The first big decisions of the Orioles’ offseason are approaching.

Baltimore had no contract options to sort out. None of its five free agents were going to receive the $20.325 million qualifying offer. The club has hardly any top prospects who need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft. So, the arbitration tender deadline Friday marks the first significant offseason benchmark for the Orioles’ roster.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is arbitration?

Arbitration is a system that provides pay raises to players who have established themselves as big leaguers but haven’t yet spent enough time in the majors to become free agents.

Players who have at least three years of MLB service time but fewer than the six necessary to become a free agent are eligible, as long as they don’t already have a set salary through a guaranteed contract. A year of service time is equivalent to 172 regular-season days spent on the major league roster or injured list. A player can earn no more than one year of service time in a given season, even if they are active for more than 172 days.

A portion of players with between two and three years are also eligible, with the top 22% of that group by service time receiving “Super Two” status. These players don’t become free agents any sooner, but they receive four years of arbitration eligibility instead of the typical three, which results in higher career earnings before they reach free agency. This year’s Super Two cutoff is two years and 118 days of service time, according to the Associated Press.

How does the process work?

Before Friday’s deadline, teams will decide whether to tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players. Any players who are non-tendered become free agents. Players are typically non-tendered because the salary they would likely receive through arbitration exceeds the salary the club is willing to pay them, and the sides weren’t able to agree on a lower figure ahead of the deadline.

Teams and tendered players can continue negotiating contract terms after the initial deadline. If they haven’t come to an agreement by Jan. 12, the sides will then each suggest a potential 2024 salary for that player.

If the team and the player remain unable to agree to terms, a panel of arbitrators will pick either the team’s or the player’s suggested salary — and no other possible value — after a hearing, which will take place in late January or early February.

Which Orioles are arbitration-eligible?

The Orioles will have 16 players who are eligible for arbitration, which MLB Trade Rumors estimates as tied for the second-largest group of any team. It’s a tally executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias called “an earmark of having a good roster these days” at the end of the season.

Outfielder Anthony Santander and left-handers John Means and Danny Coulombe are in their final year of eligibility before becoming free agents; Santander is 10 days shy of already having six years of service time. Outfielders Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays, first baseman Ryan O’Hearn, shortstop Jorge Mateo and reliever Dillon Tate have between four and five years of service time.

First baseman Ryan Mountcastle, infielder Ramón Urías, right-hander Jacob Webb, and left-handers Cionel Pérez, Cole Irvin and Keegan Akin all reached three years of service time in 2023 and are arbitration-eligible for the first time. Joining them are outfielder Ryan McKenna and right-handers Tyler Wells, who are eligible as Super Twos. Right-hander Dean Kremer came six days of service short of Super Two eligibility.

How much will they earn?

If the 16 eligible Orioles are all tendered contracts, they would receive more than $50 million collectively, based on projections from MLB Trade Rumors, Cot’s Baseball Contracts and Spotrac. That total represents almost double what that group earned in 2023.

About a quarter of that $50 million is expected to go to Santander, a switch-hitter who led Baltimore in home runs each of the past two seasons. The three forecasts’ average projection for Santander’s 2024 salary is $12.8 million; he earned $7.4 million in 2023.

Mullins ($6.2 million), Hays ($5.8 million) and Means ($5.6 million) have the next highest average projections. Mountcastle is projected for the largest salary of Baltimore’s first-time recipients at $3.9 million, a significant raise after he made about $740,000 in 2023.

The remaining members of what would currently be the Orioles’ season-opening roster are projected to make about $10 million combined in 2024, according to Spotrac. That total will likely increase should Baltimore make trades and free-agent signings.

Who could get non-tendered?

Some of these decisions could come down to next week’s deadline, with the possibility some players agree to lesser deals beforehand to avoid being non-tendered. The majority of the Orioles’ eligible players will be tendered contracts, though there are a handful of decisions to be made.

It’s difficult to imagine Baltimore parting with Santander in this fashion, though it’s worth noting his projected salary would be the largest Elias has given out in his five years running the club.

