So, turns out the Orioles didn’t have to get too creative after all.

With reports out of Los Angeles that Teoscar Hernández was nearing a deal to return to the Dodgers, the Orioles snapped up arguably the next-best right-handed-hitting outfielder on the market in Tyler O’Neill for a three-year, $49.5 million deal that at once solidifies the Orioles’ strengths on offense and shows that, after a second-half swoon called their work at the plate into question, they’re leaning right back into what worked up until then.

Same goes for Gary Sánchez, who was reportedly signed for $8.5 million as a backup catcher.

They clearly want to get better at the things they already do well, which is boasting a balanced group of hitters who can attack lefties and righties and hitting the ball hard. Now, they’re just doing it with a bit of financial heft behind them.

O’Neill is a hard-contact merchant who walks a decent amount but also has some swing and miss to his game. He’s a perfectly good, at times really good, everyday player who may not need to play every day and would probably be more productive for it. In many ways, he is a ceiling raiser on a team whose floor is pretty well established. If you want to envision the Orioles making that good-to-great jump that seems to be their next challenge, the upside they just added to the roster is the kind of move to facilitate it.

There aren’t a lot of switch hitters who bat third every day like Anthony Santander, so it makes sense that the Orioles’ replacement for him isn’t a like-for-like one. But it’s pretty easy to envision O’Neill platooning in a corner with Heston Kjerstad or Ryan O’Hearn and helping the Orioles regain one of their strengths from 2023 and the first half of 2024, with how they crushed left-handed pitching.

O’Neill does that when he’s right. He had a 1.026 OPS against lefties with a .425 weighted on-base average in 2021, his breakout year, and last year with Boston he had a 1.179 OPS and .479 wOBA against lefties. With the left-handed hitters already in the outfield, it feels as if O’Neill’s opportunities to start against righties when everyone is healthy will be limited, but there’s a certain bang for the Orioles’ buck just based off that aspect of his game alone.

And that’s what they’ll be getting: loud sounds. O’Neill was in the 90th percentile of all hitters with a hard-hit rate of 48.8% and 98th percentile in barrel rate (17.3%), and that hard-hit rate climbed to 53.8% against righties in 2024.

At least in the version we saw this year in Boston, O’Neill is capable of putting together an impactful offensive season as an everyday player. He’s also familiar. He feels like Austin Hays with a little more pop, a little more on-base but perhaps a little more of a proclivity to end up on the injured list if something’s nagging him, as opposed to Hays’ insistence on playing through his maladies.

O’Neill is also similar to many of the Orioles’ other top hitters in how frequently he hits the ball hard and how, at times, even though he doesn’t chase he can still whiff some, leading to elevated strikeout rates. That makes O’Neill not the stabilizing presence to stick in the middle of the lineup but yet another potential peak on the proverbial EKG screen that is the Orioles’ offense.

I can’t imagine signing someone for this much money not to play him every day, but against right-handed starters, O’Neill will be vying for one of four lineup spots with Colton Cowser, Kjerstad, O’Hearn and Ryan Mountcastle. I suppose Sánchez could force himself into that mix, too, but what makes him a good backup catcher is you don’t need to play him every day. But it wouldn’t be a disaster if you did.

We know when we’ll see both, though — against left-handed starters — and that’s solidifying what until the second half was a real strength for the Orioles. O’Neill in particular also adds another potential impactful bench bat, and simply by adding him, don’t expect the Orioles’ frequent trips to the pinch hitter well to end.

So, if manager Brandon Hyde’s strict platoon beliefs and quick lefty/righty pinch hitting grind on you, know that, if O’Neill comes off the bench to face a lefty, it’s probably going to go well. If you want to see the Orioles make more contact and not swing so hard, whatever that means, you will not be treated to that when O’Neill is in the batter’s box. Sánchez has a lot of that in him, too.

Combined with the Orioles’ hitting coach group, it seems clear now that, after nearly two months of self-examination and reflection, the Orioles broadly decided that their issues in the second half weren’t down to philosophy or tactics but personnel. Injuries (and whatever happened to Adley Rutschman) limited their lineup flexibility and lowered its quality and, sitting here in December, we can truly say they’ve taken steps to prevent that.

We can call Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Cedric Mullins and Cowser everyday players. Mountcastle probably will be, too. And, depending on who wins positional battles, O’Hearn, Jackson Holliday and Kjerstad will all be in there against right-handed starters, with Mountcastle, O’Neill, Sánchez and at least one of Ramón Urías, Jorge Mateo and Emanuel Rivera against lefties.

The Orioles’ lineup balance is going to win them a lot of games next year, as will their in-game flexibility. So will all the home runs they hit. Meet the new Orioles, same as the old Orioles. Except this time supported by free agent spending.