Since the start of spring training, the new Orioles management was clear that a main priority of this team was going to be the defense. Speaking to reporters back on April 20th, Brandon Hyde explained:
This isn’t a team that’s going to break any home run records, this isn’t a team that’s going to break any strikeout records. We’re going to have to catch the ball. I look at last year’s stuff this offseason, it was obvious to me that we had to make defense a priority to compete, so that was something we said early in spring training, and we’ve worked hard at it and I think our guys have done a great job so far and we’re going to continue making it important.