The Baltimore Orioles are a lesson in successful rebuilds, having gone from 115 losses in 2018 to one of the best teams in baseball — with one of the best farm systems — in five years. The O’s won the American League East last year, with 101 wins. Their farm system has produced the likes of young All-Stars Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg with the next wave — Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo — recently promoted to the big leagues. Multiple current rebuilding organizations have cited Baltimore as their blueprint, particularly in producing young hitters.

The problem is identifying what exactly that blueprint is. The Orioles are mum on their secret sauce – there are plenty of theories – though some of their guiding principles aren’t necessarily groundbreaking. They’re just difficult to execute, such as the 65 new hires the Mike Elias regime made in roughly 18 months, as the organization streamlined the messaging from coaches in the minor leagues and prioritized tough work environments to breed more competition through a total culture shift.

“We have some organizational non-negotiable philosophies or values, and what we needed to do was find and hire a bunch of people that either believed in those or were willing to push those and build off those and that’s what we initially did,” said Matt Blood, who was promoted this winter from director of player development to vice president of player development and domestic scouting. “We drafted players that sort of fit in those moments as well. So we were acquiring players with these skills and we were finding coaches and building resources to reinforce these skills and then putting them to work.”

While anecdotal evidence suggests many of the Orioles young hitters are good at the same things, Blood demurs.

“I think they’re just all good at adjustability,” he said, “and being able to compete against what the game is throwing at them.”

Still, there are some interesting theories around the league as other teams try to figure out what the Orioles do well so they can follow the same roadmap.

“They draft for VBA,” said a rival scout about the Orioles.

That’s a compelling idea, that the Orioles have found some alphabet soup that’s better than the analytics other teams use, and that they’ve used those numbers to find the best hitters in baseball.

So what is VBA?

Vertical Bat Angle is the angle of the bat respective to the ground, judged directly behind or in front of the batter. A “steeper” bat bath is generally associated with the potential to lift the ball better, though it can have some ramifications when it comes to swing-and-miss in parts of the zone. In other words, it’s great to be steep low in the zone but it’s hard to maintain that steepness and still hit a ball at the top of the zone.

This visualization of Vertical Bat Angle is from an explainer article by Eric Cressey. (Photo illustration courtesy of Eric Cressey)

So are the Orioles great at this? Do they have good swing paths? Yes and no.

At the major-league level, @SwingGraphs estimates that the Orioles are middle of the pack when it comes to VBA. But the major-league team still has some holdovers from previous regimes, as well as players who fill different roles for their current lineup. In the minor leagues, @SwingGraphs found that Baltimore’s top three prospects — Holliday, Mayo and Heston Kjerstad — were second-best in the league when compared to other top position-player prospects in terms of their “path score,” which incorporates VBA. Another team’s analyst pointed out that the Orioles’ minor leaguers have the second-highest launch angle in the sport, which would be consistent with having good VBA.

Still, it’s probably not a singular approach chasing one number in the scouting and development circles. Some evidence of this is how good the Orioles have been at slugging both pitches in the top and bottom thirds of the strike zone.

The Orioles are the only team in baseball that’s in the top five of slugging in both the top and bottom thirds of the zone, though the Minnesota Twins’ offense is close. You can also see that the Orioles don’t whiff all that much at the top of the zone — the Red Sox have a good slugging percentage at the top but whiff a lot more there. The Orioles also have the third-smallest difference between slugging at the top and slugging at the bottom. They’re good all over!

So they don’t necessarily draft for VBA or value it specifically, as multiple sources confirmed. Adjustability? That’s a different story. We just saw that their offense is multi-dimensional. Executives from other teams had more theories on how the Orioles have developed bats that can slug all over the zone.

