Orioles new focus on fundamentals is great, but they still need to fix the team's ultimate weakness

The Baltimore Orioles have made new minority owner and franchise legend Cal Ripken Jr. the face of the organization's new emphasis on basic baseball fundamentals. A refocusing on basic skills and good baseball habits is not something the Orioles are alone in. Across the league, many teams are recommitting to aspects of baseball that had been all but abandoned in an analytics arms race that prioritized measurable traits over intangible baseball know-how.

The Orioles under President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias fully embraced the hit the ball hard, run fast, and worry about the small stuff later as much as any other organization in baseball, and it shows on the field. Their outfielders don't hit cutoff men, their infielders stab at balls with their gloves, and their base runners get thrown out and picked off with regularity.

Whether it was being humbled by an embarrassing 2025 season, a stipulation of Craig Albernaz being hired, or just something Ripken Jr. decided needed to change, the adjustments that were reported on by Ken Rosenthal and Brittany Ghiroli are desperately needed. The Orioles of the future will be much better off for them.

The Orioles need more than just better fundamentals

That being said, a renewed focus on infield footwork and secondary leads is not going to take this Orioles team from where they are to where they want to be. Although the Athletic's article tried to tie the Orioles lack of fundamentals to the last couple of seasons by suggesting that the Orioles were fundamentally sound from 2022 to 2024, that could be described as a bit of a stretch.

The difference between the 2022-2024 Orioles, who were 275-211, and the 2025-2026 Orioles, who are 110-128, is not that the 2022-2024 Orioles did a good job getting behind fly balls before making a throw to the infield or did more PFPs. The difference between those Orioles teams and the new Orioles teams was that those teams could pitch.

The 2022 and 2023 Orioles teams had elite bullpens. Both of those teams overperformed their preseason projections, their run differential, and any other expected win total because if they had a lead or the game was tied going into the 7th inning, their back of the bullpen was going to lock that game down. Even if those Orioles teams were down going into those innings, they could trust that their bullpen would hold their opponents' offense down and allow them to claw back into games.

That's a luxury that the Orioles have not had since Felix Bautista went down in late 2023. They've barely even tried to address the back end of the rotation since. In 2024, they signed Craig Kimbrel, who was so bad he had to be DFA'd and in 2025 their big bullpen addition was Andrew Kittredge who was hurt to start the year and by the time he joined the team they were 15 games under .500. Mike Elias has actually never signed a major league free agent reliever and had that reliever make it through the entire season with the Orioles.

2024 was the one year the Orioles went out and acquired an ace starting pitcher, and it went better than anyone could have possibly predicted, as Corbin Burnes gave the Orioles 194 innings at a 2.92 ERA, and the Orioles won 20 of his 32 starts.

Over the next two seasons, the Orioles big pitching acquisitions were Charlie Morton in 2025 and Chris Bassitt in 2026. Each of whom pitched to an ERA over five, with the Orioles losing the majority of their starts. If you swapped out the Orioles 2023 or 2024 pitching staff for the current Orioles pitching staff, neither of those teams makes the playoffs.

So as much as the Orioles' prospects' fielding ground balls cleaner is going to help the Orioles move in the right direction. If the organization is actually serious about competing, its next move will be to overhaul its approach to pitching in general.

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