For now, we have to put on hold any talk that this might be among the best O’s rotations ever. They added a stud pitcher in 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, but on the first day of spring training we saw that injuries subtracted, at least for some period of time, two starters.

We’ve seen better days in Birdland.

Right-hander Kyle Bradish, who was fourth in American League Cy Young voting last year when he had a 2.83 ERA, is expected to start the new season on the injured list with a UCL sprain in his right elbow. He had a PRP injection. Now Birdland waits nervously with hope that eradicates the problem and it doesn’t get more serious later.

That news comes alongside the information that left-hander John Means is about a month behind the other pitchers. His winter of throwing moved slower than expected due to his elbow soreness that caused him to miss the playoffs. That followed his Tommy John surgery of April 2022. He has thrown just 31 2/3 big league innings the last two seasons. He was confident of pitching a full load of innings when interviewed during Birdland Caravan, but now he is likely to miss Opening Day.

The 2023 AL Rookie of the Year, Gunnar Henderson, experienced some mild oblique aggravation about two weeks ago while working out at home. At least he is expected to be ready for Opening Day.

During a season where he turned 30, the Orioles Ryan O’Hearn became a middle-of-the-order hitter on a 101-win Orioles club that finished atop the American League East.

Not bad for a player who was in the big leagues part-time between 2018 and 2022 with Kansas City. His career line with the Royals was .219/.293/.390/.683. He elevated his game with Baltimore and now has a new contract to show for it.

When the Orioles acquired him from Kansas City on Jan. 3, 2023, for cash considerations, there was no guarantee he would even see one day on the big league roster, much less become a key cog in the lineup and in the clubhouse.

But it comes later for some players, and it sure did for O’Hearn, who batted .289/.322/.480/.801 with 22 doubles, a triple, 14 homers and 60 RBIs in 368 plate appearances. His OPS+ of 122 ranked third on the team, behind only Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson.

O’Hearn set career bests in most categories including games, hits, doubles, runs, RBIs, extra-base hits (37), multi-hit games (26), and multi-RBI games (13). He was 3-for-5 with five RBIs in his first three games with his new team, becoming the 10th Oriole in team history with at least five RBIs his first three games for the club and the first since Manny Machado (also five RBIs) in 2012.

It’s not necessarily the trade that keeps giving, but a deal where the Orioles seemingly did very well and that might be getting even better.

On Aug. 2, 2022, the O’s dealt righty Jorge López, their closer having a big year, to Minnesota for four pitchers. So far right-hander Yennier Cano has become a late-inning bullpen weapon while lefty Cade Povich is one of their top pitching prospects. Lefty Juan Rojas pitched in the lower minors last year and right-hander Juan Nuñez has a big fastball and leads the third day of the MASNSports.com O’s top 20 international prospect rankings.

He checks in at No. 11 after throwing in 13 games each in 2023 for Low-A Delmarva and High-A Aberdeen.

While he did not win a game – going 0-6 with a 3.96 ERA – Nuñez has shown a good strikeout rate and enough potential to rank 14^th on this list and to currently rank No. 22 by Baseball America on the O’s team top 30 list.

Nuñez pitched a combined 104 2/3 innings in 2023 with 58 walks, 125 strikeouts, a .220 average against and 1.36 WHIP. He posted a 10.75 K rate last year and that number is 11.18 for his career, spanning 201 innings.

Today, as we continue to rollout the MASNSports.com top 20 O’s international prospects, we find out yet again that teams can get big talents sometimes out of modest signing bonuses.

Some players sign late in the process as late bloomers and beyond that, it is just hard to project what someone at age 16 will look like and play like three, four, and six years down the road.

It is also quite exciting to see a pitcher ranked so highly now on this list as left-hander Luis De León, age 20, is the No. 2 prospect on the list for 2024.

He was signed by the club for just $30,000 in December of 2021 out of Barahona, Dominican Republic. He had an ERA of 5.14 in 28 innings in 2022 in the Dominican Summer League.

But last year, over six games in the rookie-level Florida Complex League and 10 for Single-A Delmarva, he went a combined 5-1 with a 2.01 ERA in 53 2/3 innings. It was a nice breakout performance by the lefty. Even after he moved up, he allowed just a .177 batting average and 2.39 ERA in his first go-around in full-season ball with the Shorebirds. De León walked 30 with 67 strikeouts (11.2 K per 9) and had a 1.30 WHIP. Among all O’s farm pitchers with 50 or more innings last season, his ERA was second-best.

It was not a tough call. There was no protracted debate. There was no brief debate. There was no debating at all. 

