Mike Snyder just completed his 16^th season with the Orioles. He was inherited by Mike Elias when he joined the Orioles but has proven to be a key lieutenant to the O’s executive vice president and general manager.

Snyder completed his first year in the role of senior director of professional scouting after being promoted in October of 2023. In this role, he oversees the club’s pro scouting and player analysis across the majors, minors, and Asian professional leagues, as well as assisting with contract negotiations, 40-man roster construction, player transactions, and departmental hiring.

He has a hand in evaluating talent ranging from a minor league player who may have little chance to make the majors to some of the best players in all of MLB.

He has plenty of resources at his disposal no doubt and reams of stats, data and video to check as well as his in-person scouting looks.

But does character matter too? What role does that play when the O’s look to acquire a player?

While the Orioles continue to work on their offseason and look to add new players to their roster, getting one already on that roster back to previous form is also on the agenda this winter.

Manager Brandon Hyde, in a phone interview Tuesday, said the club has reached out to catcher Adley Rutschman and the work to get his bat going again has begun.

Rutschman finished 12^th in the AL MVP vote in 2022 and ninth in 2023. But in 2024, his OPS dropped from .809 the previous year to .709.

Last season, on June 27, Rutschman was hitting .300 with an .830 OPS. But in his last 71 games, he batted just .189 with four homers and an OPS of .559.

“We’ve been in regular contact with Adley,” Hyde said from the Winter Meetings in Dallas. “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. We know what kind of player he is and is going to be. We are doing a lot of things with him to get him back offensively and defensively to be the player that he is.

The first day of the offseason includes some Orioles moves within baseball operations, which they announced this afternoon.

* Senior director of pro scouting Mike Snyder is promoted to vice president of pro scouting.

The Orioles explained in a press release that Snyder will continue to oversee their pro scouting and player analysis across the majors, minors and Asian professional leagues, and also assist with contract negotiations, 40-man roster construction, player transactions and departmental hiring. He’s one of the most important behind-the-scenes guys in the organization.

Snyder’s tenure with the Orioles goes back to 2009, when he worked as a baseball operations intern. He moved up to baseball operations assistant and international scout in 2010-11, assistant director of scouting and player development in 2012, assistant director of player personnel in 2013-14, director of pro scouting and director of Pacific Rim operations and baseball development from 2015-19. He jumped to director of pro scouting in 2020.

Snyder graduated with honors from Princeton University (NJ) in 2008 with a degree in economics, and he received his master’s degree in applied and computational mathematics from Johns Hopkins University in 2019.

KANSAS CITY - Albert Suárez didn’t fall into the Orioles laps. They tracked him, tried to get him, stayed persistent and were rewarded. This wasn’t about luck.

Well, maybe just a little.

A leg injury put Suárez back on the market last summer. The Orioles caught a break more than a falling star. Opportunity aligned with availability.

They had taken some swings at the right-hander in the past and wouldn’t be caught looking this time.

“We pounced on him,” Mike Snyder, the Orioles’ senior director of pro scouting, said of the minor league deal agreed upon in September. “It’s always nice to get some offseason shopping done early.”

Part of the ripple effect from the Orioles’ wave of promotions today within the scouting department is a change in roles for Anthony Villa.

Villa is replacing Matt Blood as director of player development, according to an industry source. Blood has been promoted to vice president of player development and domestic scouting.

Villa was put in charge this year of overseeing the entire system as minor league hitting coordinator after working at the lower levels. He played in the White Sox system from 2016-18 and came to the organization prior to 2020 as hitting coach at Aberdeen before the pandemic forced the cancellation of the minor league season.

Among the announced promotions is the following:

Koby Perez is vice president of international scouting and operations. Mike Snyder is senior director of pro scouting. Gerardo Cabrera is director of Latin American scouting. Kevin Carter is manager of pro scouting. Hendrik Herz is manager of domestic scouting analysis. Chad Tatum is manager of domestic scouting. Will Robertson is special assignment scout. Alex Tarandek is a senior analyst in scouting. Michael Weis is a senior data scientist of draft evaluation. And Maria Arellano is senior manager of international operations and baseball administration.

One of the potential benefits of attending the Winter Meetings, held next week at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, is the chance to gain more clarity on the Orioles’ preferences for the construction of their roster. Any specifics regarding the pitching staff or lineup. How they might pivot if the original plan begins to crumble.  

Daily media sessions with executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias can be enlightening, without any expectations of him providing play-by-play on his meetings with executives and agents. Information can be dispensed in broad terms and still satisfy the masses.

The desire to sign or trade for at least one veteran starting pitcher has been confirmed. Nothing new on that front. And the targeted areas in free agency are below the top tier, which you’d hope would douse any reports linking the Orioles to the priciest arms and suggesting that they’d engage in a massive bidding war.

Here's the question that hasn’t been answered: What is the exact level of importance in bringing in a left-hander?

John Means will head back to the 60-day injured list after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Bruce Zimmermann broke camp last spring as the No. 4 starter but made a few trips to the minors and isn’t a lock for the rotation after registering a 5.99 ERA and 1.480 WHIP.