SARASOTA, Fla. — Adley Rutschman has experienced the breadth of emotions in the major leagues. His whirlwind debut met the exorbitant expectations. His more recent results have bewildered onlookers.

There has been joy as often as despair. He has manufactured All-Star campaigns and experienced a teamwide falloff that ended in major regression for Baltimore.

He smiled as he recalled these sweeping statements. Here he is, the centerpiece of the Orioles’ hopes and dreams, christened as such the moment he was drafted first overall. He’s four years on from his debut, and those four years have included highs and lows that can twist even the sturdiest mentalities into knots if one is not careful.

But Rutschman is careful, so he smiled at it all, even when considering the pain of an injury-riddled season that concluded with a career-low .673 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and an early trip to the golf course while other clubs competed in the postseason.

“It’s tough. It’s part of it,” Rutschman said. And then came another grin, breaking through the gloom to offer a bright prognosis. “But that’s what you sign up for, right?”

This is what he signed up for, and in that frame of mind, Rutschman enters spring training ahead of a critical year for himself and his team. As Rutschman goes, so do the Orioles. As he missed time and struggled to hit when healthy, Baltimore stumbled to a losing record.

This winter, from top to bottom, those within the front office and clubhouse were charged with looking at themselves in the mirror. What went wrong? The answers vary, and some of the issues can be laid at the feet of injuries.

But, just as much can be saddled to the underperformance of many key players, including Rutschman. So he gazed into the mirror of 2025 to understand the shortcomings. And, although he can’t guarantee 2026 will mark a return to his best, he can take solace in how he approached the winter and how he plans to approach spring training and the regular season.

“You’re taught in mental skills to identify your thoughts when that fear comes in,” Rutschman said. “You identify and then you start to rearrange your thought process to what I want to focus on now. Again, what are my controllables? Did I prepare the best I could for today?”

If the answer is yes, Rutschman said, he can exhale any pent-up breath.

“From the result standpoint last year, obviously a tough pill to swallow,” he continued. “I talk about having a finite amount of time in the league, and you just never know when that’s going to be it, and you just want to make the most of it. I think everyone wants to reach their potential as a baseball player. I think trying to do all you can so you don’t have any regrets at the end is the biggest thing.”

This is not to say Rutschman’s previous winter workouts have been subpar. There was that time when he did core exercises in the snow as part of a competitive training environment. Last winter, Rutschman increased focus on his diet.

He took that a step further this offseason, with blood work analysis determining how different foods and vitamins impact his daily energy and his body’s ability to recover from training sessions. Rutschman underwent body assessments to understand how each limb and muscle group moves and works together.

Rutschman endured two stints on the injured list for oblique strains, and by overhauling his recovery practices, he hopes to maintain his health more successfully.

“What are things I can check off postgame that will help me recover to the best of my ability to be able to go out and play as good as I can the next day?” Rutschman said. “Making sure I’m not leaving anything unturned in terms of PT, food, blood, trying to check off all those areas.”

None of that occurs with a bat in his hand, but for Rutschman to be on the field as consistently as he had been before 2025, those measures can help. And, if he’s healthy, his bat should play better.

“For Adley, and any young catcher, you have to learn how to navigate the grind of the season,” manager Craig Albernaz said at the winter meetings in December. “And Adley now has that baseline. So now it’s us as a coaching staff with him to figure out what’s the areas that he needs to really focus in on, whether that be in the weight room prep or if it’s like how he even structures his day. A lot of it is not actually the skills. A lot of it has to do [with] behind the scenes, like the lead-up to the game and where he’s putting his energy and direction.”

At the end of 2024, as Rutschman scuffled to the finish line, a hand injury impacted him. He played through it. In 2025, the oblique issues were likely a factor in his .220 batting average.

Rutschman didn’t have an exact reason his numbers have dropped from 2023 onward, but Statcast measures give a strong inclination.

Rutschman’s swing path has skewed toward the pull side in recent years. In 2023, when he swung left-handed, Rutschman’s attack direction was 3 degrees to the opposite field. That flipped to a pull-side direction in 2024 and 2025. Rutschman’s line drive rate has dropped since 2023, too, and he more frequently hit pull-side ground balls in 2025 than ever before.

Those tendencies distanced Rutschman from what he does best, and returning to those principles was at the center of his mind as he worked this winter.

The two largest adjustments Rutschman made are with his hands and his lower half. The first is to give his hands more room to operate when he swings left-handed. By moving his hands a bit farther from his body, he makes sure his elbow won’t get stuck along his torso. That allows his bat to remain in the zone for a longer time on a level plane.

The second change is to keep more weight on his back hip, which will allow him to adjust to different pitch types more quickly. The two work in tandem. If he’s thrown off by an off-speed pitch, the weight on his back hip will keep Rutschman from flailing open, and the longer his bat is in the zone, the likelier he can still make good contact.

“We want to hit line drives,” Rutschman said. “We want to be able to hit the ball to all parts of the field. If you’re a little late, you want to be able to hit that line drive oppo. And, if you’re a little ahead on the changeup, you want to be able to give yourself the best opportunity to get a hit or do something positive.”

At this stage of the spring, players often say in media sessions some variation of how they’re in the best shape of their lives. It has become more of a joke than something players truly mean, but joke or not, everyone lifts weights more, runs faster, hits farther.

After a season that he was eager to flush from his mind, Rutschman underwent the usual offseason practices of lifting, running, swinging. But the recently turned 28-year-old went a step beyond. What Rutschman settled on was something more existential.

“I think everyone here knows that baseball is limited,” he repeated. “Whether it’s 15 years or five years or one year in the big leagues, you get a finite amount of time, and I think everyone here just wants to make the most of that.”

And, by everyone, Rutschman especially means himself. There’s nothing he’d rather do than give his everything — and then whatever will be will be.

“I can live with the results if I went through the best process I could,” Rutschman said. “Still tough, man, but at the end of the day, friends, family, they still love you. That’s what they always tell you, but hey, man, baseball is not your identity. If you win MVP or you don’t, you’re still going to be the same. That’s tough as a baseball player because you do want to tie your results into how you feel about yourself, but you do have to separate the two.”