SARASOTA, Fla. — It’s not as simple as repeating everything.

Trevor Rogers is not eating the exact same meals or following the same morning routine. Even after the best season of his career, the Orioles left-hander approached this winter as any other: a chance to analyze and to improve.

What, one might ask, could Rogers possibly improve? Was a 1.81 ERA in 109 2/3 innings not good enough? What about his 0.90 WHIP? Those numbers are the sort that draw Cy Young Award consideration, although his innings load prevented him from receiving more than one vote.

“Deep down, I care about the numbers,” Rogers said, “but then again, that’s not what my focus is. I just want to be consistent. I want to know what my team is getting every time I take the mound — and that’s having a chance to win.”

With that mentality, Rogers entered the offseason looking to nitpick his career-best campaign. He settled on three areas to attack: his mechanics out of the stretch, his sweeper’s spin and his fastball’s velocity.

In doing so, Rogers entered camp with the mentality required of most top-end talents. To rest on one’s laurels is to risk the league catching up, and after Rogers burst onto the scene last year as an ace-level arm, there is no surprise factor to his game anymore. But Rogers won’t need to surprise his competition if he merely outmaneuvers their bats with his pitches, and his three adjustments could allow him to build upon the success he found last year.

“It’s hard to run around with a 1-point-something ERA forever, but I think the sharpness he showed last year is who he is,” president of baseball operations Mike Elias said. “He’s done a lot of work, and we’re excited to watch him here.”

Part of Rogers’ breakout success was his offseason work at Driveline Baseball, an advanced pitching lab with locations in Washington state and Arizona. He first attended Driveline ahead of the 2025 season, and realized that the nagging back injuries that impacted his workouts over earlier winters had depleted the strength in his lower half.

So much of pitching starts there, with the legs. Now, for a second straight offseason, Rogers felt healthy and capable of building a base level of strength that can carry him through 30-plus starts in a year. The first sign of Rogers’ improved base came with his fastball, which jumped from an average of 91.9 mph in 2024 to 93.1 mph in 2025.

Rogers doesn’t think he has reached his ceiling yet.

“I think we both agree there’s still a little more in the tank,” Rogers said of him and Dylan Gargas, his pitching coordinator at Driveline before Gargas joined the Nationals as their Triple-A pitching coach.

“How can we find a way mechanically to get the body moving faster and also staying efficient,” Rogers continued. “That was kind of the fun part. … Just finding a way to do that, and I think we did that, and I’m pretty excited to find out where that takes me this year.”

Rogers didn’t enter the winter with an exact goal, but he said that averaging between 94 and 95 mph on his four-seamer would set him up for success.

Few left-handed starters throw consistently at that speed. For comparison, Tarik Skubal — a two-time AL Cy Young Award winner — averaged 97.4 mph on his fastballs in 2025. A fastball that averages 95 mph would have made Rogers the sixth-hardest-throwing southpaw starter in the majors last year, according to Statcast.

Add in deceptive secondary pitches, and Rogers’ arsenal might be even better in 2026.

His changeup and slider are strong offerings, and Rogers added the sweeper last year to provide more run at a lower velocity than his standard slider. Despite the strong results from his sweeper (batters hit .067 against it), Rogers can increase the deception of that pitch by changing the way he releases it.

There are times when Rogers flicks his wrist at release, attempting to create even more spin and movement. But he learned this winter to trust the natural movement brought on by his grip and instead throw it just like he would a fastball — which gives hitters even less of a hint as to what is coming.

“I’ve noticed it’s a little shorter,” Rogers said of the sweeper’s run, “but the movement and the spin is a lot more consistent. I think with time the spin, or the movement, will get a little longer throughout the course of the season, so I kind of like where it’s at right now.”

Rogers can live with those changes because the movement profile still differs from his slider and the velocity difference is stark enough to cause issues for hitters.

To fully take advantage of those two adjustments, however, Rogers hopes to become more comfortable out of the stretch. He infrequently had runners on base against him last year, so there were few opportunities for him to use a quicker delivery. But Rogers said he felt robotic at times, and the lack of fluidity in his release could alter his command or the intended movement on certain pitches.

“Ultimately, [Rogers] was probably stressing himself a little too much from the stretch,” said pitching coach Drew French, who visited Rogers in Lubbock, Texas, this winter to help oversee his training. “Everybody’s going to. The game state, guys are on base now, they’re closer to scoring. But trying to figure out how to be more efficient inside the stretch delivery and get to those outcomes and outputs easier than he felt like he did in 2025. A lot of it starts with how he loads his back leg and what his back leg is doing.”

There are so many small movements that combine into the act of throwing a pitch. One inefficiency in the buildup can throw off the result. And while last season was better than anything Rogers could’ve imagined, he knows batters have a better sense of how to attack him this time around.

Of course, having an idea of what’s coming is different than being able to combat it.

Last week, during Rogers’ first live batting practice session of the spring, he mowed through most of Baltimore’s mainstays. He struck out seven of the 10 batters he faced, and by the end of that session, his teammates were smiling and shaking their heads.

If Rogers can carry his momentum into 2026, those head shakes from opponents will be coupled with scowls.