Mateo and Urías are both projected to make between $2 million and $3 million in 2024. Both are right-handed-hitting infielders who ended this season in part-time roles, with the pair effectively splitting a platoon. Each excelled defensively in 2022 but took a step back in 2023, while their offensive contributions were below average. With top overall prospect Jackson Holliday set to join Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg in the majors — and prospects Joey Ortiz, Coby Mayo and Connor Norby also in the mix for big league time at some point next season — it’s possible there isn’t room for Mateo, Urías or both.

Tate and Akin each ended the season on the 60-day injured list but have played key roles in Baltimore’s bullpen in recent years. Tate, who missed all of 2023 with an elbow injury, led the Orioles in games pitched in both 2021 and 2022. He made $1.5 million in 2023 and likely would receive a similar figure for next season. Akin had a 3.20 ERA in 2022 and a 3.66 mark through his first 20 appearances of 2023, then gave up 13 runs while recording 12 outs in his final four outings before going on the IL with a lower back injury. At $850,000, Akin has the lowest average projected salary of Baltimore’s arbitration-eligible players.

McKenna’s eligibility could put him at risk, though he’s not projected to make much above the league minimum. With Aaron Hicks entering free agency, the Orioles have a need for a right-handed hitter who can play all three outfield spots, a mold McKenna fits. But he’s mainly been an up-and-down defensive replacement in his career, and he’s out of minor league options, meaning the team would have to expose him to waivers to send him to Triple-A. If the Orioles don’t think they’ll have space for him come opening day, this would be a prudent move to make now.

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There are a lot of ways to screw up a Thanksgiving turkey. One of the more original ones is having your dearly beloved almost choke on an engagement ring.

“One of our turkey experts received a call from someone who had hidden an engagement ring in the stuffing, and then he couldn’t find it,” says Barbara Robinson. “He called us in a panic. Of course, we came to find out, it had slipped into another cavity.”

Crisis averted. And as a supervisor at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line (1-800-BUTTERBALL), that’s what Robinson does every holiday season – prevent crises, provide advice and lend much-needed emotional support. From Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, she and roughly 50 other culinary experts with headsets and computers operate the company’s call center in Chicagoland. (For non-Midwesterners, that’s Chicago and its suburbs.) They handle more than 100,000 requests for assistance each season, covering everything from properly thawing a turkey (never in the Jacuzzi!) to what to do when your power goes out (head to the grill).

Originally conceived as a PR stunt, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line has now been around for more than four decades. It’s become famous enough it warranted a long scene on “The West Wing,” with President Bartlet asking, “Stuffing should be stuffed inside the turkey, am I correct?” (Butterball expert: “It can also be baked in a casserole dish.”) Robinson herself has been at the job for 16 years, and says it takes a special kind of person to guide addled consumers through these often-stressful holiday celebrations. When you’re roasting a holiday turkey with giblet gravy for the first time, nerves can run high.

“You need to like people to work for the talk line,” Robinson explains. “All of our turkey experts are very personable and compassionate and caring…. I’ve heard that we’re the Cooking 911, because we frequently find that when the consumer calls us, they could actually be at the end of their rope.”

How so? Well, Robinson recently took the time to go over some of her more memorable calls, as well as provide advice for successful holiday meals:

Q: You ever deal with fires?

A: Just a couple of years ago, we received a call from a young man. He was meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time, and he was making a turkey for Thanksgiving. And instead of pressing the oven Bake button, he pressed the oven Clean button. So his oven locked shut. He could not get it open, and that is like 500 degrees. His turkey was burning, and there was smoke coming out. He called the Butterball Turkey Talk line. We, of course, told him to hang up and call 911.

But the real answer is, if he unplugged his oven, he could then open his door. We told him that, too.

Q: What are some of the ways not to thaw a turkey?

A: We have a lot of “creative callers,” as I like to call them. They want to put it in the bathtub with the kids. We all want to multitask! But that’s a method we don’t recommend. On the counter is another method we do not recommend. Sitting at room temperature, the outside of the skin can get bacteria on it. We always recommend you leave it in the original wrapper and thaw it in the refrigerator, or we do have our cold-water thaw method.

We do not recommend the clothes dryer or a dishwasher…. I actually received a call like that, where the caller said, “I’m sure that’s one of the methods.” I said, “Oh, no. That is not one of the methods that Butterball recommends.” And at that point she turned her head from the phone and started screaming to someone, “She said take it out!”

