Before the Orioles hosted ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” last year, play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech sat down with the club’s young core in the midst of Baltimore’s breakout 2023 season.
The segment called them the “Baby Birds” because of the youth of Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and the rest of the team.
“If I sat down with them this year,” Ravech said, “how different the conversation would be.”
The Orioles might still be young, but they’re no longer babies.
Last July, the Orioles hosted “Sunday Night Baseball” for the first time in nearly five years. It took only 11 months for the primetime broadcast to return to Camden Yards, when Baltimore will play in front of a national audience again Sunday against the Texas Rangers after Saturday’s contest was aired on Fox.
After winning 101 games last year, the Orioles are once again one of MLB’s best teams. With a 53-30 record, they are on pace for 103 wins, which would be the franchise’s most since their Word Series-winning 1970 campaign.
“They understand what winning looks like,” ESPN analyst Eduardo Pérez said.
In conversations with The Baltimore Sun ahead of the Orioles hosting “Sunday Night Baseball,” Ravech, Pérez, analyst David Cone and reporter Buster Olney discussed the Orioles’ young talent, the trade deadline and the club’s chase for a World Series. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Orioles have been one of the best teams in the majors this season. What has impressed you most about how they’re playing?
Cone: Obviously, they are stacked with incredible young talent and some of the best young talent in the game. The thing that impresses me on the old-school side is their attitude on the field, the way they handle themselves, how close-knit they seem to be. The example I can give is the recent series with the Yankees. They had a little bit of a back-and-forth beanball thing going on. The way Gunnar just ran to first base, didn’t even look at the pitcher, just took it and they went about their business and had a blowout the last game of that series — that was really impressive.
Olney: I think this was really demonstrated in that series against New York: They’re so athletic. That really separates them. I remember the Orioles team that I covered in ’95 and ’96, they played in the ’96 playoffs against the Yankees. That was with a young Derek Jeter and a young Bernie Williams. What absolutely jumped out during that series was that the Yankees at the time were so much more athletic than the old Orioles team. That’s kind of where the two teams are now. The Yankees are a really good team, and Judge is obviously incredible and Soto is incredible, but the Orioles’ athleticism stands out to you.
What has allowed the Orioles to avoid regression and be so consistent over the past two years?
Pérez: When you look at the everyday players, there’s pretty much just one that is over the age of 30. This team has yet to peak. When you have Gunnar Henderson and Adley, who is 26, [Ryan] Mountcastle is 27, [Anthony] Santander is not yet 30, [Jordan] Westburg is in his mid-20s, Cedric [Mullins] hasn’t turned 30 and Colton [Cowser] is in his mid-20s — this is still on an up trajectory. They’re still learning and absorbing. The best thing about this whole thing is knowing that you belong in the big leagues and knowing that you can compete. Last year, some people asked if it was real or not, and I think there’s a lot more in the tank. You draft these guys, you develop them and you have such a depth in the minor leagues you can go out and acquire. And then with new ownership and the fan base hoping this new ownership is as real as it gets, that means for the fans going out and being a player in the free agent market.
Olney: Gunnar Henderson is a revelation. He is his generation’s version of Mike Trout. When you get that type of production from that particular position, that’s going to create a large margin for error. Jordan Westburg, obviously, the way he’s developed has been awesome. And the Corbin Burnes trade was excellent. I wasn’t necessarily surprised that they followed up on last year because you knew how much talent they had. I am curious because they have this surplus of position players in the minor leagues, and I’m really curious to see how [general manager] Mike [Elias] deploys that and the choices that he makes going forward.
Gunnar Henderson is a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate. What stands out to you about his game?
Ravech: He’s having such a unique season, and a year in which Bobby Witt is right there with him in MVP in the league and All-Star and all those things. It’s a uniquely incredible season with his combination of speed, power, fielding. The same way the Yankees are having success and you’re focusing on Aaron Judge, I think we’re at a point where we do that now with Gunnar. He has a truly unique, special combination of power, speed and defense.
