There’s not a good way to lose a playoff series but it really doesn’t get much worse than what the Orioles did this year. I was thinking about it and I decided losing 1-0 and 2-1 is actually worse than if they had gotten blown out both games and lost 10-0 and 10-1 because at least in a blow out loss you can let go and relax a little bit. When you are either tied or down 1 for 18 straight innings you have no choice but to be laser focused on each at bat and only grow more and more frustrated as the futility continues.
Some people might argue that it’s worse to almost win and then blow it late in a close game but in order to blow a late lead you have to at least have a lead and while yes blowing a lead is gut wrenching having a lead to blow means at some point in the game you had scored more points than the other team and both scoring and having a lead are fun for fans even if it’s temporary. Imagine if instead of losing 2-1 like they did the O’s scored 2 runs on an Adley Rutschman double with the bases loaded but then in the ninth Seranthony Dominguez gave up a 3 run bomb and the Royals won the game all the same. Yes that would have sucked but at least there would have been a moment where the fans in the stadium could have gone insane and everyone at home could have hi fived their friends on the couch and everyone online could post the clip and it would have been a moment even if they went on to lose all the same.
IDK if this is just my algorithm but people still post the Aaron Hicks RBI single from game 2 of the ALDS last year because even though they went on to lose that series that was a moment. The way the O’s lost this year gave the fans no moments.
So today we’re going to pick through the O’s short postseason run, do a big picture recap of the season and then in part 2 look ahead at the 2025 season.
Series Recap
If you traveled back in time and found me on Monday before the playoffs started and said “I’m from the future and I’m here to tell you that the Orioles’ pitchers are going to hold the Royals to 3 total runs in the series” my first reaction would have been to be very excited that the Orioles had won and then I would have become very suspicious as to why you were phrasing it like that.
The Pitchers
It is crazy to think that after a full season of hand wringing about the Orioles injured rotation and the Orioles shaky bullpen that those two units were absolutely stellar in this this series.
Corbin Burnes gave the Orioles the exact start they were hoping to get from him when they traded for him before the season started. 8 innings 5 hits 1 ER and the Royals had to grind out the smallest of small ball runs against him. Walk – Steal – ground out to move the running to third – single through the left side with 2 outs (that would not have scored the runner if he was still on second).
I know I said that the Orioles didn’t give us a moment but that isn’t really fair to pitchers where it is hard to have a moment when the lineup has just killed the energy because if Burnes is walking off the mound in the 8th up 3-1 instead of down 1-0 that crowd would have been going absolutely berserk, he would have gotten the kind of ovation that would have had him wanting to sign an extension in the dugout between innings. Instead we got a sad report that he was silently scrolling on his phone while his teammates came and apologized to him for sucking.
Eflin pitched really well too going 4 innings 1 ER before getting a quick hook from Brandon Hyde. Which I didn’t love but after the bullpen proceeded to go 5 innings 1 ER and that run coming on a play that could have been made it’s hard to question that decision.
Overall the starters and bullpen pitched to a 1.50 ERA in the series which is incredible if you’re starters and bullpen combined for an ERA of 1.50 for the season they would be considered the greatest pitching staff of all time and people would wonder how they ever lost a game and yet they did it for 2 games and they lost both of them.
When we get to talking about next year the rotation and the bullpen will have to be addressed but for this series they did their job and their offense let them down.
The Failures
The offense as a whole got dominated. They looked completely unprepared for both starters, their offensive approach seemed to be take a ball in the zone for a called strike one and then swing wildly at a ball out of the zone for strike 2 and then struggle to get a hit now that you are behind in the count.
Maybe unprepared is the wrong word because when the O’s hitters talk about their hitting coaches they always mention how prepared they feel at the plate so maybe the word is confused or mislead either way whatever game plan they had at the plate didn’t work for anyone.
In case you forgot here are the O’s hitters in the series and just because I thought it was interesting I divided it up by the young core Elias picks and the veterans.
Gunnar Henderson 0-7, 2 BB, 4 K
Jordan Westburg 1-6, 1 BB, K
Adley Rutschman 1-8, 2 K
Colton Cowser 1-7, 3 K
Heston Kjerstad 0-2, K
In total 3-30, 3 BB, 11 Ks
Anthony Santander 1-8, 2 K
Ryan Mountcastle 0-7, 4 K
Cedric Mullins 3-7, 2B, HR, K
Ramon Urias 2-7, 2B, K
James McCann 0-2, 2 K
Ryan O’Hearn 1-2, BB
Austin Slater 1-2, K
Emmanuel Rivera 0-1
In total 8-35, BB, 2 2B, HR, 10 Ks
First of all shout out to Cedric Mullins who looked absolutely terrible in last year’s playoffs after he pushed to come back from an injury and I was worried he just didn’t have what it takes and then he struggled the start the season and I thought he was playing himself off the team and then he got right down the stretch and was really the only player to show up in both games of this series and play like meant something to him. Cedric Mullins innocent.