“They draft guys with present power and improve their launch angle and swing decisions,” said a rival assistant general manager with player development responsibilities. “That present power is there in the form of top-end exit velocities, not necessarily slugging percentage. They teach better Vertical Bat Angle to reduce ground-ball rates. Swing decisions plus better VBA equals power production when those top-end exit velocities exist.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Take raw power, add swing decisions and improve their bat paths, and you start pumping out some really good hitters? And how do they add all that? How do they improve their raw, young hitters?

“They have a lot of young coaches and throw short box with them — so those are relatively live arms, from up close, forcing the hitters to adapt and see the ball out of a release point,” said a rival director of player development. “They use weighted bats at most levels as part of the regular process to keep bat speed up. They focus on making good swing decisions and help hitters internalize that as they come up through the minors.”

This starts to line up with things that even the Orioles will admit they value.

“Our training environments are very competitive, very difficult,” said Blood. “That leads to more efficiency, in terms of learning skills.”

They want to make drill work difficult and game-like for their hitters, so the short box fits that bill. In fact, those young coaches challenged each other to develop the best stuff for their short box sessions, turning their knowledge of pitch shapes into nastiness on the mound. They want their hitters to only swing at pitches they can drive, so the nightly swing decision text messages help drive that point home. They believe in data-driven techniques that have been shown to produce on-field results, so the weighted bat training makes sense. They also use force plates — devices that measure how much force a player puts into the ground, which Driveline Baseball confirmed has a lot to do with bat speed — to check on their hitters and guide workouts throughout the season.

These examples alone give us a window into the data- and tech-driven process of developing today’s Oriole slugger. But these aren’t concepts that are foreign to other organizations. So why is it working so particularly well for the Orioles right now? The talk often comes back to the players themselves.

“I think the Orioles have done a phenomenal job of getting guys with really good makeup,” Adley Rutschman told Travis Sawchick at The Score. “And once you get enough guys who are of that same mindset, because everyone is pushing each other and everyone is on the same page, it would be really difficult if guys were not bought in. When guys are bought in, it’s a lot of fun.”

“Every single one of their All-Stars has a high baseball IQ,” agreed a rival hitting coach. “Every one has a specific way they are going to have success that night. The high IQ allows them to know what the pitcher is trying to do to them that day and adjust their swing path and approach on a pitcher-to-pitcher level. He’s throwing sinkers, I’m going to be more scoopy with my swing today! He’s got a lot of ride, I’m going to be flatter today.

“Never has it been more important to have high IQ players like that.”

(Top photo of Jackson Holliday: Cole Burston / Getty Images)

The U.S. men’s national soccer team received a huge boost on Thursday morning when Mauricio Pochettino agreed to become their next head coach.

The Athletic revealed that Pochettino, who had been a top target for the opening, had come to a deal with U.S. Soccer, the sport’s governing body. Pochettino has never managed at international level, but he is a very well-respected name in the club game.

This is a big-name arrival ahead of a men’s World Cup that the U.S. will co-host with neighbours Canada and Mexico in 2026, staging the bulk of the games including all matches from the quarter-finals onwards. But just who is Pochettino? How much of a coup is this? What is his style of play?

Here, The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke answers everything you need to know about the 52-year-old Argentinian.

So, who exactly is Mauricio Pochettino?

Mauricio Pochettino is considered one of the best managers in European football.

As a player, he was a very competitive centre-back, leaving his native Argentina at age 22 to play for Barcelona-based Espanyol in Spain, before brief spells in France with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Bordeaux, then returning to Espanyol to finish his playing career. He played for Argentina at the 2002 World Cup, and won 20 caps overall.

Pochettino also started his coaching career at Espanyol, in 2009, earning a reputation for playing brave high-pressing football with young players, turning the fortunes of the team around and saving them from relegation to Spain’s second division. His next job was at Southampton in England’s Premier League in 2013, where he took the team to new heights with his energetic style of play. Then he stepped up to Tottenham Hotspur the following year, where he oversaw their greatest sustained run of the modern era, finishing third, second and third in the Premier League in successive seasons, as well as getting to the final of the 2018-19 Champions League.

