Sunday notes on Rutschman, the new skipper at Norfolk and the Orioles’ payroll

Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman’s poor second half cost him 100 points on his season OPS year-over-year. What was .809 in 2023, when he finished ninth for the AL MVP, fell to .709 last season.

His second-half decline (hitting .207 with a .585 OPS) puzzled a lot of people and there were a bunch of theories.

“I always have confidence in myself,” Rutschman told the media during Birdland Caravan. “I trust my ability to bounce back and work hard and get healthy and do all the things necessary.”

Has he made some batting changes this winter?

“A couple of adjustments as far as hitting goes,” he said. “As the season goes along, you have to make those in-season adjustments.”

For quite a while last summer, he was having a solid season. Rutschman started the All-Star Game in July and in 79 games through June 30th he hit .294/.350/.471/.821 with 15 homers and 55 RBIs. He was on a 30-homer, 100-RBI pace.

But then, in 69 games from July 1st through the end of the regular season, he batted .194/.278/.286/.564 with four homers and 24 RBIs.

For an interview on MASNSports.com during the Winter Meetings, O’s manager Brandon Hyde told me the coaches and Rutschman have been talking often about adjustments all this offseason.

“We’ve put some plans in place and collaborated on some things that we feel like, that he feels like, that he wanted to kind of get back to. That kind of went away the second half.”

Added Hyde: “I think his approach was a little different last year than the first couple of years. He has always been a very patient hitter with the ability to hit the ball to all fields. You know, very selective/aggressive. He was very selective on the first pitch last year then would get over-aggressive at times on the second pitch and kind of run himself into some bad counts. I think you are going to see him get back into really good counts offensively like he did the first couple of years. He’ll get better pitches to drive. That’s been the player he’s been his whole life.”

New Norfolk manager: For the last three seasons, Buck Britton was the O’s Triple-A manager at Norfolk.  He has been promoted to the Orioles’ coaching staff for 2025, and the O’s added from outside the organization for their manager at their top affiliate.

Tim Federowicz, 37, will take over at Norfolk.

Federowicz had a 13-year pro career and played parts of eight seasons in the majors as a catcher with six teams. He retired in December of 2021.

The next season he managed Triple-A Tacoma to a 72-78 record. In 2023 he was on the Detroit Tigers staff as catching coach and last year was their manager at Triple-A Toledo, with the Mud Hens going 69-80.

“We have various connections to him – whether it’s with our major league coaching staff, with our farm director and even myself dating back to the University of North Carolina when we were there together,” O’s vice president, player development and domestic scouting Matt Blood told me.

“I’ve known Tim a long time. We feel like he’s going to bring experience and a perspective that will help our players — especially a young [Samuel] Basallo having a manager that has caught in the major leagues should be a good thing for him.”

Federowicz [pronounced Fed-a-row-vitch] has ties to the Orioles beyond spending time in Chapel Hill with Blood. When he played 17 games for the Cubs in 2016, O’s skipper Brandon Hyde was on that coaching staff. When he played 10 games for the 2018 Houston Astros, Mike Elias was on that Houston staff.

About the payroll: FanGraphs.com estimated that the Orioles end-of-year payroll in 2023 was $66 million and at the end of last year it was $103 million. The estimate for now, preseason 2025, is $161 million.

Per Spotrac.com, that ranks 15^th among MLB payrolls for this season.

Three of the top four O’s salaries were signed this year and the fourth was added at the 2024 trade deadline.

$18 million – pitcher Zach Eflin

$16.5 million – outfielder Tyler O’Neill

$15 million – pitcher Charlie Morton

$13 million – pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano