Baltimore Orioles 2025 preview
For some of you, this may be the start of your reading. For me, it is the 30th and final team preview. Normally I start with the Baltimore Orioles and go through alphabetically by division until I get to the San Francisco Giants. Well, I started back to front this year, so the Orioles and one of my favorite offenses in baseball got the honors of wrapping up this year’s team preview series.
The Orioles are right there. They’ve successfully secured back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 1996-97. Unfortunately, they are 0-5 in playoff games, losing in a sweep in the 2023 ALDS and in a sweep in the 2024 AL Wild Card as a favorite against the Royals, scoring a total of one run on 11 hits. To their credit, they also only gave up three runs, but the offense disappeared and the season ended very abruptly.
You have to go back to 1969-71 to find the last time that the Orioles made the playoffs in three straight seasons. They are favored to do it and rewrite some franchise history, but the goals have increased with the current core and simply getting there isn’t enough. Doing damage when they get there is now the benchmark.
Armed with a similar starting lineup and a deeper bench, scoring runs shouldn’t be a problem. Preventing them will be in the spotlight once again, as the Orioles no longer have Corbin Burnes at the top of the rotation and will instead turn to a crafty vet and a Japanese import in hopes of getting valuable innings.
Baltimore has a ton of strengths, a good manager, a smart front office, tons of Trade Deadline ammunition, and another year of experience. They also have one big area of the ballclub that could hold them back.
2025 Baltimore Orioles Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 26)
World Series: +1700
AL Pennant: +650
AL East: +285
Win Total: 87.5 (-120/+100)
Make Playoffs: Yes -175 / No +145
Baltimore Orioles Preview: Offense
On the heels of a top-five offensive performance, the Orioles are ready to run it back with a lot of the same faces. One notable difference is that Anthony Santander, who smashed 44 homers to lead the team, is now with the rival Blue Jays. In his place will be Tyler O’Neill, who hit 31 homers for the rival Red Sox. The circle of AL East life, if you will.
The other meaningful change may be seeing more of Jackson Holliday, who was objectively terrible during his 208 plate appearances last season with a .189/.255/.311 slash and a 63 wRC+. But, hey, he’s freshly 21 and it’s a hard game to play. Holliday was one of only four Orioles with at least 50 plate appearances to post a wRC+ below 102. James McCann, Jorge Mateo, and Eloy Jimenez were the others and they were not on the field all that often.
The star of the show is Gunnar Henderson, who had a 155 wRC+ with 37 homers, a double-digit walk rate, 21 steals to wind up second behind Cedric Mullins, and 8.0 fWAR. Because of how WAR is calculated, given an adjustment for the league run environment and other contemporary settings, you can compare players over different eras. Henderson’s season was the best in Orioles history by fWAR since Cal Ripken Jr.’s 1991 campaign.
There are just a ton of solid hitters here. Seven players with at least 100 plate appearances had a wRC+ between 155 and 115. That was even with a bit of a down year from Adley Rutschman, who did not fall into that category, as he dropped from a 127 wRC+ to a 104 mark. In other words, there’s some clear room for improvement out of him this season and I would expect it, as a big difference for him last season was a big decrease in BB% that hurt his on-base percentage.
What I think matters the most for the O’s right now, given that most of their starting spots are occupied, is that they added Gary Sanchez in place of McCann and also signed Ramon Laureano, who is a strong defensive outfielder and has been an above average hitter in five of his seven MLB seasons. This was not a good bench last season with guys like McCann, Mateo, and Jimenez. Add Heston Kjerstad as a bench bat/platoon guy with Ramon Urias, who was a very productive utility player on the infield last season and this is one of the best collections of 13 position players in baseball.
For good measure, Coby Mayo, a top-50 prospect, is just chilling at Triple-A and Samuel Basallo is the best catching prospect in baseball according to FanGraphs. He will likely be the one to change positions, as Rutschman is a better defender.
Baltimore Orioles Preview: Pitching
For all the praises I can sing about this offense – and I can sing a lot of them – the pitching staff defines the 2025 season for the Orioles. Last year’s staff finished 27th in ERA at 4.81, but 19th in FIP at 4.04. Baltimore hurlers collectively had a 66.4% LOB% that ranked 27th. Unlike the Red Sox, who finished 30th in LOB%, the Orioles had a high enough K% to support a stronger showing in this department.
