Westburg’s absence last year was connected to the team’s decline.
In some ways, Jordan Westburg is both too young and too old. On the one hand, he’s often getting overshadowed by the top prospects around him—Gunnar, Adley, Jackson. On the other, so far in his career, he’s been too quiet and retiring to be a “clubhouse leader” like last season veterans Anthony Santander and Corbin Burnes.
Maybe this is the year that’ll change. I mean, we want great things this season from the hot-shot youngsters too, but 2025 could be the year Jordan Westburg emerges into that quiet clubhouse leader type, the J.J. Hardy or Nick Markakis roster dependable who plays every day and contributes value to the club in countless unmeasurable ways.
Last season Westburg put up good numbers—a .264/.312/.793 with 18 home runs and 63 RBI in 107 games—but he’d have put up better ones if he hadn’t missed a month and a half in August/September with a fractured right hand. It was a bummer, as the whole offense slid off the table in the second half, and when Westburg did return in mid-September, he wasn’t fully himself, hitting .192 with just a single extra-base hit in six games.
That Westy is capable of much more is reflected by the fairly high opinion of him held by the preseason projections, namely ZiPS, which we’re looking at here. After Gunnar and Adley, Westburg is projected to be the team’s No. 3 most valuable position player, worth a predicted 3.6 WAR in 2025. Here are the rest of his projected numbers:
123 G, 17 HR, 71 RBI, .256 BA, .317 OBP, .437 SLG, .754 OPS, 6.7 BB%, 23 K%, 3.6 WAR
These are not earth-shattering numbers; they are solid ones. It’s possible that this is a fair assessment, that what Westburg becomes is a solid and dependable everyday player you’re grateful to have around, even if he’s not racking up All-Star selections. Let’s not discount the value of this, though—it’ll be great news for the Orioles if Westburg plays 123 games and becomes, truly, an everyday third baseman.
The case for the over
Despite his overall solid predicted value as a position player, these offensive numbers are not particularly high in light of past accomplishments. Power, in particular. Last season, Westburg hit 18 home runs in 107 games. ZiPS expects him to hit one fewer in sixteen more games. Yet there’s reason to think a healthy Westy can crack the 20-homer mark, especially with the left-field wall having been pushed in in the offseason, which will benefit right-handed hitters primarily.
Then there’s the OPS prediction in general. Last season, Westburg OPS’d .793, forty points greater than his predicted .754 mark here. That included an unusually hot April (.311 batting average, .917 OPS) but no crazy BABip luck or anything else like that for the rest of the year. It also included a poor July and barely a September. Westburg might be able to beat his projected .754 mark and not even have to get particularly lucky.
The case for the under
One of the lowest predicted stats for him here, interestingly, is walk rate (6.7%). What to make of this? It’s inconsistent with Westburg’s college and MiLB days. In three seasons at Mississippi State he walked at a 10.3% rate, and in 2021, across three MiLB levels, it was a healthy 12.1%, while in 2022, across two levels, he walked at an 11.3% clip.
Despite his steady demeanor, Westburg doesn’t actually have that long of a big-league track record, but in 175 games his MLB walk rate, interestingly, is much lower than it was at the lower levels: 5.6%, including a 4.9%-mark last season. I’m used to thinking of Westburg as a high-contact, solid-approach, patient hitter, so I was somewhat surprised to see this. Even going from 4.9% to 6.7% (his 2024 and projected 2025 walk rates) would be a significant jump, so perhaps Westy will not defy predictions.
Whatever Westburg’s luck at prediction-busting, his steadying presence in the lineup and on the diamond are critical to stabilizing the Orioles lineup from the ups and downs they endured last year. This spring, he missed the better part of two weeks with back spasms, but it turned out to be the fault of a saggy mattress at his Airbnb. Time to invest in a Tempur-Pedic and rack up some consecutive games.