FanGraphs put out its first projection for the 2025 season, with the Orioles coming in at 83 wins.
Hello, friends.
There are now just six days remaining until pitchers and catchers report and Orioles spring training begins. Opening Day is exactly seven weeks away from today, or if you’d rather count down the days, it’s 49. We’ve got a #49 on the O’s right now: Albert Suárez.
This week has been a week for finding out what different projection systems are viewing for the coming Orioles season. Earlier in the week, we got the PECOTA projected standings from Baseball Prospectus. I wrote about those on Camden Chat on Monday, with thoughts on the Orioles being projected for 89 wins in the average of their simulations.
Another site’s projection came out yesterday. FanGraphs released their 2025 projected standings. They’ve got a different view on the Orioles, putting the O’s amidst a pack of mediocrity with a projected 83 wins for the season. Not unlike BP, there’s not much view of there being elite runaway teams in the American League. Only the Dodgers at 97 wins and Atlanta at 93 are at 90+.
The best AL team projection is 88 wins, which belongs to the Yankees. There are eight AL teams, including the Orioles, in the range of 82-85 wins. If that model’s projection for the season is how things play out, it’s going to be a crowded picture not only for the division but for the whole wild card. Every AL East team gets an above-.500 projection! The O’s are behind the Red Sox (84), tied with the Rays (83), and just ahead of the Blue Jays (82).
The Orioles fare a bit better with regard to FanGraphs projections when looking at the playing time-based projections for individual player performance. Everyone who does projections will be quick to say that one should not just add up the individual WAR numbers and take that sum and view it as a projection about the team’s wins.
With that caveat in mind, take a look at those numbers anyway. The Orioles are tied for the fourth-best projected WAR among all MLB teams, and second in the AL only to the Yankees. They’ve got a solid margin over most of the rest of the AL competition, including much of that mediocre mob that’s in the overall team projections.
One way to look at the difference is that there’s some sense from the projection that the Orioles could end up being less than the sum of their parts. I think even an optimistic O’s fan probably has this concern in the back of their mind.
If the bullpen behind Félix Bautista is not taking care of enough business in the 7th and 8th innings, or if the assumed re-emergence of 2023 Bautista as he comes back from Tommy John surgery does not play out that way, these are things that could easily drag down a team from the high 80s and a playoff spot to the mid-or-low 80s and an early start on golf or hunting season or whatever those guys do after their team is eliminated from October.
Around the blogO’sphere
Five teams that should confound their playoff odds (FanGraphs)
Notwithstanding the above projection from FG, their writer Michael Baumann (not the former Orioles pitcher) is taking the over on what the model said about the Orioles win total and playoff chances.
What are the Orioles trying to do with all of these outfielders? (The Baltimore Banner)
Jon Meoli asks the question that’s been on many people’s minds, including mine, since the signing of Ramón Laureano. (Or even before that for me, to the signing of Dylan Carlson.) While acknowledging possibilities that you’ve probably considered too, he ultimately lands on the idea that it’s building unexciting but necessary depth.
Pitching coach Drew French ready for Year 2 with Orioles (Orioles.com)
If you can believe it, the pitching coach is very high on the Orioles starting rotation.
Orioles knocked from no. 1 spot in Baseball America’s farm system rankings (The Baltimore Sun)
The Orioles have been number one before each of the last two seasons, but they’re down to 17th now. A lot of good prospects have graduated to the majors, so this is not automatically an immediate bad thing.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 2012, the Orioles traded Jeremy Guthrie to the Rockies, a surprise deal that brought Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom to the team. Pretty much no one understood the rationale at the time.
Now-Athletic writer Keith Law made some withering comment that aged poorly, and here on Camden Chat, Stacey wrote the headline, “Jeremy Guthrie traded for two guys not likely to be better than Jeremy Guthrie.” No slight intended to Stacey! I mocked the deal in less-documented ways. Hammel proved the haters wrong, for one year at least. And fortunately it was an important year to prove the haters wrong.
There is one current Oriole who has a birthday today. Happy 27th to Adley Rutschman, whose arrival to the big league team turned out to be the thing that changed the franchise’s fortunes, just like we all hoped. He shares a birthday with one former Oriole: 2016-18 hitter Pedro Álvarez.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: Maryland county namesake Queen Anne (1665), infamous duel winner Aaron Burr (1756), Baltimore-born baseball legend Babe Ruth (1895), actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917), and musician Bob Marley (1945).
On this day in history…
In 1778, France officially recognized the independence of the United States of America with the signing of a pair of treaties that also included a defensive alliance.
In 1952, England’s King George VI died, leading to his daughter, Elizabeth II, inheriting the ceremonial throne of the country. She reigned for 70 years until her own death in 2022.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on February 6. Have a safe Thursday.