Catcher Samuel Basallo, signed to a $1.3 million bonus, the largest bonus in the Orioles' 2021 international class, is once again the club’s No. 1 ranked international prospect. He tops our third annual MASNSports.com ratings of the top 20 O’s international prospects.

Basallo was No. 2 on this list in 2022 and was No. 1 last year before he had even played one game of full season minor league ball. Before he went out and had a sensational season on the farm, one that took him as far as Double-A Bowie and also took him toward the top of several national top 100 prospect rankings.

He is the shining star of the O's international program, but far from the only top talent.

The wave of O's international prospects is now closer to crashing the shore than ever. To be a top team for an extended period, an organization has to be good in international scouting and signing players. The Orioles now are.

We are now just days away from the start of spring training and the first workout for Orioles pitchers and catchers is set for next Thursday in Sarasota, Fla. We are less than two weeks away from the first spring game on Feb. 24, when the Orioles will host the Boston Red Sox.

So it's time to survey the fan base and check in with Birdland on a few things. Time for a pre-spring edition of "A few questions for O's fans."

1) Here are some projected American League East starting pitching rotations. Rank them from best to worst.

Orioles: Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, John Means and Dean Kremer.

New York: Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman, Nestor Cortes and Clarke Schmidt.

During the Hot Stove radio show this week on WBAL Radio in Baltimore, Orioles assistant general manager Eve Rosenbaum discussed the club’s trade for ace pitcher Corbin Burnes.

While some media stories were focused on a possible addition of Dylan Cease this offseason, the Orioles were working for months behind the scenes to try and add Burnes, the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner.

Rosenbaum said during her radio interview that Mike Elias and the O’s front office staff had to show some real patience during this process. Continuing to work on the deal and to keep the discussions ongoing even when there were times when it looked like such a trade would not happen.

“For something like a trade, so often what happens is you talk to teams for months,” Rosenbaum said on WBAL. “You send them a message, they text you back. You get with your group, you huddle up and craft a response and send a text message back. They get back to you two days later and it goes on and on like this.

“You try so many different ideas and so many different angles. At various points the past couple of months we thought, ‘the deal is alive, the deal is dead, the deal is alive, the deal is dead’ and finally we were able to get it across the finish line. You have to be in for the long haul when you are working on trades.”

Even when you are the No. 1 overall MLB Draft pick and rise to become the No. 1 prospect in baseball, the process to improve is still important, even with a driven player with massive talent.

And so, this is true for the Orioles’ Jackson Holliday, who begins a bid next week to make the club’s Opening Day roster.

On July 17, 2022, the Orioles made Holliday the draft’s No. 1 overall pick. Then the kid from Oklahoma went out and put up a .911 OPS in his first 20 pro games between the Florida Complex League and Single-A Delmarva. He walked twice as many times as he struck out. But for a young man still growing into his body and growing into what his future power will produce, he hit one homer in 64 at-bats.

So, in that quest to make even the best better, the Orioles sent coaches Cody Asche and Anthony Villa to his home that winter for some work on improving exit velocity and launch angles that would later in his career turn some deep fly balls into hits and doubles into balls that could go over the fence.

Last season, this impressive young man that turned 20 on Dec. 4, played at four levels, hit 12 homers over 477 at-bats and rose to become the top prospect in the sport.

With spring training starting next week and the club’s first pitchers and catchers workout set for a week from today in Sarasota, the Orioles added another infielder to fill their 40-man roster.

Venezuelan-born Livan Soto, recently designated for assignment by the Angels, was claimed on waivers today by the Orioles to fill their 40-man.

Soto, 23, has hit better in the majors in limited time than he has during a six-year career in the minors. He also has two options remaining.

The lefty batter went just 2-for-9 (.222) with the Angels last year but hit .400 (22-for-55) during the 2022 season over 18 games. He got a call-up in mid-September 2022 to make his major league debut. 

So over 22 major league games in parts of the last two seasons, he has hit .375/.414/.531/.946. On the farm last season between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit .237/.342/.358/.700 in 110 games.

Now that they have added the 2021 National League Cy Young award winner, right-hander Corbin Burnes, just how good is the Orioles rotation? Does it stack up among the top groups in the American League?

A discussion of this on MLB Network this week led the analysts to ponder that question and believe the answer is likely yes.

They listed a graphic of “notable 2024 projected rotations" in the American League, listing in no particular order, Seattle, Baltimore, New York, Houston and Toronto.

Here are the pitchers projected to be in all five:

Seattle: Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo

The Orioles today announced their minor league coaching and player development staff assignments for the 2024 season. Three full-season managers return, but two move to different affiliates.

