Plenty to write home about behind the plate
A full year of Rutschman boosts the catching outlook
Orioles pitchers and catchers will report to Sarasota, Florida, this week, marking the official start to spring training after a tumultuous offseason.
At times, the drama of the team’s ownership situation, expiring lease and measured offseason approach has overshadowed the first season in half a decade the Orioles begin the year with a playoff berth seen as a legitimate possibility. A mix of a core that has weathered the organization’s rebuild, a wave of young talent that’s the product of it and veteran additions have the club believing it can reach the postseason after unexpectedly being the best American League team to fall short in 2022.
On the verge of the Orioles’ first post-rebuild season, The Baltimore Sun is breaking down the roster position by position, examining the biggest questions at each spot and who could help carry the team back to the postseason, in 2023 and beyond.
After looking at the starters and relievers who will be throwing to them, the Orioles’ catchers are up next, with Adley Rutschman’s first full season on deck.
Opening day candidates
This position enters the spring as the least competitive of any aspect of the Orioles’ roster, with two catchers already penciled in for opening day. After Rutschman won Most Valuable Oriole honors and finished as the runner-up for American League Rookie of the Year, projection systems already expect him to be one of baseball’s best players. James McCann, acquired in a trade with the New York Mets in December, will be his backup.
Of course, that arrangement requires both players to make it through spring training healthy, and it’s already established that’s not a guarantee. Rutschman might have made Baltimore’s opening day roster in 2022 if not for a right tricep strain suffered just as camp was getting underway. He missed all of spring training and a quarter of the regular season, and the Orioles went 16-24 in his absence. They played at an 89-win pace with him on the roster, showing how valuable he can be for a full season.
Anthony Bemboom, who broke camp with Baltimore last year after Rutschman’s injury, stands to land on the roster again if there’s another spring injury. Mark Kolozsvary, a nonroster invitee like Bemboom, appeared in 10 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 2022.
Biggest question How much does Adley Rutschman catch?
Rutschman was Baltimore’s starting catcher in a little over half of last season’s games. The Orioles were 50-34 in those contests, which would put them on pace to win 96 games over a full season. It also means they went 33-45 — a 69-win pace — in games either Robinson Chirinos or Bemboom caught.
Rutschman was the Orioles’ designated hitter in 23 of those games; they went 10-13. As impactful as his bat can be, Rutschman brings the most value when he’s behind the plate, with manager Brandon Hyde and members of the pitching staff routinely praising him for his presence, pitch-blocking, game-calling and pitch-framing.
In December, executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias offered 125 games as the “upper bound” of Rutschman’s
time at catcher; Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto was the only backstop to surpass that mark in 2022, with Sean Murphy, then with Oakland, the only other catcher with more than 110 starts.
“We want him back there catching as much as he can while not wearing his body down to where his performance suffers,” Elias said.
Rutschman figures to again see plenty of time at DH and possibly first, with the switch-hitter having the ability to serve as the left-handed complement Baltimore has sought for Ryan Mountcastle. But having him catch provides the Orioles with not only their best defense each night, but also the possibility of their best lineup, leaving the DH spot open to someone else.
X-factor
Even if Rutschman does approach that “upper bound,” that still leaves one in every four games he isn’t the Orioles’ starting catcher, and each game is vital with Baltimore pursuing a playoff spot.
What the Orioles get out of McCann could a long way in helping them secure it. He was an All-Star for the Chicago White Sox in 2019 and put up an OPS of .896 in the shortened 2020 season to land a big fouryear contract from the New York Mets. But in the first half of that agreement, he hit .220
with a .610 OPS.
That prompted the Mets to trade him to Baltimore, with New York paying $19 million of the $24 million owed to McCann in the last two years of his deal in return for a low-level prospect. They weren’t just trying to get McCann off their payroll; they were trying to free up his roster spot.
After the trade, McCann said he believes he’s closer to the player he was in Chicago (14% above league average offensively by OPS+) than he was in New York (30% below league average). The Orioles got little out of their catchers who weren’t Rutschman on both sides of the ball last year; Chirinos ranked in the bottom three among catchers with at least 200 plate appearances and 100 defensive innings in batting average, pitch-framing, defensive runs saved and FanGraphs’ version of wins above replacement.
It won’t take much for McCann to be an upgrade, and anything he provides can help boost Baltimore’s playoff chances.
The future
It’s Rutschman, obviously, even if his finish in Rookie of the Year voting means he’ll become a free agent after 2027 instead of 2028 despite his late start to the season. But the remaining two years on McCann’s deal could prove the perfect bridge for an
internal backup for Rutschman to emerge.
Samuel Basallo has the chance to become the first top 100 prospect to blossom out of the Orioles’ investment in the international market. Given a $1.3 million bonus — then a franchise record for a Latin American amateur — in January 2020 out of the Dominican Republic, Basallo hit .279 with a .774 in the Florida Complex League in his age-17 season.
He’ll likely spend this year with Low-A Delmarva, and between his performance and the graduations of others, he could establish himself as one of the system’s top prospects by 2024.
The Orioles have also added catching early in recent drafts. Five rounds after taking Rutschman first overall in 2019, they selected Maverick Handley, who is a nonroster invitee to big league camp for the second straight year. In 2021, they drafted Connor Pavolony in the seventh round and Creed Willems in the eighth, giving the latter a $1 million bonus. Last year, Baltimore used its fourthround pick on Silas Ardoin. Ardoin, Handley and Pavolony have all received praise for their defensive abilities.