We always had the thought that we’d been in it for the long run,” Mullins said in March as he looked around an Orioles’ spring training clubhouse filled with unfamiliar faces.

Eight years ago, Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays and Anthony Santander shared an outfield together in Double-A. “We are the future of this team,” Santander prophesied to Hays and Mullins. Santander was ...