Buck Britton will return for his third season as manager of the Triple-A Norfolk Tides. In 2023, he led the Tides to a record of 90-59 as they won the International League championship and the Triple-A National Championship Game. Last year, he was the winner of the Orioles’ Cal Ripken Sr. Player Development Award.

Roberto Mercado moves up to Double-A Bowie to serve as manager after leading High-A Aberdeen the last two seasons. In 2022, he took Aberdeen to the playoffs and won the Ripken Sr. Award.

Felipe Rojas Alou Jr. will move up to manage Aberdeen. He has been with the O’s organization for 16 years and managed Single-A Delmarva the last two seasons.

Collin Woody will be a first-time manager, taking over at Delmarva. He served as a fundamentals coach the last two seasons in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League.

As yet another top 100 prospects list was published recently by a major outlet and then yet another - by ESPN.com first and then The Athletic – once again Jackson Holliday of the Orioles was ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the sport.

This is long since no surprise as he ended last season atop prospects lists and will begin this year No. 1 via Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com and the two listed above.

Just yesterday, Holliday was among the list of 20 non-roster invitees heading to spring training, which begins in Sarasota, Fla. next week.  

While the Orioles list of players via Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com, ESPN and The Athletic is significant, what is most impressive is that most of their top 100 players are really top 50.

Of the six Orioles that were rated top 100 by Baseball America, three were in the top 25 and five were in the top 41. They are down to five now with DL Hall at No. 93 now a Brewer. Of the six rated top 100 by MLBPipeline, five were top 32. They are down to five there with Joey Ortiz at No. 63 now a Brewer. Of the seven ranked by ESPN (six minus Ortiz), five are top 50. The Athletic lists three among the top 27. 

The Orioles have a star-studded prospects list and the No. 1 farm in baseball, and their top three prospects are among their list of 20 spring training non-roster invitees announced today by the club.

The Orioles report on Feb. 14 to Sarasota, Fla., with their first workout for pitchers and catchers set for Feb. 15 and with the first full-squad workout to be held on Feb. 20.

Infielder Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 prospect in baseball, gets the expected NRI along with the club's No. 2 prospect, catcher Samuel Basallo, and their No. 3 (as ranked by Baseball America), infielder Coby Mayo.

The No. 4 and No. 5 prospects - outfielders Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad, who are already on the 40-man roster - will also report to Sarasota. All 40-man roster players join the club for spring training along with the NRIs.

The club recently dealt its No. 6 and No. 7 prospects, per Baseball America - DL Hall and Joey Ortiz - to Milwaukee for right-handed starter Corbin Burnes. The O's No. 8 prospect, infielder Connor Norby, is also among the non-roster invites. 

The deal was announced, and the news was probably just minutes old when some around Birdland wondered whether their team might soon have interest in a similar arrangement.

Monday afternoon, the Kansas City Royals, who ranked 24^th in 2023 in MLB team payroll, a few steps ahead of the Orioles, locked up one of their bright young stars to a huge contract.

When your team has its own bright young starts – players like Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson and maybe soon will be adding Jackson Holliday to that list - it’s only natural to wonder and hope that they remain Orioles for a long, long time.

While the Royals extension deal with shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., 23, has opt-outs, they don’t start until after the 2030 season. He will have nine years in the majors at that point.

Signing up young talent well before free agency is a gamble when any team does it. But it is one pre-emptive strike that the so-called “small market” clubs have against losing those players later to the big spenders via free agency.

Somebody has to be No. 1. Some man or woman has to be the one person that has more college wins than any coach ever in any sport.

That man was the 40-year legendary baseball coach of the Florida State Seminoles, Michael David Martin Sr.

In his 40 years as head coach of the Seminoles under coach Martin, they went 40-for-40 in making the NCAA tourney and yes that is beyond remarkable. His 2,029 wins are more than any college baseball coach ever and more than any NCAA coach ever in any sport on any level.

The Seminoles won 19 conference titles under Martin's leadership, and he was a 13-time conference Coach of the Year. He was the National Coach of the Year in 2012 and 2019. 

Martin had 20 players selected in the first round of the MLB Draft and 60 former players reached the Major Leagues. Eight former players were named National Player of the Year with four – Mike Fuentes, Mike Loynd, J.D. Drew and Buster Posey – recognized with the Golden Spikes Award, college baseball's Heisman Trophy.

When he met with the media on Friday to discuss the Orioles' acquisition of 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias summed up the feelings of a lot of people with a few words. 

“This is a big trade and big moment for our team,” Elias told reporters. “Corbin Burnes is exactly what we needed.”

