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.

As infielder/outfielder Adam Frazier joins the Orioles this year after signing a one-year deal for $8 million in December, which player on offense will the club be getting? The player that was above average in 2021 when he was a National League All-Star, or the player that was below average last season?

Or maybe the stats meet somewhere in the middle.

In 2021, over 639 plate appearances between Pittsburgh and San Diego, Frazier hit .305/.368/.411/.779 with 36 doubles, five triples, five homers, 43 RBIs, 10 steals and 83 runs scored.

But over 602 plate appearances for Seattle, which made the postseason in 2022, the 31-year-old lefty hitter batted .238/.301/.311/.612 with 22 doubles, four triples, three homers, 42 RBIs, 11 steals and 61 runs.

Big difference in that Frazier’s OPS+ was 114 in 2021 and just 80, or 20 percent below league average, last season. Frazier has a career .728 OPS, which produces an OPS+ of 99, or just about at league average for his career.

Even for a pitcher who looked to be on the cusp of his major league debut, it was stunning stretch of pitching. During a season when top O’s pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez went 6-2 with a 2.62 ERA, he pitched even better in six starts leading up to when he got hurt.

When the 23-year-old right-hander took the mound at Triple-A Norfolk’s Harbor Park on June 1 versus Jacksonville, a call to Baltimore seemed almost at hand. I was writing at the time that, in my humble opinion, Rodriguez was very ready to debut with the Orioles.

That night he pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings but then walked off the mound and didn’t return. We would later learn he had suffered a Grade 2 right lat strain. He would not pitch again on the farm for three months. On Sept. 1 he returned with a rehab outing for High-A Aberdeen.

In those last six outings at Triple-A, counting the night he got hurt, his ERA was 0.79. Over 34 1/3 innings he gave up three earned runs on 16 hits with nine walks and 47 strikeouts. In four of the games he threw scoreless outings.

It was a stunning stretch of pitching, even for one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Rodriguez is No. 6 on Baseball America’s new listing of the top 100 prospects. When he talked with reporters ahead of his game return in that Aberdeen outing, he noted that his pitching and stats were eye-popping in May for Norfolk.

For a team looking to build an elite pipeline and support and grow its organization with quality home-grown talent, the last week or so have been good days for the Orioles.

It began a week ago today, when the club announced an international signing class of 27 players, headed up by 16-year-old shortstop Luis Ayden Almeyda. He got a $2.3 million signing bonus, the largest ever handed out by the Orioles to an international amateur. 

The O's class featured 13 players signing for $100,000 or more, and Koby Perez, the club's senior director of international scouting, told reporters the club has about $500,000 remaining from its pool allotment of $5,825,500. They could sign more players through Dec. 15. 

MLBPipeline.com, which ranked Almeyda as its No. 20 international prospect, gave him tool grades of 50 for hitting, running and fielding and 55 grades for power and arm. 

“I’m very excited and blessed,” Almeyda told MASNsports.com in his first one-on-one interview as an Oriole prospect. “I am ecstatic to start out with this organization and develop as a ballplayer and a man as well.

The 2023 Major League Baseball season will be unique in a few ways with some new rules coming to the majors for the first time. Such as the use of the pitch clock.

Will Orioles pitchers have any issues adjusting to the clock? We can’t know this answer yet, obviously, but I am going to guess any issues will be minimal.

Under the new rules, pitchers will have 15 seconds to pitch with no one on base and 20 seconds with a runner or runners on. The timer starts when the pitcher catches the return throw from the catcher, and to beat the clock the pitcher must start his motion before the clock runs out. The ball doesn't need to touch the plate before the clock expires, but the pitcher's motion must have started. Pitchers can step off the rubber and reset the clock, but this year can do that just twice per plate appearance.

MLB is trying, it seems, both to improve pace of play and improve time of game. In the minor league games using the clock last season, the average time of game was about 26 minutes shorter. Major league games moved past the three-hour mark on average in 2014. In 2021 big league games took an average of three hours, 10 minutes. The average last year was three hours and four minutes.

On Statcast they actually have a “pitch tempo” leaderboard. It tracks the amount of time from one pitch to the next for hurlers. Among the Orioles, when no one was on base, lefty Keegan Akin was the fastest worker with an average of 14.4 seconds between delivering pitches.

The 2016 season was a good year for the Orioles. They won 89 games and they made the playoffs before one swing in the American League wild-card game ended their season in Toronto. But the calendar year began with the Baseball America release of its top 100 prospects list. There were no Orioles among the top 100. Zero.

The year before, only two were ranked, with Dylan Bundy at No. 48 and Hunter Harvey at No. 68. The year after, 2017, the O’s had just Chance Sisco on the list at No. 57.

So maybe now, looking back, that was insight into the mounting losses that were ahead for the club. But now things are vastly different on the Baltimore farm. The Orioles led all clubs, with eight players on the new Baseball America top 100 prospects list this week. Evaluators see others who could be on the list.

Three players in three years and eight in one year. The Orioles never before had more than five on this offseason Baseball America listing of the best young talent in the sport. Now they show the way.

What happened to make this so?

Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias has said the current O’s top 10 prospects list is about as deep as he’s ever seen. And this is a man that worked for talent-rich organizations in St. Louis and Houston. 

That is quite a statement and it was pretty much proven sound when eight of those 10 were ranked among the Baseball America top 100 prospects list released Wednesday. The magazine has been producing top 100 lists early every year since 1990, and until yesterday the Orioles had never had more than five players ranked in the initial list of the year.

It was great news for an organization that stated a clear intention of building an elite talent pipeline and one that is going to have to thrive using a lot of its homegrown talent. Right now the Orioles have the deepest prospect pool in baseball, and that was not news before yesterday. Numerous outlets have ranked their farm No. 1, even before yesterday.

But a haul of eight is indeed a haul. Cleveland had the second-most with seven, while the Dodgers, Mets and Rays had six each. The Orioles never had more than five on this initial list until now. 

The O’s began the 2022 season with five and ended it with six on the Baseball America ranking of their players this way: Gunnar Henderson (No. 1), Grayson Rodriguez (No. 4), Jackson Holliday (No. 38), DL Hall (No. 55), Colton Cowser (No. 88) and Jordan Westburg (No. 89).

It was a record-setting day for the Orioles with the release of the new Baseball America national top 100 prospects list today. Not only does Gunnar Henderson continue as the publication’s No. 1-ranked prospect, but the Orioles topped all of Major League Baseball with eight players ranked in the top 100, one more than Cleveland's seven and two more than the Dodgers, Mets and Rays, who had six each. 

This is the second year in a row in which Baseball America has ranked an Oriole as the top prospect in the sport. Adley Rutschman was No. 1 in the poll released last year. The publication has been producing top 100 lists since 1990, and the only other time the same organization had two different players at No. 1 in consecutive years was when the St. Louis Cardinals' J.D. Drew and Rick Ankiel topped the ratings in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Also, no team had two players from the same draft ranked No. 1 in back-to-back years until today. The O’s selected Rutschman No. 1 overall in 2019 and Henderson was their second pick in that draft, at No. 42.

So Henderson, who was the 2022 Baseball America Minor League Player of the Year also, is still No. 1. Pitcher Grayson Rodriguez is now No. 6 and the second-highest rated pitcher behind the Phillies' Andrew Painter at No. 5. Baseball America now ranks Jackson Holliday, the overall No. 1 pick by the Orioles in the 2022 draft, at No. 15. The Orioles also have Colton Cowser at No. 41, pitcher DL Hall No. 75, Jordan Westburg No. 76, Connor Norby No. 93 and Joey Ortiz at No. 95. Norby and Ortiz crack Baseball America's top 100 rankings for the first time this year.

With eight players ranked, the Orioles blew away their previous best in this initial pool release by Baseball America. We say initial as the last several years the publication has tweaked its poll throughout the season. In 2022, the Orioles ended the season with six in the top 100. But in the initial poll release of each year, the Orioles' best previous showings were five players ranked in 2008, 2021 and 2022.

We didn’t really need a reminder this week but we got one. The Orioles' Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall are two of the best pitching prospects in baseball. And during the 2023 season there could be times they pitch in the same Orioles rotation for the first time.

Rodriguez, the club’s top draft pick in 2018, is ranked as the club’s No. 2 prospect behind Gunnar Henderson, and No. 4 nationally in top 100s by both Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com. Hall, the club’s top pick in 2017, is ranked as the O’s No. 5 prospect by Baseball America and No. 55 in their latest top 100. Via MLBPipeline.com he is No. 6 on the team's top 30 and was No. 87 in the site's last top 100. Both outlets should be releasing new top 100 lists soon.

The reminder this week that Hall and Rodriguez are among the best pitching prospects in the sport came when MLBPipeline.com released its listing of the current 10 best right-handed and left-handed pitching prospects in the sport. Rodriguez got knocked off the top perch by the Phillies' Andrew Painter and is now the No. 2 right-hander. Hall came in at No. 4 among the lefties.

The drafting of Hall as their top pick in 2017 and Rodriguez as their top selection a year later represents the only time the Orioles have ever taken high school pitchers in back-to-back years with their highest pick. Some over the years question taking high school pitchers so high in the draft, so if the O’s get both in the same rotation, and if they have any success, they will be beating some odds in one sense.

Both Hall and Rodriguez reached 100 mph with their fastballs during the 2022 season. But beyond the sheer velocity, both also show plus offerings with sliders and changeups, and Rodriguez added a cutter last year. Right now they both have plus stuff in abundance and their potential is high.

A new international amateur signing period has arrived in Major League Baseball. Later today the Orioles are expected to announce their latest class of international signees. Their class, per reports, will be headed by Dominican shortstop Luis Ayden Almeyda.

A right-handed hitter, the 16-year-old Almeyda, according to Baseball America, will get a bonus of over $2 million. The Orioles have never had an international amateur sign for $2 million or more, and Almeyda’s bonus would easily beat the previous record, set this time last year.

Here are the seven-figure bonuses from the O’s in the last two classes:

$1.7M – OF Braylin Tavera, from Jan. 15, 2022.

$1.3M – C Samuel Basallo from Jan. 15, 2021.