After a perfect 2024 calendar in terms of players actually in the organization on January 1, the makers just missed for 2025.
For most of my adult life, I have been able to count on receiving an Orioles calendar as a Christmas present. It’s a great time to get a calendar. I wouldn’t bother to buy one for myself and as you know, once it’s Christmas, it’s almost time for a new calendar for a new year. Convenient!
This ritual offers a chance to reflect on the recent short-term fortunes and current long-term outlook of the franchise. Many of the years that I have received an Orioles calendar, it didn’t say anything good about the team. I’ll always remember getting a 2008 calendar for Christmas and that thing still had Rodrigo Lopez, who was traded away in January 2007, feature for a month. In fairness, was it really worth bothering to pay attention to the Orioles back then? I don’t know why I did it.
More recently, the 2022 Orioles calendar featured such already-departed luminaries as Hunter Harvey, Rio Ruiz, and Chance Sisco. The 2023 Orioles calendar did not have Adley Rutschman on it. Like, what the heck was that even about? The team is good now, so it’s easier to avoid such oddities, but easy doesn’t mean that they will.
One year ago, the calendar makers were a perfect 12/12 in terms of having players who were actually in the organization on January 1, 2024 on the 2024 edition of their calendar. The only guy who was not an interesting player to include was Kyle Stowers. He also ended up being traded before his month (August) rolled around. Other than him, it was a pretty good group. This year’s might be even better than that.
On the back of the calendar is this disclaimer:
The publisher has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the data presented in this calendar edition. We cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions, or inconsistencies.
They may not be able to be held responsible, but they have been and will continue to be lightly mocked for past and present misdeeds.
January – Gunnar Henderson
Henderson was the player who was used for December 2024, so for those of us who are replacing last year’s calendar gift with this year’s, that’s two months in a row of Gunnar. His inclusion was the most obvious of any player’s, after he finished fourth in MVP voting (and should have been third) while having the greatest non-Cal Ripken Jr. season of any position player in Orioles history.
Can he do something like that again? If there isn’t a major starting rotation addition, the 2025 O’s may need him to do it.
Will he still be on the team for his month? Duh.
February – Adley Rutschman
I can’t even see Rutschman’s name without wondering, what the heck happened in the second half of last season? Yet even with that massive struggle, he dropped a 3.4 bWAR season in 2024 and all he has to do is get back the 100 points of OPS he lost from 2023 to 2024 and that should shut up most of the grumps. Oh, is that all?
Will he still be on the team for his month? That’s another duh. If you’re a zoomer who hasn’t encountered “duh” before, it’s what people who were my age in the 90s said when the answer is obviously yes.
March – Félix Bautista
Finally, the Mountain is coming back to the pitcher’s mound. At the start of spring training, Bautista will be about 16 months removed from his October 2023 Tommy John surgery. That’s on the conservative end of recovery times now and we can hope it means he’ll be able to hit the ground running and build himself back up for the regular season.
Will he still be on the team for his month? Yes, he will. Bautista was on the 2024 calendar even though he was not able to pitch. That was sad for the 2024 calendar and proved to be even sadder for the 2024 Orioles as we watched his temporary replacement, Craig Kimbrel (not on the ‘24 calendar), fall apart in July.
April – Ryan Mountcastle
Three years ago, I wrote about the 2022 edition of the Orioles calendar and I said of Mountcastle, who was on the calendar then and now, “An eventually-better Orioles team might re-evaluate if they want more OBP out of (a 1B/DH), but we’re not there yet.” I think we’re there now, or at least we should be. Mountcastle hit just 13 home runs in 124 games in 2024. Walltimore 2.0 might help him get a few more back, but he’s going to need a lot more than that to meet the expectations for a 1B/DH.
Will he still be on the team for his month? This is the first guy where the answer could possibly be no. Some people in the media, and some fans in turn, have been wishcasting the idea of Mountcastle being included in a trade to Seattle, who needs offense, in exchange for their apparent surplus of mid-rotation pitching. If that trade happened, it could be before April.
May – Kyle Bradish
The choices that have been made by the Orioles so far this offseason could point towards Mike Elias just deciding to roll the dice with his current rotation in the first half and then hope that Bradish rejoining the team in the second half of the season will be the top of the rotation boost that they need for the stretch and ultimately the postseason. Is that a good idea? Unless there’s a big trade made in the next month and a half, it seems like we might find out.
