As the coaching staff continues to build around manager Craig Albernaz, the connections made throughout a baseball life are apparent.

The Orioles are expected to hire Jason Bourgeois as their first base coach, two sources said, which reconnects two former minor league teammates on the coaching staff. Albernaz and Bourgeois played together for the Triple-A Durham Bulls in 2013.

Bourgeois, 43, played parts of eight seasons in the majors. He served as the first base and outfield coach for the Chicago White Sox in 2024 and 2025, but he wasn’t returning to their coaching staff next season. Baltimore will hire Bourgeois to replace longtime first base coach Anthony Sanders, who joined the Detroit Tigers.

In his playing days, Bourgeois was a strong defensive center fielder and base-stealing threat. He swiped 31 bases in 93 games for the Houston Astros in 2011, both of which were career highs. Bourgeois is expected to play a role in instructing the outfield defense in Baltimore as well.

Bourgeois finished his major league career in 2015 with the Cincinnati Reds. That was the first year Statcast began tracking sprint speed, and the 33-year-old ranked as the fastest player of his age group (and remained in the 85th percentile of all players).

But pure speed is not all that is required to steal bases, and Bourgeois will be charged with improving the fortunes of some of Baltimore’s more run-happy players. Jackson Holliday, for instance, stole 17 bases and was caught 11 times. Reading the pitcher, timing jumps and eluding tags with slides are all part of the repertoire of a skilled base runner.

Gunnar Henderson has many of those characteristics. He finished the year with a career-high 30 steals.

Overall, the White Sox didn’t perform well on the bases last season. Chicago finished with minus-8 runs created via players taking an extra base, per Statcast, which measures how successful a base runner is when being aggressive. However, the White Sox’s metrics when stealing second base are more complimentary.

The White Sox were an above-average team stealing second (plus-4 run value, per Statcast) despite attempting to steal any base only 0.9% of the time, the fourth-lowest mark in baseball.

Part of that goes down to the large leads Chicago’s runners were able to build when on base. According to Statcast, White Sox runners were tied for the third-largest average lead distance gained between the start of a pitcher’s windup and his release, at 3.8 feet. That indicates an aggressive secondary lead that puts runners in position to advance on a ball in the dirt, let alone when they are stealing on first move.

There are additional coaching staff decisions on the horizon. Already the Orioles have plans to hire Dustin Lind as hitting coach.