I can’t imagine I’m alone in this.

A couple of nights over the last week, I’ve been cleaning up after dinner or tidying the house and reflexively thought to check on the Orioles game, only to realize there isn’t one. It was this time last week that we were preparing for a playoff run that, despite an uneven end to the regular season, felt like it might be a long one.

The part where my brain still thinks the Orioles are playing every day speaks to how fresh it all is, yet the distance since Wednesday’s loss and Thursday’s postmortem press conference has given me a lot of perspective. I set the stage for it with this column on how challenging fundamental changes would be, and Mike Elias basically said they might happen anyway.

With a little distance from everything, I’m still trying to balance the playoff outcome and Elias’ resolve to prevent a third straight October letdown with the belief that most of what the Orioles do works — and works well.

There are no invalid reactions, whether you’re running the team or just love it, to a playoff disappointment like the one the Orioles experienced. There are extreme ones, though. I’ve seen plenty of those online, with folks tweeting through it and producing some maniacal cope and revisionist history about how this all happened.

Elias’ reaction felt firm but less extreme, and I think in this early phase of the offseason I hope the changes to this team end up being on the less extreme side, too.

Most of what’s going to make this team better is natural progression, from another year of experience for the young core to Felix Bautista’s return to the bullpen. The questions I have are the same as everyone else’s, but I guess what I’m getting at is: there’s a rational answer to each and every one of them. And those answers don’t involve dramatic change.

For example: On the offensive side of the game, which both Elias and manager Brandon Hyde blamed for how this season ended, it feels very unreasonable to think they’re going to stop believing what they believe on a conceptual level. They believe in hard contact and controlling the strike zone to get better pitches to drive with power. That’s fundamental.

Might they tweak the messaging, or some of the practices used to communicate? Sure. But there seems to be some kind of consensus forming that the effort to hit the ball hard is bad, as if the flip side of not trying to hit the ball hard is an actual strategy that anyone would try to implement at any level of professional baseball — let alone a progressive, data-driven organization that prides itself on being on the cutting edge in so many areas.

Similarly, it feels like there’s not going to need to be a lot of extreme roster turnover. Adley Rutschman will have to re-prove himself as the steady presence and elite presence in the middle of the lineup, so if there’s a veteran brought in to fill that role instead, no objections here. The Orioles can opt for a steadier bat to replace Anthony Santander’s .814 OPS rather than seeking to replace his 44 home runs, which were spectacular but always came in bunches.

It’s going be quite challenging to find ways to allow Jackson Holliday, Heston Kjerstad, and Coby Mayo to grow into regular major league roles with the way the roster is constructed now, but perhaps this is the winter the Orioles move on from some of their rebuilding-era holdovers in hopes of higher upside, or clear the way for higher-floor players whom they can bring in with their newfound financial wherewithal. But it’s all doable, and most importantly achievable, solely with money now as opposed to prospects via trade.

The Orioles’ farm system, through graduation and trades, isn’t what it was earlier in this decade, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was notable that after years of managing expectations about how the team would improve and move forward, Elias didn’t reference his responsibility for the overall, long-term health of the organization at all last week.

The closest he came was when I asked about his reference after the Corbin Burnes trade that his moves were more present-day-weighted, given the team’s competitive state, than before. He acknowledged that to be the case with that trade, but then warned against trying too hard to continue following that path, saying instead the front office was focused on “getting back to an approach that works well for us.”

“I’m going to have to be careful to trust our well-studied and long-standing beliefs on the best way to run this team,” Elias said. “Clearly, after this disappointing exit we are all going to feel a lot of urgency to not have this be the case next year. What I’m saying is, I’m going to have to be smart about how to make that happen.”

I take everyone at their word when they say there’s going to be serious self-evaluation and reflection on what went wrong for this team last week. I also take years of watching them operate into account, and based on that and the above quote don’t foresee the wild offseason some fans are demanding.

I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with that, either.

Ballpark chatter

“I wonder what ended up happening with Jon’s air conditioning unit”

— most regular newsletter readers

You might remember around three months ago that I used moments of your precious time to compare my house’s old air conditioning unit to the Orioles’ pitching staff for the purposes of wondering whether either would make it through the summer. Elias brought in reinforcements at the deadline, and the pitching staff held up. I had some duct work cleaned up in my basement as part of another project, and I’m thrilled to report my air conditioner held up, too.

But there’s a catch. We just had our deck replaced, which requires moving the outside unit — only the cost of doing so, given it’s so old that the coolant it uses is now banned for being a harmful chemical, is so prohibitive that a new unit actually costs less. (Or so we are told.) So, even as my air conditioner survived the summer, it needs replacing anyway. I get it, Mike. Reinforce the pitching staff, the bats go cold. Can’t win ‘em all.

Stats

28.5%

Adley Rutschman played 148 games this season; in the first 74, he had a 44.1% hard-hit rate, and in the last 74, it was down to 28.5%. That’s what drove his production lower. Rutschman had a .572 OPS in the last 74 games of his season, compared to .830 in the first 74. I have more thoughts about Rutschman’s decline this year, and also believe him when he says he was not injured. That just means I’m still trying to make sense of whatever did happen.

🚀 Talent Pipeline

Elias, rather interestingly, spent a lot of time on where Coby Mayo will likely play in the future and laid things out similarly to how I always saw them: He can play third base in the big leagues, but he might struggle to win starts defensively at the position, making it kind of moot. He did put a flag in the ground saying Mayo is “probably the farthest along at first base despite most of his minor league repetitions coming at third,” and made it clear the plan for Mayo may change this winter depending on what else happens with the roster. That feels like it has a lot to do with Ryan Mountcastle’s future to me.

📰 For further reading

💪 Rubenstein is up to bat: We have plenty of evidence so far that David Rubenstein and his ownership group will back the front office to spend what it takes this year, and Kyle calls on him to do what it takes this year. I’m more interested in what will happen if he (or someone in his group) wants to spend on a player the front office doesn’t believe will be worth it. That’s where the real fun starts. (The Baltimore Banner)

😢 An emotional clubhouse: I don’t remember the clubhouse in Texas after last year’s sweep being as sad as last week’s was on Wednesday. Perhaps the blowout last year meant players had already processed it, and being on the road meant they just showered and left. But guys were just lingering Wednesday, trying to process it. Andy had a nice retelling of the scene. (The Baltimore Banner)