at 5.84 – there was an area of improvement that may have flown under the radar.

The staff as a whole was much more pitch-efficient in 2022. The O’s staff averaged 16.2 pitches per inning. That was tied for eighth fewest in the major leagues. They ranked last the year before, throwing 17.5 pitches per inning. The Los Angeles Dodgers (15.6) and Cleveland Guardians (15.7) topped the majors in this stat in 2022.

In adding southpaw Cole Irvin via a trade with Oakland, the Orioles get a pitcher who is among the best in the majors in this stat. He averaged 15.0 pitches per inning in 2021 and was even better last season at 14.4. That was second fewest in the American League last season. A pitcher with that average would need just 86 or 87 pitches to clear six innings.

And by the way, while Jordan Lyles led the club with 13 quality starts last year (and the team went 9-4 in those games), Kyle Gibson and Irvin each recorded 15 quality starts. They eat up some innings and provide some quality along the way.

During his Zoom interview with O’s media Friday morning, Irvin talked about how being so efficient with his pitches is a real plus.

New Orioles lefty pitcher Cole Irvin has quickly adjusted to the fact that he woke up yesterday an Oakland Athletic and ended the day a Baltimore Oriole. He said he enjoyed conversations Friday with manager Brandon Hyde and pitching coach Chris Holt. He’s excited to see what the O’s coaches can offer him.

And when Oakland played in Baltimore last September, he took note of the talent in the other dugout that was on its way to 83 wins.

“I’m excited,” Irvin said during a Zoom call with Baltimore media this morning. “The first thing that came to my mind when I got the call, when we faced Baltimore at the end of the season, is how many plays Gunnar Henderson made that series. That kid’s jersey was dirty by the end of the first inning, top to bottom.

“I’m excited. It’s a young group. It’s going to be a lot of fun, there is so much talent. Just the difference from ’21 to ’22 was a visible difference. Excited to kind of get involved with the organization a little more, get to know the fans. There is a lot to be excited about.”

The Orioles acquired Irvin and Single-A right-hander Kyle Virbitsky Friday for minor league shortstop Darell Hernaiz.

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.