Ryan Mountcastle is healthy again. His oblique has healed and he’s back in the gym, swinging a bat and going through his usual workouts.

A normal offseason is underway. Well, except for his foray into free agency. Nothing familiar about that.

The Orioles declined Mountcastle’s $7.5 million option on Nov. 2, removing one of their longest tenured players from the roster. The 36th-overall pick in the 2015 draft might have played his last game with the team on April 11, when he fractured a bone in his left foot while running to second base on a double.

Tripper Johnson, a former Orioles minor league infielder who works as an agent with Apex Baseball, informed Mountcastle of the club’s decision with the option. News broke the following day, and president of baseball operations Mike Elias called the first baseman.

“He just sort of said, ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done for us,’” Mountcastle recalled yesterday. “And he said, ‘We’ll keep in touch in the fall and winter, and after the lockout is over, too.’”

The door must be ajar, but it seems unlikely that Mountcastle can squeeze into a crowded infield with Pete Alonso hunkered down at first base and Coby Mayo and Christian Encarnacion-Strand capable of backing up, assuming that they break camp with the team next spring. Jordan Westburg’s return from reconstructive-elbow surgery adds another right-handed bat.

“I’m not really sure exactly what’s going to happen,” Mountcastle said, “but he just said he’d keep in touch.”

Mountcastle avoided a non-tender last year and signed for $6.787 million, but his days were numbered, and he appeared in only eight games for a team that missed the playoffs again. He suffered a severe oblique strain on July 28 while warming for his first rehab game with Triple-A Norfolk, and most of his final season was spent on the injured list and rehabbing down in Sarasota.

What happened next, the phone calls from Johnson and Elias, seemed like the inevitable outcome.

“I wasn’t really sure,” Mountcastle said. ‘I’ve been with them for so long that I didn’t really know what to expect going into the offseason. Obviously I was hurt all year and that was pretty unfortunate if that’s sort of the way it ends, but it is what it is. Moving on and trying to get better.

“There were about seven or eight weeks left when I did the oblique thing. They basically told me it was probably going to knock me out the rest of the year unless we made the playoffs. I was hitting a little bit before I got back home. Once I got back home I took a couple weeks off just to sort of regroup, recover. I’ve been pretty healthy for probably a couple weeks now for sure.”

Few players in any sport are more deserving of it than Mountcastle, who’s been sidelined with injuries to his hand, forearm, wrist, elbow, shoulder, AC joint, knee, hamstring, foot and oblique. He also was sidelined with a concussion, vertigo and an illness.

It’s an unfortunate way to be remembered.

“When you’re rehabbing you’re thinking about all that stuff,” Mountcastle said. “It’s like, how can I even avoid something like that. I don’t even know what I could have done differently. But right when it (fractured foot) happened I put my head down and I was like, ‘This isn’t happening again.’ I stood up and looked at our trainer and Alby (Craig Albernaz). I was like, ‘This hurts.’”

Mountcastle chuckles with the retelling of the story. He’s learned how to roll with the punches.

“Yeah, it sucks, man,” he said. “I don’t want to say, ‘What did I do to deserve it,’ because I’m really blessed to be where I’m at, but yeah, it’s just unfortunate for sure.”

Mountcastle was hit by a pitch on his right hand in a March 11 exhibition game. X-rays were negative, but it felt like another here-we-go-again moment.

“I was like, ‘I can’t dodge any bullets,’” he said, again able to laugh at the absurdity. “It’s crazy.”

The expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement on Dec. 1 might shut down business for a while, which could either hasten contract negotiations for Mountcastle or push them back until there’s a resolution. He doesn’t really have a sense of his market and is waiting for it to develop.

“You never know,” he said. “This is my first time doing it and sort of seeing what we can get and look at all the options.”

A sense of excitement also is developing with Mountcastle’s first time on the market and a chance to start fresh at age 30 on Opening Day. Maybe that black cloud won’t follow him. There must be a team seeking a right-handed hitting first baseman with power who earned Rookie of the Year votes in his first two seasons in the league.

“I’m having a positive mindset about it,” he said. “I’m going into free agency. Whether I go back with the Orioles or not, I’m just excited to get back out there and play again. After missing a full year, I’m just itchin’ to get back out there and show that I can still play and I’m a good player.”

Mountcastle has an entire winter to reflect on his Orioles career. The nine-RBI game in 2023 stands out, but he’s more about the people than the props.

“I still talk to all the guys,” he said. “We’re all still in group chats. Once the news came out, for a day or two I was a little nostalgic looking back at it. But that’s the nature of professional sports. Not very many guys are fortunate enough to play for the same team for whatever it was, 11 or 12 years, so I was super grateful for them giving me that opportunity.

“I feel like it’s not really a PR answer, but it’s just hanging out with the guys. All the life-long friends I made on that team. Just going up through the system, whether it was in the minor leagues or in the big leagues, I made so many friends and met so many great people, and I’m definitely going to remember that. And when it comes to baseball, I mean, that 2023 season just as a whole was so fun. Just felt like, because I was on some pretty tough teams coming up and it sort of felt like out of nowhere, every time we came to the field we were gonna win. It was a lot of fun.

“All the other years, too, were amazing. Just being around the guys and being able to play for that city was a lot of fun.”

Don’t try to get an exact count of participants in that text group. The best that he can do is offer an estimate.

“There’s like 20 people,” he said. “We’re all doing the fantasy football stuff, so we all talk about that. It’s a bunch of good banter in there and it’s a lot of fun.”

How’s his team faring?

Mountcastle is given another chance to display his self-deprecating humor. Another chance to laugh, to feel OK about whatever the world throws at him. He can handle it.

“We’re in sixth place right now in our little league,” he said. “We just snuck into a playoff spot. We’ve still got about four weeks to go. But I’m not very lucky in fantasy, either, so we’ll see.”

*Elias met with media yesterday at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas, and per multiple reports, the entire coaching staff is invited to return.

That’s probably the biggest piece of news, along with confirmation that Mike Shildt is back as director of on-field education in the minors. Elias confirmed at general manager Jared Banner’s press conference that he wanted Shildt to stay in the organization.

Elias stated again that he’d like to retain Trevor Rogers, who’s expected to decline the qualifying offer. He also said some infielders could play the outfield next spring but didn’t specify which ones. And the primary targets for roster upgrades remain the rotation, bullpen and outfield, along with improving the catching depth.