By the time a fifth free-agent signing of a certain flavor is executed, it’s hard to suggest there’s more than meets the eye.

Andrew Kittredge — signed to bolster the back end of the Orioles’ bullpen on a deal that will pay him $9 million, with a $1 million buyout or a $9 million club option for 2026 — is the latest example of the Orioles’ preference for shorter-term additions to help this year’s club without adding much risk should the players not meet expectations.

It feels like a dangerous and ultimately fruitless game to expect a pivot at this point. But as these signings keep piling up, for the very obvious reason of giving the Orioles as many competent (or better) major league-caliber players as possible, I can’t help but wonder if they fit into a larger picture.

And, if so, what could that be?

We know the value to the Orioles of these deals. They allow them to use their newfound financial strength to improve the 2025 team, and in doing so they let them pay players for what they can reasonably project them to contribute as opposed to locking in for riskier long-term deals beyond that.

We also know that approach limits the potential pool of players available, given the best free agents sign longer-term, higher-value contracts. But operating under the broad framework that one win above replacement level is worth around $8 million on the free agent market, nothing the Orioles have done feels egregious given 2025 projections.

There will be no parades planned on a sensible, floor-raising offseason, even if it may allow a team to get to October, when said parades are earned. The sheer volume of these deals, however, makes me think the abundant space the Orioles are leaving in their roster-building plans increases the likelihood that, at some point, there’s a significant move left to be made.

Even allowing that their payroll will naturally increase over the next few years in large chunks simply by giving their younger players the arbitration raises they deserve, there will also be plenty of pending free agents falling off their books, so there are pluses and minuses on future payroll to consider.

I’m going to take this offseason as a sign they can always supplement their roster with these fair-value one-year deals, but the whole point of building a scouting and player development machine is to fill those roles from within, particularly on the mound.

There’s just such an obvious space for something bigger than they currently have on their payroll that adding a front-line starting pitcher — the only thing worth a lot of money that they need at this point — feels like it’s bound to happen before long.

That’s not to discount the idea that they can go on operating as they have forever. They absolutely can. But, even allowing for the year-over-year payroll increase the Orioles are expected to make from 2024 to 2025, the way the team is going about its business has an air of keeping one’s powder dry for something else. Maybe it’s a trade for a pending free agent, à la Corbin Burnes last year, to raise the rotation’s ceiling.

Dylan Cease obviously fits that mold. There’s also the potential for their major league depth to benefit them in a trade for Luis Castillo or Pablo Lopez, who are signed for a few years more at salaries that would more than fit inside this large long-term payroll gap that exists.

If increasing payroll from last year’s $103 million to a projected $156 million this year feels like a sufficient jump for the team, this move can come next offseason, or perhaps take the form of a contract extension that doesn’t give a player a large raise for 2025 but creates a longer-term commitment for higher salaries that keeps them in Baltimore beyond when free agency would hit.

Whatever it is, it just feels like, even outside the real merits of the Orioles’ moves this winter, they’re doing so with something else in mind. There’s a prudent big-picture nature to the prudent individual moves they’re making, if that makes sense.

Kittredge is perhaps the most attractive and exciting move of the Orioles’ offseason — a real bat-missing reliever to add to Félix Bautista, Yennier Cano and Seranthony Domínguez in the late innings. I understand the disconnect of taking this signing and using it to project more.

It’s just that the Orioles, who again are demonstrating they’re willing to pay what a player is worth to help this year, know what a top starter is worth — and are leaving space to add one if the opportunity arises.