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Since then, Pochettino has managed PSG, winning a French Cup and a Ligue 1 title, and then spent last season as Chelsea head coach, where he guided them to sixth place in the Premier League, enough to qualify for European football in the coming campaign, and into the Carabao Cup final.

How much of a coup is this for the USMNT?

It is huge to land one of the best coaches from the club game to manage the men’s national team.

The closest comparison might be Jurgen Klinsmann, the former Germany striker who coached the USMNT from 2011 to 2016, but Pochettino comes to the job with far more of a track record in European club football management than he did. Klinsmann had only had one disappointing season at Bayern Munich (2008-09) before he got the United States job, as well as taking hosts Germany to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup.

Pochettino, by contrast, has been one of the most impressive coaches in the European club game for the past 15 years.

What he did at Tottenham remains one of the best-sustained spells of management in recent years, even if it did not end up with them winning any trophies.

Why would Pochettino take an international job?

Pochettino has always been a romantic with a love for the game’s history.

He knows the World Cup is the pinnacle of the game. He remembers as a boy watching Argentina win the 1978 (as hosts) and 1986 World Cups, the latter of which made Diego Maradona his hero for life. He is hugely proud of playing in the 2002 World Cup, even if he is remembered by some for giving away the deciding penalty in a 1-0 group-stage loss against England — he still has a photo of that dubious ‘foul’ he committed on Michael Owen, signed by the England striker, up on a wall at home.

Pochettino ‘fouling’ Owen at the 2002 World Cup (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

He told me in an interview in 2022 how much the World Cup means to him. “You don’t think about anything, you don’t think about money, you think only to deliver your best, and to make the people happy,” Pochettino said. “Because you know very well your country is behind you. The feeling is completely different from other competitions. That is why the players feel so different.”

Pochettino told me he would “of course” want to manage in a World Cup one day, and not necessarily with Argentina, saying: “You never know what happens. I am open to everything.”

What about club football?

Since being sacked by Tottenham in November 2019 after they began that season poorly, Pochettino has worked for two of the highest profile and wealthiest clubs in Europe, PSG and Chelsea.

In Paris, he got to manage Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, one of the highest-quality front lines ever assembled at club level. Ultimately, he performed in line with most PSG coaches, both before and after him, and was released at the end of the 2021-22 season.

He was brought in at Chelsea last summer to impose a new style of football onto their oversized squad and after a tough start, he got there in the end, setting them up for a great finish to the season (they won their final five matches, scoring 14 goals) and winning over fans who had doubted him at the beginning because of his connections to London rivals Tottenham. In the end, he left Chelsea in June with his reputation improved.

But both of these were difficult experiences at points, with plenty of internal politics to manage. European club football is in a strange place right now, with not many clubs offering their managers/head coaches the chance to build something.

That would be part of the attraction of taking a very different challenge with the USMNT.

What kind of football does he play?

Throughout his managerial career, Pochettino has tried to get his teams playing a brave, aggressive, high-pressing style.

It is a positional game, focused on maintaining a good structure in and out of possession, so the players are in the right places to win the ball back quickly — ideally within three seconds — whenever his team lose it. He wants his sides to dominate the ball and defend high up the pitch.

Pochettino’s Tottenham mastered this style of football, taking the north London club to new heights.

At their best, a Pochettino team are physically relentless, powerful and dominant, not giving the opposition any room to breathe. With PSG, it was not always possible to play exactly like this because of the big-name personnel up front who did not always want to press from the front. But in the second half of last season, Chelsea started to look like a Pochettino team, and the wins followed.

Are those methods suited to international football?

Fitness work is hugely important to Pochettino and his coaching staff but the nature of the international game is that coaches do not get to work with their players for that long. It is harder for them to improve their players as individuals, something that Pochettino has always been big on, during those short periods together before they return to their clubs.

Pochettino with his players at PSG (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

One thing that has always been important to him has been bringing through young players, right from the time he was starting at Espanyol and then Southampton.