Q: What other weird calls do you commonly get?

A: We have people who will place their turkeys in a snowbank, because in the northern states it gets pretty cold and snowy this time of year. And then they can’t find their turkey in the snowbank. We’ll get calls about that, but unfortunately we really can’t help …

Then one year, there was a trend where college students were telling their mothers (as a prank) that they were going to cook their Thanksgiving turkeys in the microwave. We got a lot of frantic calls from the moms, who were very concerned about this. And just as an aside: It certainly is possible as long as your turkey is under 12 pounds … It’s a complex method, because you have to turn it over and use different power levels. But it actually produces a great turkey.

Q: Has anybody ever tried to cook a turkey they’ve had frozen since the Reagan administration?

A: We often have callers who say, “I didn’t know I had a turkey in the bottom in my deep freeze.” And we are able to determine how old that turkey is. We say that with two full years for a frozen turkey, the quality will be fine. If you have a turkey older than that, the turkey will be fine from a food-safety aspect, but in terms of quality – your electricity may have gone out, or you might have tears in outer packaging, and that would be a concern…. You might want to use that turkey to make soup or a casserole versus the center of your show, that Ta-Da! moment.

Q: Say a cook turns their back, and a pet attacks the turkey?

A: I’ve heard that through the years. Certainly, you’d have to cut away the area where your dog had gotten to it. But that would have to be a personal decision about using that turkey. I don’t think your guests would be very pleased, if you were using a turkey that had been nibbled by the family dog.

Q: What if there’s a storm and the power goes out?

A: That happens almost every year, unfortunately. One year, there was a hurricane on the East Coast and the phones went wild with people calling to say, “What do I do to cook my turkey?” You can always cook your turkey on the grill. Sometimes you need to find a family or friend who still has electricity.

Q: You have any advice for stuffing?

A: If you have anything such as eggs or sausage or oyster in your stuffing, you need to cook them before you stuff your bird. You don’t want to put any raw ingredients in your turkey.

Q: Is a turkey ruined if you accidentally cook it with the giblet bag inside?

A: If you followed all the directions and cooked the turkey to proper temperature – 170 degrees in the breast area and 180 degrees in the thigh – you would probably be OK. But we do recommend that you remove them.

Q: Do you ever get calls from people who want to talk about things other than food?

A: Last year, we received a letter from an elderly gentleman’s daughter-in-law that said, “My dad has been calling the Turkey Talk-Line for 25 years. And this year he’s unable to.” I’m going to get choked up telling you this. She said, “Would it be possible for the Talk-Line to call him?” And so I did. Of course, he was not surprised at all. He was so pleased that we called him….

We get a lot of callers who sometimes just need to touch base with another human around the holidays… I think in his later years, this gentleman was just calling to touch base.

It’s probably too early to be overly concerned about the Chicago Bulls’ shaky start.

The season is only 10 games old after Sunday’s 119-108 win over the Detroit Pistons, and we’ve seen this Bulls’ core long enough to know they can go on a roll when it plays up to its talent level.

But with the rest of our professional teams enduring nothing but agony and heartbreak in 2023, and the possibility of a nuclear winter for the Chicago sports scene on everyone’s minds, the onus is on the Bulls to save the city.

The Bears and Blackhawks have no shot. Only the Bulls have a chance to break the mold, and it has to start now.

After a rare three-day break in the schedule, the Bulls entered a nine-day stretch Sunday that could have a significant impact on the rest of the season.

Five of their six games will be played at the United Center, giving the Bulls a chance to revert to the form of the start of the 2021-22 season.

Their only road game is Monday in Milwaukee, where they’ll play an uber-talented Bucks team that’s still trying to figure out how everyone fits defensively, as evidenced by a 5-4 start.

By the end of the Bulls’ stretch Nov. 20, the second of back-to-back games against the Miami Heat, they could find themselves back in the thick of the Eastern Conference, or buried near the bottom of the league standings before Thanksgiving. Either scenario is believable.