Neither group performed well yet but I think it is interesting to see that the young guys especially struggled. 2 games is probably too small of a sample size to make any definitive proclamations about what that means and I am not suggesting throwing out the babies with the bird bath water but what I think is interesting is that these are the guys that were molded by the Orioles system and they would be the guys most bought in to what the hitting coaches are teaching and this series that buy in got them eliminated.
Anyway I’ll save some thoughts for the section on the future of our coaching staff. For now I want to focus on the exact moments of failure that could have made the difference. Which centers around the O’s complete inability to hit with runners in scoring position.
RISP Failure #1
The Orioles first chance to strike was in the third inning after Cedric Mullins led off the inning with a double.
McCann hit next and he worked the count full and then struck out on pitch number 8. Now if you look at the whole game an 8 pitch strikeout was probably a top 10 at bat of the day but situationally with your nine hole hitter up with no outs and a game that already felt like it was going to be a low scoring pitchers duel and a runner on second this was a great spot for a bunt and McCann is the best bunter on the team so all that considered it feels like a waste that his at bat ended with Mullins still on second. Now maybe McCann isn’t super comfortable sticking his nose behind the bat and getting a bunt down with his face just recently having been lit up.
Gunnar swung at the first pitch and managed to move the runner over to third with a ground out but with 2 outs now having a runner at second or third doesn’t make a huge difference.
Jordan Westburg did follow that up by hitting a ball that would have been a home run in 28/30 parks but unfortunately not Camden Yards (I’ve hinted at this opinion a few times but I always thought they went way too far moving that wall back I think what they’ve done has made hitting in Baltimore really hard for right handed hitters and then when we get totally dominated by lefties and act like the outcome is surprising if the handedness of the Ragans-Westburg matchup was swapped that ball is bouncing around on the flag court)
RISP Failure #2
In the bottom of the 5th Ramon Urias and Cedric Mullins got back to back hits and set up a 1 out runners on second and third situation for James McCann.
I mentioned bunting last time as an option but that in this at bat I wouldn’t have bunted with Urias specifically on third as he is incredibly slow. What I might have done if I was Hyde was go pinch hitter early. Now there’s lots of reasons to not do this especially if McCann is just Burnes’ special catcher and we might lose the shutout if we lose McCann and the general fear that if you pinch hit McCann early with Adley already in the lineup in the 5th you lose the DH and now you risk having a pitcher hit in a late inning scenario but considering it didn’t look like the lineup was going to flip so many times that we would run out of bench bats I think they could have pinch hit for McCann here and not worried too much about having Keegan Akin at the plate in the ninth.
Any human being with at least 1 good arm could give you what McCann gave us in that at bat where he swung and missed three straight times and went back to the bench.
Now with 2 on 2 outs Gunnar Henderson came to the plate and in what was maybe the single most disappointing at bat of the game, especially considering what the Royal’s franchise shortstop did in the following inning, he struck out swinging.
RISP Failure #3
In the bottom of the eighth now trailing 1-0 the Orioles got a 2 out walk and single from Gunnar and Westburg setting up Anthony Santander who had played the hero many times during the season with a chance to tie the game with a hit. Unfortunately all he could muster was a weak grounder to the very capable Bobby Witt Jr at short and the inning was over
RISP Failure #4
This one was VERY close to not being a failure. Now in game 2 already down 1-0, after singles from Santander and Rutschman the O’s were set up with 2 runners on and Ryan O’Hearn at the plate.
O’Hearn hit a bouncing ball up the middle that looked like it was destined for the outfield but Michael Massey made a diving stop and managed to turn and get the out at first and turn what could have been a game tying RBI single into a ground out that moved the runners over.
Ryan Mountcastle (who looked worse than he did when he had vertigo this whole series) then weakly flew out to end the inning.
RISP Failure #5
In the bottom of the 5th inning of game 2 the Orioles finally managed to score a run on a Cedric Mullins homer to lead off the inning. Following the homer, Ramon Urias singled, Gunnar Henderson drew a walk and Jordan Westburg reached on an error and the bases were loaded with no outs.
So the Royals had the O’s right where they wanted them.
Anthony Santander came to the plate ready to swing and on the third pitch he popped out to the first baseman. The first out in a bases loaded no outs situation is huge because it brings the inning ending double play into play.
Colton Cowser was up next. This at bat would be especially crucial because it would be the last at bat where the O’s could score with a productive out and Cowser has the speed to get down the line to avoid getting doubled up on a groundout and he had a really good track record of not popping out in the infield so the O’s just needed him to not strike out and there was a good chance they could take the lead.
The Royals sensing the importance of this at bat pulled their starter Seth Lugo and went to Angel Zerpa the hard throwing lefty out of the bullpen specifically to try to strike Cowser out and keep the game tied.
Cowser then had one of the most embarrassing strike outs of the entire season going down swing in a ball that hit him in the hand that would have hit him square in the back if he had just turned away from it.
Now with 2 outs and the bases still loaded it was Adley Rutshman who came to the plate batting from the right side where he hit much better all season. Adley worked the count to 2-2 and then put a good swing on a ball that was smoothly fielded by Bobby Witt Jr for the final out of the inning.