When he was discussed not so long ago as a potential England manager, the point was made how many of their current squad owe their career to their development under Pochettino: Luke Shaw (Southampton), Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Conor Gallagher and Cole Palmer (Chelsea). He will hope to develop a similar generation of youngsters now he has the USMNT job.

How will he deal with the scrutiny that comes with this role?

Pochettino is used to the media spotlight, especially after those spells at PSG and Chelsea. But international football is different. There will be less day-to-day attention than his days at those clubs, certainly, but there will be times when Pochettino has the eyes of hundreds of millions of Americans on him. The U.S. public are unlikely to be forgiving if they feel the team are not heading in the right direction as that 2026 World Cup looms larger.

But that is also part of the attraction, given what a huge event it will be in two years’ time. Coaching that team in their home World Cup, in front of 70,000 people for their opening group-stage match at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on June 12, 2026 will be the equivalent of standing in front of the eyes of the whole world.

Does it matter he’s not an American?

The team had non-American coaches before, and not just Klinsmann. There was Bora Milutinovic, from Serbia, in the early 1990s, the last time the U.S. staged the World Cup. Men from Poland, Greece, the UK and more have also had the job. There is no reason that nationality should be a barrier to Pochettino in the role. He has worked for three different Premier League clubs and while he initially had an interpreter at Southampton, his English is now certainly good enough to work in the States.

The most important thing will be to demonstrate a commitment to U.S. soccer, and a deep knowledge of all the players at his disposal, whether they play in MLS, Europe or elsewhere. This will mean lots of hard work, and air miles, getting to know them all.

How much does this improve USMNT’s chances at the 2026 World Cup?

It is hard to know how proven club managers will fare in the international game. They are effectively two different formats of the same sport.

Antonio Conte, a serial title winner at club level, improved Italy but could only get them to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016. Luis Enrique had a great European Championship with Spain in 2021, reaching the semis, but they were knocked out of the following year’s World Cup in the round of 16 by Morocco. Hansi Flick won the treble with Bayern in 2020 but could not even get Germany out of the group in Qatar.

Making predictions about international tournaments is almost impossible, given how fine the margins are between success and failure at that level. But we can say Pochettino will bring fresh ideas, energy and proven methods to the U.S. job, as well as a sense of confidence and optimism the whole country can feed on.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

If it was up to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Jordan Chiles would keep her bronze medal for her routine in the women’s gymnastics floor exercise at the Paris Olympics, and Romanian gymnasts Ana Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea would each get one, too.

But in a 29-page detailing of its ruling that led Olympic officials to strip Chiles of her first individual medal, CAS said the global governing body for gymnastics botched its officiating of the event and was unwilling to make up for it by awarding all three gymnasts medals, even though each of the athletes had arguments for the bronze.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) also did not keep track of the timing of an inquiry from Chiles’ coach about her score during the Aug. 5 competition, a lapse CAS called a “failure.” Ultimately, the court ruled the inquiry came four seconds after the allowed one-minute window for Chiles’ score to be checked.

The details from CAS on Wednesday squarely blamed FIG for the problems that arose during one of the most dramatic moments of the Paris Games. After the competition, Romanian officials appealed to the court, which had set up a three-person panel at the Olympics specifically to arbitrate disputes.

The panel said it was limited in its review, leading to heartbreak for the athletes.

“If the Panel had been in a position to apply equitable principles, it would surely have attributed a bronze medal to all three gymnasts in view of their performance, good faith and the injustice and pain to which they have been subjected, in circumstances in which the FIG did not provide a mechanism or arrangement to implement the one minute rule,” the court said.

The explanation of the ruling also detailed other serious issues with the administration of the floor exercise, which ended with Rebeca Andrade of Brazil winning gold and Simone Biles of the United States winning silver.

Since then, the scoring for Chiles, Bărbosu and Maneca-Voinea has become one of the most disputed and closely followed sagas of the Paris Games.

