Toronto had just won 92 games, and even after a playoff sweep that fall, Chris Bassitt said upon signing there in December 2022 that his simple goal was to play in and win a World Series. He described the talented roster then as the “full package.”

It took until last fall — the end of Bassitt’s three-year deal — for Toronto to put it together and finally realize that potential, coming inches from beating the Dodgers for last year’s title.

And relevant to his new club in Baltimore, they became true contenders only after a surprising last-place finish called the whole project in Toronto into question. Bassitt has plenty of ideas about why the Blue Jays finally met their potential, and good news for those hoping for the same here: His description sounds a lot like what the Orioles have sought to do in response to their own failures in 2025.

“The teams that fail have flaws, and those flaws can be a million different things,” Bassitt told me. “It can be off-the-field issues, can be on-the-field issues, can be game preparation, can be all these different things. So, you’ve got to figure out your flaws, and you have to address them. You can’t just say, ‘Well, this area is really, really good, so we’re going to mask the flaws.’ No. Let’s have the hard conversations, let’s have the hard conversations with people, let’s have the hard conversations with the front office, let’s have the hard conversations as a group, and then let’s try to be as close as we possibly can as a group. And that, to me, is always the biggest thing — how do you get people truly, fully bought into each other? And how do you have that true belief?"

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The Orioles set an early tone this offseason by trading oft-injured pitcher Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels for outfielder Taylor Ward rather than hold out hope he can contribute this year, jumped the closer market to sign Ryan Helsley, then shocked baseball by signing Pete Alonso to a $155 million deal at the winter meetings.

Before January even hit, they’d made a massive trade for right-hander Shane Baz and brought back Zach Eflin to help out their rotation, and Bassitt’s deal was the last of them. All those additions come to a roster that new manager Craig Albernaz has hyped at every opportunity, all while stressing how important it is that they keep getting better. Alonso is taking it upon himself to set an example in both the work ethic and accountability departments. Bassitt is assuming that role on the pitching side.

The Orioles did so much different this winter — from their approach to roster construction and refreshing the hitting coach group after just one year, to focusing on character and clubhouse presence — that it’s hard to know what they identified as the flaws they needed to fix. Given how they deployed their resources on the field this year, you can tell they felt like every corner of the roster needed to be addressed.

Bassitt felt the next step was to focus on what was already there.

“To me, here, you have a lot of young guys, so it’s like, are they doing everything the right way?” he said. “Are they going about their business the right way? So many times, there are issues that stem from game preparation, to what they’re thinking, how they’re thinking, how they’re attacking teams, how they’re attacking hitters, how hitters are attacking pitchers. There’s mistakes along the way. And to get to a World Series and to win a World Series, if you’re making mistakes, the reality is you’re probably going to lose. Just because one team has figured out those mistakes, and the other team hasn’t. To me, it’s just having the tough conversations and figuring out kind of where weaknesses are at.”

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Toronto’s turnaround had a lot to do with their homegrown players either getting back on track or taking a leap. Players who had underperformed the previous two years were suddenly back at their best, and they rolled through the season.

Bassitt understood upon signing here that he couldn’t tell what had hampered the Orioles last year.

“I just always looked at Baltimore as a really, really good team that still hasn’t put all the pieces together,” He said. “Now, in ’23, I was like, ‘Dang, they’ve figured this out really fast.’ But, it’s just, baseball’s tough.”