Baltimore Sun Orioles reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer will answer fan questions every Friday during baseball season. Here are JCM’s thoughts on several questions from readers:

Editor’s note: Questions have been edited for length and clarity. Email jameyer @baltsun.com with questions for next Friday’s mailbag.

What’s your honest assessment after the first 13 games? Are the Orioles contenders or decliners? — @garetrobinson on X

Can the answer be both?

Does it appear that the Orioles are on an upward arc, or dare we say, liftoff? No. They’ve played below .500 baseball for more than 100 games, and the start to the season has been concerning.

Should they still be viewed as contenders in an American League (and a division) that lacks dominant teams? Of course.

Making sweeping generalizations about a baseball team 13 games into a 162-game season isn’t smart. If someone were given the choice to revise their preseason predictions based on this sample, it would probably be smarter to not do so. But let’s try to react and not overreact. Here’s a few assessments:

This team should get better as the season progresses. Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez and Colton Cowser are expected back later this spring; Félix Bautista could settle into being the dominant closer he was in 2023; Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are making their way back and could be pivotal second-half additions.

The inconsistency of the offense is probably just noise. It’s important to ask about, but across a 162-game season, teams that score the most runs (and the Orioles are expected to be among them) normally win enough games to be in the playoffs.

The rotation and defense are legitimate concerns. The former isn’t a surprise; the latter is. This team needs Charlie Morton and Dean Kremer to pitch the way they have the past few years, and those pitchers need their defense to back them up.

Why haven’t the Orioles been more aggressive to sign Gunnar Henderson or Adley Rutschman to an extension? — @AC_Vorce on X

It should be no surprise that each week, at least one person sends in a mailbag question about contract extensions.

This topic is the one that fans are repeatedly most interested in. Many fans are OK with payroll fluctuations or different approaches to free agency, and they understand Baltimore will not have a payroll similar to the Yankees or Dodgers. But this team has a history of producing lifetime Orioles, and the fans want Henderson and/or Rutschman to join that illustrious list.

Whether the team has been aggressive enough or not, there’s little way to know the answer to that. There are legitimate hurdles preventing the club from signing Henderson and Rutschman — two generational players — to long-term contract extensions. And there are other young players who are perhaps more likely to sign here than those two superstars.

But none of that changes the fact that since general manager Mike Elias took over in November 2018, the Orioles are the only team to not hand out a single extension of four-plus guaranteed years, according to Spotrac.

It’s either a philosophical choice or the hurdles are playing a significant factor, but it might take years before it’s revealed which is the case.

Why are players getting days off two weeks into the season? — @ceegee1420 on X

When Cedric Mullins wasn’t in Sunday’s lineup, some fans on social media went berserk about resting one of the team’s hottest hitters.

Jorge Mateo playing center field (and then missing a routine fly ball that led to three unearned runs scoring in the 4-1 loss) only made it worse.

Sunday lineups have a way of doing that to fans, and the frustration is understandable. This team needs to win games, and the ones in April count just as much as the ones in September. Putting Mateo in a position he’s barely played was preventable, and doing so hurt the Orioles’ chances of winning that game.

Fans are more informed and knowledgeable about baseball now than at any time in history.

They have access to more public data than teams possessed just a few decades ago, and it’s (mostly) raised the level of discourse online.

But one thing that the team (the front office, the manager, the training staff) will always have better knowledge of is the health of its players.

There are plenty of decisions that deserve to be critiqued after watching the Orioles’ first 13 games (see: Mateo in center field). Giving Mullins — who’s never started 150-plus games in a season, had his 2023 campaign derailed because of lower-body injuries and then became a platoon player in 2024 — a day off in April isn’t one of them.

Why does an organization which claims to pride itself on analytics not seem to understand reverse splits? — @zeroforwinger on X

Hyde’s quotes about his lineup are becoming a Rorschach test.

For those rightfully concerned about the club’s mediocre past 100 games, his comments tell one story. For the fans who are rightfully not panicking yet, his comments tell another.

Sunday, the Orioles faced pitcher Kris Bubic, a left-handed pitcher with reverse splits. That means Bubic isn’t like the typical southpaw, and it allows lefty hitters to perform better against him than righties. Yet, the Orioles’ lineup featured mostly right-handed hitters — with lefties Mullins, Heston Kjerstad and Jackson Holliday on the bench. After the game, Hyde explained why he played newcomers Ramón Laureano (left field) and Gary Sánchez (designated hitter) over Kjerstad and Holliday.

“We acquired and signed right-handed guys to face left-handed starters and we’re gonna give them an opportunity, especially early in the year here, to hopefully handle left-handed pitching for us,” Hyde said.

To some, that was proof the Orioles don’t believe in reverse splits and instead will trust the macro platoon advantage hitters get when facing opposite-handed pitchers. Except … here’s a quote from less than 24 hours earlier after Hyde left Kjerstad in against a lefty reliever and Kjerstad rewarded him with an RBI single:

“That lefty’s splits are pretty, lefties have handled him,” Hyde said. “Like the matchup there. It’s pretty early in the game, where maybe a righty coming back around for him.”

So … what’s the answer here?

To bring back this mailbag’s catchphrase: Two things can be true at once.

The Orioles take reverse splits into account in certain situations.

They probably don’t care about them as much as fans do.

When assessing splits, it’s pivotal to understand that they work in both directions. The hitter’s splits also factor into the equation. A lefty pitcher having reverse splits doesn’t erase away a lefty hitter’s struggles against southpaws, especially since the platoon advantage for lefty pitchers is larger than that for righty pitchers.

Additionally, for many players, reverse splits are actually a sampling issue. Minor league splits aren’t particularly reliable because of the level of competition, and it takes years for most players to accrue a large enough sample.

For example, Ramón Urías, a righty hitter, had reverse splits through the 2023 season, meaning he hit righties better than lefties.

But here’s what he’s done in a small sample against lefties and righties since 2024:

Urías vs. righties in 245 plate appearances: .241 batting average, .692 OPS

Urías vs. lefties in 94 plate appearances: .314 batting average, .884 OPS

Wait, so does Urías have reverse splits or not?

Just like the Rorschach test, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at jameyer@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.