Make no mistake, the departure of Burnes is a huge deal. He led the way with 32 starts and 194.1 innings of work. No other Orioles pitcher had more than 133.2 and it was a lucky find in Albert Suarez who did that, posting a 3.70 ERA with a 4.05 FIP. Burnes’ 3.7 fWAR were 1.7 more than Grayson Rodriguez, who was a clear second in that department. The 2.92 ERA and 3.55 FIP from Burnes are going to be sorely missed, but let’s focus more on who is still here.
Suarez is, though he may not crack the rotation with a full season of Zach Eflin and the signings of Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano. Eflin, acquired from the Rays, made nine starts over 55.1 innings with a 2.60 ERA and a 3.94 FIP. He’s probably the de facto ace at the outset, only because we haven’t seen a full season of Rodriguez yet. He had a 3.86 ERA with a 3.66 FIP and I think he’s capable of much more. He only pitched 17 innings in the second half, so health, as it is for so many young pitchers, remains a concern.
That’s why the 41-year-old Morton was brought in. He’s been so incredibly durable in recent years, making at least 30 starts every non-COVID season since 2017. The velocity is down a bit. The walks are up a little. The stuff isn’t as potent or polished, but he’ll be a good mentor here and should be an innings eater. I think Dean Kremer can be as well, but he, like Morton, doesn’t really have a high ceiling.
Sugano is an interesting guy, as he is maybe the most extreme ground ball guy I’ve ever seen to come out of Japan. He made 24 starts last season with a 1.67 ERA and a 2.16 FIP in the NPB with a 70.1% GB%. I don’t know how that will translate to MLB, but the Orioles were intrigued enough to pay $13 million for his services this season at the age of 35. To say that the projection systems are underwhelmed is an understatement, as they all project him for an ERA of 4.57 or higher.
It will continue to be touch and go for this rotation for a while. We may see Kyle Bradish at some point. We should see a good prospect in Chayce McDermott and will see Trevor Rogers probably in May. Cade Povich is still around. A trade could happen with a glut of position players that would be coveted. Something like a Sandy Alcantara come July is not out of the question.
As many questions as there are about the rotation, I see minimal bullpen queries to discuss. Felix Bautista is back from Tommy John and Andrew Kittredge is a nice setup man to pair with Yennier Cano, Seranthony Dominguez, and many of last season’s faces. This group could be dominant.
Baltimore Orioles Player to Watch
OF Colton Cowser
I think we all expected a little more out of Cowser, which is outrageous to say given that he had 4.0 fWAR as a rookie over 153 games. He hit 24 homers, but only batted .242 with a .321 OBP, as he struck out over 30% of the time and his walk rates from the minor leagues did not translate at all. Outs Above Average loved his defensive profile, giving him a +11 mark, while Defensive Runs Saved had him closer to average.
Cowser rarely chased, which is why I would have expected the BB% to be higher. He swung through a lot of pitches in the zone and missed when he did chase. That said, he still ran a 73rd percentile average exit velo, a 77th percentile Hard Hit%, and a 90th percentile Barrel%. He’s got good bat speed. I think he’ll walk more and strike out less this season. I think this is a profile to bet on and I think the low average and high K% will scare people away in fantasy leagues or in prop markets.
Baltimore Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
The Orioles are not the only team in this division with a good offense and questionable pitching. The difference, though, between the Red Sox and Orioles is that I think Baltimore has the potential for a top-10 bullpen and the offense is going to outhit more than enough starting pitcher mistakes to get this team where it wants to be. You can say that this team doesn’t have Burnes, which is true, but the 2023 team had a worse starting staff and still won 101 games.
The bullpen was a big strength of that ‘23 team and I think the bullpen is a big strength of this team. I do like the Orioles to go Over their season win total and also think they’re worthy of a shot to win the division. We might do better than +285, so I’ll be price hunting as the season goes along, but I like it now, too.
Pick: Over 87.5; AL East Champion +285
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