Their 3-6 record heading into Sunday included tough, late-game losses to Brooklyn and Phoenix that might have changed the narrative a bit. Zach LaVine said after the overtime loss to the Suns there are no moral victories, but the energy the Bulls displayed after overcoming a 22-4 first-quarter deficit was enough to provide hope that all is not lost.

DeMar DeRozan, who paced the Bulls with 29 points and four blocks and joked that he was “coming” for Dikembe Mutombo’s shot-blocking record, said the win was big heading into the showdown against the Bucks.

“We lost a tough one to a great Phoenix team the other day that would’ve given us great energy going into these games,” DeRozan said. “We passed that one, had to pay Detroit back for getting us at their place. But we’ve got another opportunity to play against an extremely talented Milwaukee Bucks.”

They began Sunday’s game against the Pistons by missing their first eight shots, while the five starters were a combined 9-of-30 from the field more than midway through the second quarter. LaVine, who scored 51 points against the Piston in a loss in Detroit last month, had only one field goal until dunking a lob from Ayo Dosunmu at the 3:38 mark of the second quarter.

The overall numbers the Bulls have put up in those first nine games reflected a team struggling to get its head above water. The Bulls were 25th in points per game and field goal percentage, 28th in rebounds per game and 27th in assists per game. If you’re near the bottom in almost every major category, it’s hard to suggest you’re better than what your record indicates.

And considering this was mostly the same team that underachieved last year, it doesn’t bode well for the future. Health will be a factor, and DeRozan has been able to stay playing despite taking some body blows.

“Resiliency,” DeRozan said. “I’d be lying to you if I told you I wake up every morning feeling like a spring chicken. I’ll figure it out.”

Alex Caruso, coming off a monstrous performance against the Suns, guarding Kevin Durant while adding 19 points, was out with a left toe strain he suffered in practice. Coach Billy Donovan wouldn’t call it day-to-day but didn’t think it would be a long-term injury.

Durant afterward called Caruso a “phenomenal player,” which is high praise seldom attached to a sixth man whose game mostly relies on defensive effort.

Replacing Caruso’s defense would be difficult enough, but finding someone to give the Bulls the same kind of energy would be next to impossible. Dosunmu took on Caruso’s minutes Sunday and scored 19 points, hitting his first six shots while making four steals.

“I know we have a pretty deep team, and the better I get, the better (chance) I get in, the more I can push the team,” Dosunmu said. “I think that’s going to make us even a better team down the line.”

The Bulls started out in sleepwalking mode Sunday, going scoreless for 3 1/2 minutes until DeRozan’s reverse layup ended an 0-for-8 start. Fortunately they were playing the Pistons, who were equally inept at the outset. The Bulls fell into another 11-point hole before finally waking up. Nikola Vučević’s 3-pointer with 5:36 left in the first half gave them the lead and they held off several Pistons’ charges until pulling away at the end.

The Bulls obviously missed Caruso’s presence on the court, as well as the typical boost from the crowd mesmerized by his style of play. Despite his relative lack of minutes, Caruso ranked 12th in the NBA in steals (14), and was tied for first with 33 deflections.

It’s no wonder he’s turned from cult figure with the Los Angeles Lakers to one of the league’s more admired players. His popularity in Chicago has soared, even as the Bulls have floundered in the early going.

The poor start by the Bulls has led to media speculation that management eventually might have to shop Caruso, who is in the third year of a four-year, $36.9 million deal that right now looks like a bargain. If they decided to go that route, Caruso certainly would fetch a lot in return. But it also would be short-sighted, the kind of move that might alienate more fans than it’s worth.

Caruso’s value to the Bulls can’t really be seen in his numbers. Like Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier before him, Caruso’s penchant for throwing his body around, taking the hard foul and sticking to opponents like gum on their customized shoes helps make a bad Bulls team semi-watchable.

Just last summer Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf watched his White Sox front office deal popular third baseman Jake Burger, a trade meant to fortify the pitching down the road. Executives Ken Williams and Rick Hahn were later fired, for multiple reasons, so dealing Burger turned out to be one of their final acts.

Bulls vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas doesn’t have to worry about suffering the same fate as his South Side counterparts, at least not yet. But dealing Caruso could be the last straw for some Bulls fans currently on the fence.

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