If I’m lucky, I can sneak it in myself and make a joke at my own expense.

Occasionally, the rebuttal comes too quickly for me to disarm it.

But didn’t you think the Orioles would be good last year, too?

I did. I do again.

And I don’t think I’m alone with the unease that creates. No matter how much differently, or deftly, or maybe even dynamically, the Orioles operated this winter with an aim to bring October baseball back to Baltimore, there’s apprehension when writing them in as a playoff team.

Improving on a 75-win season should be easy on paper. That’s not what the Orioles have to do over these next six months. But it’s a pretty straightforward path to the playoffs for this team. Simply put, everything just needs to be a lot better than it was a year ago. How much actually is better will be the surest way to determine whether the season will be.

This is the part where anyone would typically rattle off president of baseball operations Mike Elias’ offseason haul. We’ll do that but not yet. To me, the returning players are the most important aspect for the Orioles, and if they aren’t playing at or near the levels they did in 2023 and parts of 2024, it’s going to be hard for this team to compete in the AL East.

With Jordan Westburg (elbow) and Jackson Holliday (hand) injured to start the season, that leaves the trio of Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and Colton Cowser in the proverbial spotlight. All three dealt with injuries both known and concealed in 2025, and all underperformed to various degrees. The more quality at-bats we see result in line drives all over the field from this group, the more assured we can be that it’s still inside them to be stars.

That’s going to come down to Elias’ first and most meaningful move of the offseason: hiring manager Craig Albernaz, one of the most sought-after candidates in recent years. His strengths were obvious from the moment he was hired — he is a development-first coach and instructor, a culture builder and a tireless competitor — and all of those were meant to first and foremost help the Orioles get the best out of their homegrown core.

He and his staff spent spring training getting to know these players and how they operate, and they need to get the best out of them quickly, though part of this offseason was also meant to lessen the offensive burden on that group. That will be especially important with young players without much track record expected to play significant roles, including Samuel Basallo, Dylan Beavers and Coby Mayo.

But that’s where experienced hitters such as Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward can help. Alonso has lived up to the billing a big-ticket free agent needs to be in terms of taking the attention off those around him and playing a front-facing role on the team. He and Ward have proven to be durable and productive over the course of a six-month season, which is more than the marquee addition to the lineup from last winter, Tyler O’Neill, can say. (He needs to be better, too.)

And nothing needs to improve more than Elias’ rotation additions. No one needs to look too far back to see what happens if they don’t. Last year, it was Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano, with Kyle Gibson eventually (and briefly) joining the mix. Shane Baz, acquired from the Rays and tapped as an eventual Cy Young contender, is worlds better than any of them.

Chris Bassitt is at a similar stage of his career to last year’s additions but also won’t be as important as they were, because the Orioles brought back a healthy Zach Eflin and are rolling out two of the most underappreciated pitchers in the game at the top of their rotation in Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish.

The rotation could be effective enough to cover for an unproven bullpen and maybe even give the lineup time to click. But it’ll almost undoubtedly be better, and it’s strange when you stack up just how many facets of this team that’s true for — the lineup mix, the rotation, the manager — to still feel uneasy about its chances.

A lot of that has to do with how last year went. You’ll remember my therapy homework in newsletter form as I tried to make sense of what happened.

Then, we were looking at an offense that crumbled in the second half and a rotation full of question marks and expecting everything to just work out. Or at least I was. And, worse, I really thought the options were only a good team or a mediocre one.

That actually feels true this year. Absent another disastrous season of injury luck, those feel like the outcomes. They’re going to pitch well enough to win most nights. They’re bound to string together some big nights on offense.

The main issue is that, record-wise, there may not be a lot that separates the good teams and the mediocre ones — especially in this division, where I see a very real possibility that the Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Yankees all beat up on each other and only a couple of teams rack up enough wins to make the playoffs.

It’s clear what the Orioles need to do to avoid that potential morass and make good on their promise. Everything must be better than it was last year. Almost from the moment the 2025 season ended, this offseason has been. And the result is a team that’s set up to be, too.

If I’m not alone in needing to see it to truly believe it, then to borrow Albernaz’s “day one” motto, there’s no better time than opening day to start proving it will be.