Pérez: Am I surprised that it’s been this quick? I don’t put anything past Gunnar. He’s like a sponge. He absorbs all the information that’s given to him, he’s relatable, he understands what it is to be coached and he understands what he needed to do in the offseason to get better. He has the skill set and a very quick, powerful swing. He’s done it at the age of 23 at a premium position in shortstop, that’s the part that’s impressive to me. To be able to do it at the shortstop position, I think it goes back to when we had all those great shortstops and now we’re seeing that all over again. We’re seeing very athletic, great shortstops, and he’s one of those.
What has ace Corbin Burnes done for this Orioles rotation?
Ravech: It makes or breaks a team’s chances in the postseason. It’s why the [Max] Scherzers and [Gerrit] Coles get paid the way they do. It’s why [Clayton] Kershaw has been a mainstay so long in Los Angeles. I think the Burnes trade was brilliant, and he’s proving to be that guy. When you get to the postseason, there’s a great deal of faith when he takes the mound that he’s going to get the job done. The injury to [Kyle] Bradish really hurts, but Burnes and [Grayson] Rodriguez is a great tandem. But I think you need more. It’s not even about needing more. It’s that you can never have too much.
Cone: It’s a tremendous confidence boost for the entire team. On the day he pitches, it’s win day. That permeates the entire clubhouse. Everybody feels it, it brings everybody’s confidence level up. I can’t show you a metric or give you an analytic point that proves it, but I know the feeling I had in the clubhouse when you had guys like that on the team.
The trade deadline is about a month away. What do you think Baltimore should do at the deadline?
Ravech: I think they need starting pitching and I think they need relief pitching. Those would be the two things I imagine they would go after. The Orioles are now in the same conversation that we recently had with the Astros and Yankees. Which team’s general manager is going to be willing to make the move? You have a new ownership group there, and they’ve done an incredible job of ingratiating themselves within the community. The question is: Can you take a good person that [David] Rubenstein certainly appears to be — and by all accounts is — and make him a good owner? Which, in the mind of the fan, is: Are we going to trade and are we going to spend money? There’s no reason to think he won’t, but I think that’s what Orioles fans are ready for. There’s no team better equipped to make a deal at the deadline than the Orioles. They have the best farm system. They have an abundance of talent at certain positions that would be incredibly appealing to other teams.
Olney: I definitely think they should add a starting pitcher. That would help them in a short series and help protect them against any injuries. They’re going to be one of a million contenders looking for bullpen help. Mike [Elias] obviously has done a phenomenal job of picking the players, and the folks that work for him have done a phenomenal job of developing the players. But at some point when organizations are in this position where you have a team that might be good enough to win the World Series, the owner comes in and flexes his or her muscles to help put them over the top. Mike knows this from his experience with the Astros. They were a great team, they developed all these great young players and then in August of 2017, [then-general manager] Jeff Luhnow basically had a deal that he could make to get [right-hander] Justin Verlander and he didn’t want to make it because he felt like they were giving up too much value. What happened was [Astros owner] Jim Crane stepped in and basically said, ‘No, let’s make the deal.’ I’m going to be curious with David [Rubenstein] being a rookie owner, what that dynamic is going to be if they get into a situation where, for example, let’s say they had a deal on the table for [White Sox left-hander] Garrett Crochet. Let’s say Mike isn’t comfortable with paying the extra 10% in value or 15% in value to get it across, how will David react to that? And I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if there’s necessarily a right answer, but that’s a big question is, what role do the owners play when you have a team with the kind of potential the Orioles have?
The Orioles were one of MLB’s best teams last year, but they fell flat in the postseason when they were swept in the AL Division Series by the Texas Rangers. How does a team go from being a great regular season team to one that can win a World Series?
Pérez: There’s no substitute for experience, no substitute for failure. If there’s a sport and an athlete that understands what you can learn from failure, it’s the Major League Baseball player. Yeah, they did get swept, but they were in an environment they had never been in. Now that they’ve experienced that, they want to get back. They’re hungry to get back. Will they be better? I think they are because there’s a Corbin Burnes there and there’s an added year of experience. This is a year that the Orioles should take definite strides, and once they’re in, anything can happen.
Cone: I think the experience helps. I think the reps in big games can do wonders for your level of confidence, your level of just being relaxed in the moment. You’ve been there, you realize what went wrong or what went right and the more reps you get, the more opportunities you get, the better off you are in the long run. The Orioles will be better this time around for having that experience, even if it was a bad experience or a losing experience. That only helps moving forward.