And that about sums up much of the reaction across the industry – it’s pretty positive about the big move where the O’s got their ace. One they had been seeking with, as Elias said, “dogged pursuit the entire offseason.”

He and his front office made a deal that not only elevated the team’s chances to make the playoffs and win another American League East title, but maybe make a deep run when October arrives.

"There are a lot of things to be excited about here in Birdland right now. We’ve got everything going for us right now,” Elias said summing up the feeling right now of much of the fan base. Again with a few words.

Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias disagreed when a reporter suggested yesterday that his acquisition of ace pitcher Corbin Burnes from the Brewers may represent a shift in the O's organization.

Where once the O’s seemed reluctant to part with prospects, this time they traded two of them and a draft pick to get the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner.

“I don’t see it that way whatsoever,” said Elias. “The methods that we have applied to rebuild the team, are being applied with all our decision making in baseball operations. The whole time, even when our team was losing a lot of games, I was talking about making decisions oriented toward enhancing our playoff possibilities. And at that time, our playoff possibilities were in the future, and now we’ve won the AL East. That front loads a lot of stuff into the present, but we’re still going to keep an eye on the future to keep the organization healthy.

“The Brewers have a good team, too, and they decided this was a trade they wanted to do. It made sense for them and is going to help their team in a different way. We’re trying to make good quality moves which give us good chances to do what we want to do."

And to be fair, Elias did trade prospects last year, once before the year to add Cole Irvin and at the trade deadline to get Jack Flaherty. It's just this time he got the most talented of that group and a pitcher to front his rotation with massive credentials. 

After feeling some initial shock when he was told he was going to be traded, new Orioles right-hander Corbin Burnes is now starting to let the big news in his world settle in now.

After six seasons, 167 games, a Cy Young Award, five playoff appearances and three division titles – all with the Brewers – he’s about to get know new players and a new organization.

“Initial reaction, just shock,” Burnes was honest to tell Baltimore media during a team Zoom call this afternoon. “Being so close to spring training and what had gone down the last couple of weeks in Milwaukee, was definitely shocked, got the call from the GM and kind of set off a flurry of calls after that.

“But excited to be part of the Baltimore organization. Having won over 100 games last year it’s a good young group. I’m looking to kind of put my mark and do whatever I can to help those guys get to the World Series.”

The 2021 National League Cy Young winner got off to a bit of slow start last season. Then he posted an ERA of 2.71 his last 14 starts to finish 10-8 with a 3.39 ERA. He led the NL in WHIP at 1.069 and his .200 average against was second in the league. Since 2020, his ERA of 2.86 produces an ERA+ of 146.

Calling it a “big moment for our team,” Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias, via Zoom call with the media today, discussed the acquisition of right-hander Corbin Burnes from the Brewers.

Elias said trade talks with the Brewers have been ongoing since just after the World Series ended. He wasn’t sure if Milwaukee would actually deal the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner. But the trade was finalized last night as the Orioles sent lefty DL Hall, infielder Joey Ortiz and the No. 34 pick in the 2024 MLB Draft to the Brewers get Burnes.

The 29-year-old three-time All-Star and 2022 NL strikeout leader went 10-8 with a 3.39 ERA in 32 starts in 2023. He had an ERA of 2.43 in winning the ’21 Cy Young and has a career 3.26 ERA and 1.055 WHIP.

Since the 2020 season, he has finished, in order, sixth, first, seventh and eighth in the Cy Young voting while pitching to an ERA of 2.86 in that span. That is an ERA+ of 146.

“This is a big trade and big moment for our team,” Elias told reporters. “Corbin Burnes is exactly what we needed. We were in a dogged pursuit of him the entire offseason.

Outside of the excitement over the weekend of Birdland Caravan, the new ownership group news and getting an ace pitcher, anything else going on around Birdland lately?

The Orioles rotation, which was pretty good most of last year and very good in the second half, just got better for the 2024 season. Last October, it was the Rangers who had Nathan Eovaldi as a difference maker. The O’s hope Corbin Burnes could be that guy this October.

You don’t see legit aces traded very often, but Milwaukee pulled the trigger on a move that hurt them in ’24 but may be big for their future as they add lefty DL Hall and infielder Joey Ortiz. They also got the No. 34 pick in the 2024 MLB Draft.

The O’s added a true No. 1 pitcher and now their top four in the rotation features two pitchers that have finished in the top four at least once for the Cy Young voting, another that has made an All-Star team – giving them two All-Stars in the rotation – plus a young stud that was once the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball.

How do we like it? Let’s count some ways.