SARASOTA, Fla. — For even the most ardent believers of social media avoidance, the persistent nature of trade speculation can seep into the conscious, consume the mind.

Yes, Coby Mayo saw it. How could he not?

After the Orioles signed Pete Alonso to play first base on a five-year deal, it did not come as a surprise to anyone, even Mayo himself, that he and fellow first baseman Ryan Mountcastle would see their names floated in hypothetical deals. It could have sent Mayo on a spiral of uncertainty as to where he might land — if he was traded at all.

“You kind of know the situation you’re in,” Mayo said. “You have to not worry about the future, kind of live in the moment, and that’s what I did all offseason.”

Well, Mayo stood in the clubhouse at the Ed Smith Stadium complex on Wednesday morning with an Orioles cap on his head. He and Mountcastle remain, and while the path toward playing time isn’t exactly the yellow brick road, it isn’t nearly as shrouded as it may have seemed from an external perspective even a few weeks ago.

That development arrived Wednesday morning, when president of baseball operations Mike Elias announced that second baseman Jackson Holliday would undergo surgery to remove a broken hamate bone in his hand and that infielder Jordan Westburg was behind schedule due to an oblique injury.

The setbacks for two starting infielders might reshuffle the equation in Baltimore, and rather than taking grounders at first base on Wednesday, Mayo was on a backfield working out at third base. As the Orioles create contingency plans to deal with the absence of Holliday (Westburg is expected to be ready by opening day) for at least a few weeks of the regular season, Mayo is a distinct possibility.

There are others, of course, such as Jeremiah Jackson, Luis Vázquez and Blaze Alexander. All of them could play second base as well as third. But Mayo’s openness to return to third base even as he maintains his feel at first could allow Westburg to fill in at second and help to provide pop to the lineup.

“Right now, it’s spring training. Everyone is coming in, and they’re going to get playing time,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “As they go, it depends on how the roster fills out and where everyone stacks up.”

Mayo’s prospect pedigree is strong. The 24-year-old torched the minors (he holds an .885 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 196 Triple-A games), and he was long ranked highly on prospect boards.

But Mayo struggled to piece that together into major league success immediately upon arriving. In 102 games over two seasons, Mayo is hitting .201 with a .634 OPS. A conversation in early September last year, though, helped unlock a level that had long been projected as possible.

“We were going into Toronto in early September, and I think I was hitting .180, .185 with a sub-.600 OPS,” Mayo said. “I was thinking to myself, ‘Man, I don’t want to finish the year like this. I’ve got to get out of this somehow.’”

Then he sat with John Mabry, a former member of the coaching staff, to talk about hitting for almost two hours.

“I don’t know what clicked, but something must’ve clicked, and I finished that month really, really well,” Mayo said. “I was proud to look up at the numbers at the end of the year and see where I finished at. I didn’t think that was going to be in the cards at all, especially how I played in August. But I was really proud of that.”

In September Mayo recorded a .301 average and .941 OPS in 24 games, and eight of his 22 hits went for extra bases. Plus, he improved at first as the season went on to become a league-average defender.

For as suspect as Mayo’s defense can be (he combined for minus 4 outs above average in 2024 and 2025, per Statcast), if the bat plays, Mayo plays, even with Alonso on the roster.

“Pete Alonso is one of the best first basemen in the league, and as a player on this team, you’ve got to be super happy for this organization, for the fans, that they went after a big fish and got him,” Mayo said. “So it’s great for the team. As far as myself, I’ve just got to play well. I think, if I play well, good things happen. When you hit, there are going to be opportunities there, no matter what.”

There may be an opportunity due to early injuries, but Mayo knows the spot won’t go to him by default. In that sense, it is an important spring training for Mayo after an offseason full of uncertainty. And, once again, it underscores the necessity for depth at every position.