O’Hearn capably crushed right-handed pitchers until enduring another late-season slump.
Ryan O’Hearn is here to do two things: crush right-handed pitchers and chew bubble gum. And he’s all out of bubble gum.
If there were any questions about O’Hearn’s staying power after his out-of-the-blue, breakout 2023 season, he silenced the skeptics by putting up a nearly identical 2024 campaign. And I do mean identical — his OPS+ of 122 this season was exactly the same as the year before. O’Hearn, unfortunately, also replicated the second-half swoon that characterized his 2023 season, tempering his overall performance. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
O’Hearn has already turned out to be so much more valuable than anyone could have anticipated when the O’s acquired him from the Royals for cash considerations in January 2023. Coming off four straight terrible seasons, and considered by most fans at the time to be little more than minor league depth, O’Hearn made his way to the majors and just kept on hitting, cementing himself as a lineup mainstay against right-handers.
After O’Hearn’s successful first season in Baltimore, he and the Orioles agreed to a $3.5 million deal to avoid arbitration. It included a $7.5 million team option for 2025, which would escalate by $500,000 each if he played 120 games this year (he did) and 150 (he didn’t). Picking up the now $8 million option for next year seems like it should be an easy decision for the O’s, whose reliance on O’Hearn as a middle-of-the-order bat has helped fuel their 101- and 91-win seasons the past two years.
There’s an awful lot to like about O’Hearn’s offensive approach. His Baseball Savant page is filled with red — red means good! — and he’s in the 80th percentile or better in expected batting average and expected slugging, among others. He also made huge improvements this year in his plate discipline, slashing his strikeout percentage — which had been 22% or higher in each of his six previous seasons — to just 14%, while more than doubling his walk percentage from 2023 to 9.3%.
As O’Hearn’s patience increased this season, his power dipped. His 15 homers were just one more than his 2023 output despite 126 more plate appearances. At one point in the second half, O’Hearn went 33 consecutive games without homering. Still, amidst an O’s lineup filled with power hitters, O’Hearn’s ability to get on base was a valuable skill. His .334 OBP was the second-best among qualified Orioles hitters behind only Gunnar Henderson. Even if O’Hearn isn’t the best hitter in the O’s lineup, you can pretty much count on him to always give you a professional at-bat.
That said, O’Hearn does have some well-known limitations. He’s strictly a platoon player through and through, owning a career .555 OPS versus left-handed pitchers, nearly 200 points lower than against righties. The Orioles have wisely limited his exposure to southpaws, with just 8.5% of his plate appearances the past two seasons coming against lefties.
O’Hearn also won’t give you much on the defensive side, which is why his most common position is designated hitter, but it became a problem this year after usual first baseman Ryan Mountcastle landed on the IL for nearly a month with a wrist sprain. O’Hearn became the regular first baseman during that span and failed to impress, posting -4 Defensive Runs Saved by FanGraphs’ reckoning. His occasional starts in the outfield are always an adventure as well.
O’Hearn, who hadn’t played more than 84 games in a season for four straight years before joining the Orioles, has shown signs of second-half fatigue in his two years with the Birds. He finished the 2023 season in an 0-for-23 tailspin that dropped his OPS by 54 points in less than two weeks. This year the late-season struggles extended to much of the final two months. O’Hearn posted a sub-.700 OPS in both August and September, along with the aforementioned home run drought.
By now, the Orioles are well aware of what O’Hearn can do and what he can’t. He’s an imperfect but valuable player, one who will likely return to the same role next year as the primary DH against righties. There is of course the risk that O’Hearn, now on the wrong side of 30, could see his deficiencies catch up to him; that his power could continue to slide while his OBP regresses to his career level (.309). Or the Orioles could have eyes on someone like Heston Kjerstad, another productive lefty hitter with a questionable glove, taking over a bulk of the DH at-bats, forcing O’Hearn out. Such is the plight of a late-developing veteran.
Still, O’Hearn’s performance in an O’s uniform has earned him everyday at-bats against right-handers until there’s reason to believe he can’t do it anymore. He’s not a star you build a team around, but he’s a glue guy who makes the lineup deeper. Every team needs those.
Not bad for a guy acquired for cash considerations, no?
Previous 2024 player reviews: Keegan Akin, Cionel Pérez, Cole Irvin
Tomorrow: Craig Kimbrel