“The Panel expresses the hope that the FIG will draw the consequences of this case, in relation to these three extraordinary Athletes and also for other Athletes and their supporting personnel, in the future, so that this never happens again,” CAS wrote in its ruling.

The gymnastics federation did not return requests seeking comment.

USA Gymnastics, which was denied a chance to give new evidence to CAS, promised yet another appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, the body that gives CAS its legitimacy for arbitrations. Successful appeals to the Swiss tribunal are uncommon.

USA Gymnastics said Wednesday the CAS details released earlier in the day showed USA Gymnastics did not have enough time to properly make its case for Chiles, and that it believes Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, submitted her review 47 seconds after the score was published.

“We will pursue these and other matters upon appeal as we continue to seek justice for Jordan Chiles,” USA Gymnastics said.

In her first time speaking directly about the controversy, Chiles posted on X on Thursday saying, “I will approach this challenge as I have others — and will make every effort to ensure that justice is done.”

She is holding out hope that her bronze stays just that. Her bronze.

“I believe that at the end of this journey, the people in control will do the right thing,” Chiles said.

In a separate statement Wednesday, CAS pushed back on a New York Times report that the panel itself had a question of conflict because its head, Hamid G. Gharavi, had represented Romania for nearly 10 years in separate arbitration cases.

Gharavi serves as legal counsel to Romania for disputes handled by the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, The Times reported.

CAS said it “condemns the outrageous statements published in certain US media alleging, without knowledge of the above and before review of the reasoned award, that the Panel, and more particularly its chairman, was biased due to other professional engagements or for reasons of nationality.”

The court said that Gharavi’s participation was not challenged during the gymnastics arbitration, so “it can reasonably be assumed that all parties were satisfied to have their case heard by this Panel.”

USA Gymnastics said it had not seen disclosures about Gharavi or any other panelist, “nor have we seen the disclosures to date.”

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At the heart of the competitive dispute is the inquiry placed by Landi, Chiles’ coach, about how Chiles’ floor routine was scored. Chiles initially scored a 13.666 to place fifth. She was the last of nine gymnasts to compete, which gave her just one minute to place an inquiry under FIG regulations.

The judges allowed the inquiry in the moment, and raised Chiles’ score by 0.1 to 13.766. That moved her ahead of Bărbosu and Maneca-Voinea, who each scored a 13.700. (Bărbosu had an advantage over Maneca-Voinea due to a better execution score, meaning the judges believed she had a cleaner routine.)

In one of the more emotional scenes of the Games, Chiles screamed in celebration, while Bărbosu, who thought she had won bronze, dropped her Romanian flag out of shock and left the floor in tears.

But the appeal to CAS by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation found the timing of the inquiry was late.
After CAS released its initial ruling Saturday, FIG changed the final standings and the International Olympic Committee said it would reallocate Chiles’ medal to Bărbosu.

Bărbosu is set to receive her medal in a ceremony Friday, according to the Romanian federation.

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In the ruling shared Wednesday, CAS said FIG did not have a mechanism for figuring out immediately whether an inquiry was late, even though the inquiry was submitted electronically.

Donatella Sacchi, president of FIG’s Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee, said when the inquiry arrived, “the information offered no indication that it had been received late.”

CAS said it made sense for Sacchi to proceed under the assumption that the inquiry was on time, because there was no setup to immediately show it was late.

“If the FIG had put such a mechanism or arrangement in place, a great deal of heartache would have been avoided,” CAS said.

FIG could also not identify the name of the person who took the inquiry, because the person was appointed by local organizers, Sacchi said.

Landi appeared as a witness at the hearing and said she knew the one-minute rule and “believed she had made the inquiry as fast as she could.”

CAS continued: “She was not able to state with certainty whether she made the inquiry within or beyond the one-minute time limit, as everything had happened in a great rush.”

(Photo: Naomi Baker / Getty Images)