O’Hearn thriving, not regressing, in 2nd year
With .882 OPS and 4 homers, first baseman solidifying spot
KANSAS CITY, Mo — Ryan O’Hearn stood outside Kauffman Stadium, his bags packed, waiting for a car.
Last May, he was back in Kansas City — the town he spent five years in — for the first time since the Royals traded him to the Orioles. But when the series ended, he was no longer on the Orioles’ roster, either, as Baltimore had just optioned him to Triple-A Norfolk.
Before O’Hearn became an integral part of the Orioles, the demotion was one last speedbump — one of many in his career — to overcome. As the team was on its way to Atlanta, O’Hearn waited for friend and then-Royals infielder Nicky Lopez to pick him up. He stayed with Lopez that night before reporting to Norfolk.
“It always sucks getting optioned,” O’Hearn said. “Unfortunately, it’s happened to me many times. It’s never fun, it can be crushing if you let it get you. The one positive was I got to stay with Nicky that night, so I had somewhere to go, I wasn’t in a hotel and I had people to hang out with.
O’Hearn returned to the majors a few days later and has since established himself as not just a mainstay in Baltimore’s lineup against right-handed starting pitchers, but as one of the hardest-hitting sluggers in baseball. He returned to Kansas City this weekend, and there was no reason for him to worry about being optioned to the minors or needing to find a place to stay Sunday night when the series against the Royals ended.
O’Hearn is confident he’s here to stay — and so are the Orioles.
“I’d say, ‘About time I figured it out,’” O’Hearn said with a laugh when asked what he would’ve thought about the turnaround he’s made in his career since that day last May. “Well, not saying that I have figured it out. Because as soon as you start to think you’ve figured [anything] out in this game, you don’t. It’ll get you.”
When a player breaks through the glass ceiling in as surprising a way as O’Hearn did last season, regression the following year is expected. After hitting .219 with a .683 OPS with the Royals, he was one of Baltimore’s best hitters last year, posting an .801 OPS and 37 extra-base hits in 112 games.
But O’Hearn has done the opposite of regress so far this season. He’s been better across the board to solidify his spot as a middle-of-the-order bat against righties even as the organization’s prospects push for more playing time. The 30-year-old has an .882 OPS with four homers in 56 at-bats this season.
Manager Brandon Hyde never wondered if what O’Hearn did in 2023 was an aberration.
“Because I believed in his swing,” Hyde said. “I love his swing, love his makeup. Big-time baseball player, loves to compete. I don’t see a ton of holes in his swing. I think he knows what the league is trying to do to him also.
“I don’t know what his batting average or OPS is going to be, but he’s going to take really good at-bats for us. That’s what he did last year.”
His Baseball Savant page — filled with numbers compiled from Statcast tracking data — looks as impressive as any hitter in the majors, including early American League Most Valuable Player front-runner Juan Soto of the New York Yankees. He ranks in the top 10% of qualified hitters in average exit velocity, barrel percentage, strikeout rate, chase percentage, expected batting average and expected slugging percentage. Those numbers all tell slightly different stories, but combined they boil down to this: O’Hearn is rarely swinging and missing, and when he makes contact, he’s hitting the ball very hard and doing so consistently.
“He has a rare combination of power and contact ability,” Orioles co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte said. “There was no question for me. If you sustain success for that amount of time, there’s a really good chance you’re going to continue to have that.”
O’Hearn made some swing changes last season that helped spur his breakout, but he said the mental adjustments have been even more important. He’s bought into the organization’s philosophy on “swing decisions” — essentially swinging at pitches hitters can do damage with and not hacking at balls.
“You always want to swing at good pitches and take balls, but there’s a bigger emphasis on it here now,” O’Hearn said. “It’s not about hits, but just your decisions of to swing or not to swing. … In Kansas City, I was still evolving as a hitter. I didn’t have the tools to cover different parts of the zone like I do now. That’s just the evolution of becoming
the player I could be.”
He tore through the minor leagues with Kansas City and hit well as a rookie before struggling in subsequent seasons and becoming a left-handed bench bat at the end of his tenure. O’Hearn looks back at the player he was in Kansas City and is proud of the path he took to get here, knowing he no longer takes being “in the big leagues for granted.”
“I sure as hell don’t do that anymore,” he said.
Despite his past struggles, he always knew he could be what he is now — a reliable and crucial member of a team with playoff hopes. He’s no longer a castoff from Kansas City or a surprise slugger for Baltimore.
He’s just one of many talented hitters in one of baseball’s deepest lineups.
“Believing in myself was never an issue. I always believed in myself,” O’Hearn said. “I needed to evolve and get better and kind of grow up a little bit. A lot of things that have happened since I left Kansas City I owe to the O’s and the coaching staff.”
He said the list of things that motivates him “isn’t for public record.” One of them isn’t, however, the fact that prospects are banging on the door to take his job.
“I learned a long time ago that I can’t think like I’m the GM, because I’m not,” O’Hearn said. “I believe in myself. I believe I’m a talented player and I can help the O’s win. There’s no secret that there’s guys in Triple-A that are really good players and there are guys on the bench here that are really good players.
“To say that I’m completely blind to it is not true, but to say that I think about it is also not true. I don’t think about it.”