Even with some struggle over the last month, the team is on a 98-win pace at the break.
After they rattled off 101 wins in the regular season last year, the Orioles aren’t exactly surprising anybody with their first place standing here at the break in 2024. Except, actually, they are. A repeat of anything close to last year’s dominance was not universally expected from the club. This is a great team with a number of great players who are playing as good as or even better than they were expected to do and that’s helped them get where they are now.
It’s not like everything has even gone right for the Orioles. If you were worried about how the rotation would get by without John Means and Kyle Bradish, you weren’t wrong to worry. If you were concerned that the O’s might have hung on to some of their veterans for too long – Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins, or Ramón Urías in particular – you weren’t wrong about that either. Or maybe you thought that the bullpen would have problems without Félix Bautista? You were right!
Some things you might not have been worried about have gone wrong too. I was among those who were excited at the prospect of an early-season debut for Jackson Holliday, hoping he’d supplant someone without as much upside in the regular lineup. It didn’t work out that way. If you thought Bradish and Means would come back and they’d be fine: Nope.
Plenty of things have gone right, too. Gunnar Henderson is on another level. Jordan Westburg is having an excellent season. The acquisition of Corbin Burnes has stabilized the top of the Orioles rotation exactly how you might have hoped. Outside of two bad weeks (and his last game,) Craig Kimbrel has worked out OK.
The best Orioles so far
- Gunnar Henderson – 6.3 bWAR
- Adley Rutschman – 3.2
- Corbin Burnes – 2.9
- Jordan Westburg – 2.4
- Ryan Mountcastle – 1.9
This is such a huge difference from the All-Star break a year ago, when the Orioles had six players with at least 2 bWAR but no one with more than 2.3. That was after 89 games, whereas this year’s break is after 96 games, but still. Henderson’s superstar performance, and Rutschman’s and Burnes’s All-Star turns, have given the Orioles the kind of top-end performers that it seemed like they lacked a year ago.
WAR is not guaranteed to continue at the same pace, or even keep going up at all. Of the three players who were tied at 2.3 WAR at the break last year, Austin Hays only gained 0.2 WAR in the second half, while Tyler Wells slipped by 0.5 WAR. Orioles fans can all hope that the good players will continue on their current place and the struggling ones will improve, but maybe they won’t.
The worst Orioles so far
There are a total of 12 Orioles players who are in the negatives for bWAR up to this point in the season. These are the five lowest:
- Jonathan Heasley – -0.7 bWAR
- Cole Irvin – -0.6
- Cade Povich – -0.5
- Dean Kremer – -0.5
- Jackson Holliday – -0.4
This is also different from the break last year, when the five players who were at the bottom on the WAR list were all gone from the roster at that time. Here in 2024, Kremer is in the starting rotation, Povich is expected to be back from the minors once a fifth starter is needed again, and Irvin is in the bullpen as the long man.
Holliday’s appearance on this list still makes me sigh a little. Here’s one encouraging thing from last year: Grayson Rodriguez was at -1.0 WAR at the break, the worst Oriole to date at that point. When the season ended, he’d increased by nearly 2, up to 0.9. If Holliday’s return to the minors helps him get into a good form in the same way Rodriguez’s did, that will be nice to see.
How the projections have changed
- FanGraphs: 93-69 (preseason: 85-77)
- PECOTA: 93-69 (preseason: 87-75)
- A random sportsbook that operates in Maryland: Over/under 96.5 wins (preseason: 90.5)
We find, for another year, that the assorted projections are now much more optimistic about these Orioles at the break than they were before the season. It’s not as dramatic as last year, when expected win totals were revised upward by 12-15, but moves of 6-8 are fairly substantial. O’s fans are probably hoping the O’s can handily beat even these 93-win projections. They’ll certainly need to in order to repeat as AL East champions.
With the Orioles on a 98-win pace, that’s exactly on track to hit the guess of Camden Chat writer John Beers. I’ll be happy if he ends up being right. Feeling pessimistic as I often do, I had a preseason guess of 88 wins. I was worried about the non-Burnes/Rodriguez parts of the rotation. I’m still feeling pessimistic, because I wasn’t wrong about the rotation, but I’ll revise my guess upwards to 92-70.
Wild predictions vs. reality
Most of the Camden Chat staff made predictions for the season that haven’t been settled yet, revolving around questions of what the Orioles do or don’t do at the deadline, as well as which players might get consideration for the BBWAA awards after the season is over.
For the time being, Tyler Young’s prediction that Jackson Holliday won’t be the highest Oriole in Rookie of the Year voting looks good – although Colton Cowser’s going to have to step back up to even get some third place votes. Stacey, riding a two-year streak of winning guesses, predicted that Dean Kremer won’t last the season in the rotation. It feels like the O’s need to shuffle him out to achieve maximum success, but that doesn’t mean they’ll make the addition or two that would do this.
Check back on your own wild predictions in the comments and let us know how you’re doing.
The big questions from here
Will there be big trades still to come in 2024 to go along with the preseason acquisition of Burnes? Is Mike Elias really going to go out and get another difference-maker in the rotation, or a difference-maker in the bullpen? His in-season trades a year ago were not successful, which did not stop the Orioles from winning the AL East but did not help them one bit when the postseason rolled along.
Can the Orioles repeat as AL East champions when the Yankees have returned to a position of strength? ARE the Yankees even in a position of strength when their whole offense is being carried by Aaron Judge and Juan Soto? Is there any more help coming from the farm without making a trade? These are some of the things that will go a long way towards deciding how this season shakes out from here.