Will he still be on the team for his month? In Bradish’s case, the question should be whether he will have pitched for the team by the end of his month. Unfortunately, the answer to that is guaranteed to be no, since his Tommy John surgery wasn’t until mid-June 2024 and even an aggressive 12-month recovery wouldn’t have him back by the end of May.
June – Cedric Mullins
Along with Mountcastle, Mullins is the player with the longest-tenure in the organization. Both of those guys were drafted in 2015. This will be Mullins’s eighth big league season and the sixth where he has a full-time role. As much as there is an occasional narrative about how the Orioles need to add this or that veteran, they’ve now got some veteran experience already incumbent in the clubhouse and Mullins is part of that.
Will he still be on the team for his month? Elias broke the seal on possibly trading away veterans in the middle of a good season for the team if it helps clear room for a younger player in 2024 when he dealt Austin Hays. It wouldn’t shock me to see him do something similar in 2025, though that would likely happen both after June and probably not to Mullins, unless either Dylan Beavers or Enrique Bradfield Jr. are really setting the minors on fire.
July – Yennier Cano
The linear nature of time, as experienced by our existence, ensures that it will never again be April or May 2023 again, when Cano turned a lot of heads in the baseball world and ultimately earned himself an All-Star bid. You sure would not have thought he’d be a calendar candidate in 2024 and 2025 when he was something of a 40-man roster equalizer throw-in to the Jorge López trade in 2022.
Will he still be on the team for his month? There is a non-zero chance of Cano being sent to the minors if he has an erratic early season, but I think he’ll stay on the Orioles all year as long as he doesn’t totally stink.
August – Jackson Holliday
Given the occasionally poor history of this calendar, I didn’t actually expect Holliday to make the cut for any month here. Apparently, his April debut was enough time for the calendar-makers to figure out that he would be a significant Oriole in 2025… even if he wasn’t very good in his April debut. Still, I’m quite excited to see what he does this year.
Will he still be on the team for this month? I don’t even want to think about the version of the 2025 season where Holliday is not on the active major league Orioles roster in August.
September – Jorge Mateo
Mateo was limited to just 68 games this year thanks to the season-ending elbow injury he suffered in a freak collision in a game in Miami in July. His speed and middle infield defensive versatility are both things that the Orioles missed without him. Hopefully his recovery has gone along as expected and he’s ready for a full go around the beginning of spring training.
Will he still be on the team for this month? Don’t tell my wife, whose favorite Oriole is Mateo, but the Orioles have too many righty-batting reserve infielders who can’t be optioned to the minors and Mateo could be shuffled aside at some point. I think his speed makes him the least likely candidate of the group to be removed, but then, I didn’t expect Ramón Urías or Emmanuel Rivera to stick around this long either.
October – Dean Kremer
The last two seasons have seen me suggesting and ultimately pleading that the Orioles would probably be better off not having Dean Kremer as their #3 starter in a postseason series. The way things actually worked out, Kremer started the third game of the 2023 ALDS and was crushed. He was lined up to start the third game of the 2024 wild card series as well. And if things stay the way they currently look, he’s probably going to start the third game of this regular season too.
Will he still be on the team for this month? Kremer should still have some use to the Orioles at the end of this season. Just please, let him not be in the postseason rotation, unless something goes very, very well this year.
November – Austin Hays
Oh, calendar people. You were so close to perfect. All that you had to do was be aware that Hays was traded on July 26 of last year before printing your 2025 calendar. All that you had to do was replace him with Colton Cowser, just as the Orioles replaced him not far into last year. Was that really so much to ask?
Will he still be on the team for this month? He’s already gone. The only miss for the calendar-makers this time around.
December – Grayson Rodriguez
Gas ‘em up. Unless it turns out that he pitches a little better or is less likely to injure his lat muscles again by pitching with slightly less gas. I don’t know. After the second half of 2023, I was excited for big things from Rodriguez a year ago, and he ended up as just a shade below average as a starter before hurting himself. Even though I know better, I will continue to hope for big things, as I have done for so many Orioles pitching prospects before him and will do for pitching prospects after him if Elias ever drafts any.
Will he still be on the team for this month? Of course he will.
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There are seven players who featured on both the 2024 and 2025 calendars. How many will appear on both 2025 and 2026? The only post-’25 free agents who remain with the team and are on this calendar are Mullins and Mateo, so there is a lot of room to just roll over the same guys. There is also a lot of room for Elias to surprise us and confound the 2026 calendar designers.