One of the common trends of spring training from year to year is the list of non-roster invites who are players probably no Orioles fan has ever thought of before and most likely will never think of again once the season begins. The 2024 spring training roster had fewer invited players than usual but still slipped in a fair number of the anonymous: Daniel Bañuelos, Daniel Johnson, Ronald Guzmán, Albert Suárez, Andrew Suárez, Nathan Webb.
As is typical, I had no expectation that any of these players would matter to the 2024 team. Albert Suárez, a 34-year-old with previous major league experience who had just spent the last several years pitching in Japan and South Korea, became the latest non-roster invite to prove me wrong by going on to be a significant contributor to the team.