It was tough to stomach, Adley hit the ball at 97.1 mph just .4 mph slower than his single earlier in the game. The ball Bobby Witt hit for the game winning RBI single in game 1 was almost 10 mph slower to almost the same place on the field but that’s baseball.
That was the last time the O’s got a runner to second for the rest of the 2024 season.
Brandon Hyde
I wrote before the series started that if the O’s looked unprepared and over matched in the playoffs again that they should move on from Brandon Hyde. However one of the first things that Mike Elias announced in his end of season presser was that Brandon Hyde will be returning for the 2025 season.
So obviously I disagree with that decision but I do understand that there is an argument that well run organizations don’t fire their managers willy nilly. The Yankees have stuck with Aaron Boone, the Dodgers have stuck with Dave Roberts, the Rays have stuck with Kevin Cash and the Rockies (the MLB’s model franchise) have stuck with Bud Black so if your organization is going to value continuity and consistency I suppose that’s fine.
However if next season the O’s get off to slow start and they continue to regress I feel like at some point they will have to change managers and if they wait until halfway through the season to do it, it is going to feel like they wasted half a season before making a decision that felt pretty obvious in the offseason.
As far as this series is concerned, it is hard to tell where the players’ failures end and Brandon Hyde’s failures begin. It is easy to say “Hyde needs to get the players ready to play” but what does that really mean? I assume that they are having lots of meetings and conversations but at the end of the day what can Brandon Hyde say that will stop Ryan Mountcastle from flailing at sliders that are bouncing in the left handed batters box? I don’t know but there must be something or else what is he even doing there.
As far as specific managerial decisions you could nitpick a few of them but with the offensive performance that the O’s put up I don’t think there was a bullpen decision or an intentional walk that was going to save this team. The one that most people pointed to was not walking Bobby Witt Jr in those key moments where he ended up doing damage and I personally didn’t love pulling Eflin in the 4th but between both of these choices whether you think they are good or bad resulted in just 2 total runs for the Royals which should have been easily overcome by the O’s offense.
Big picture season recap
With the season so freshly being over and having fizzled out with a whimper it is easy to feel like this season was a step back or a failure from the exciting 2023 season but there was plenty to be excited about and build upon.
The Young Core
When Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal took over the front office in 2018 the promise was that they were going to build through the draft similar to what they had been a part of in Houston. They made major investments into minor league player development as well as the Orioles scouting department which had long been a weakness for the organization.
After just a few years they had drafted a very exciting young crop of talent that all began making their way through the minors and popping up on various top 100 prospect lists. It has been made clear by the front office that the Orioles are going to ride or die with this young core so when looking back at the 2024 season I am going to start with the young core
Great Successes
Gunnar Henderson
AVG: .281 | OPS: .893 | HR: 37 | RBI: 92 | WAR: 9.1 | SB: 21 | WRC+: 155
Gunnar had one of the best seasons anyone has ever had in an Orioles uniform and it was a pleasure to watch. Sometimes players can be super productive without a lot of flare but with Gunnar you get the leadoff home runs, the hard charging plays on the infield, the hard turns around second and a fiery passion for the game that you can feel through the TV screen.
The season wasn’t without it’s ups and downs but it was mostly ups. At one point in late June when Gunnars OPS ticked over 1.000 and he was on pace to hit 50 bombs when it felt like he had truly ascended to become a top 5 player in all of baseball to the point where I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the Just Baseball Show and they led off one of their pods saying that Gunnar had officially played himself out of the Orioles price range and that he was going to be the kind of player that demands the sort of contract that only the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets can afford to pay out. And even though hearing that made me sad to think about it was exciting to think that we have a player on the level of a Juan Soto or Aaron Judge.
The Home Run Derby was a bit of a low point and then following the derby he didn’t seem to have quite the same power. It’s a bit of a cliche but it really did feel like the derby messed with his swing. I felt like it was odd in his interview when he said that he liked balls up in the zone when I felt like all year his best homers came on balls low and inside. Anyway he bounced back and had a good September so I’m pretty sure that was just a blip but it did cost him a chance to have those truly insane numbers he had at one point in the season.
Also around that same time he committed a bunch of errors in a like a 2 week span which made some people freak out about his defensive metrics but I think he’s one of the very best defensive shortstops in the league so whether it was a lack of focus or the yips I don’t think that was a serious problem either.
The only thing that I want to see Gunnar Henderson improve at is stepping into more of a leadership role on the team. Normally I don’t love to speculate on a players intangibles but when Gunnar went on Mookie’s podcast in August and Mookie asked him about being a leader in the clubhouse Gunnar was pretty transparent that he was still just one of the young guys and he didn’t see himself as a leader. Mookie gave him a good pep talk about how he needed to embrace being a leader.
I think it is hard to assert yourself as a leader that late in the season but I would love for Gunnar to came back next season and be one of the most vocal leaders in the clubhouse, we saw a report that came out that one of the veterans we traded for said that this was McCann’s clubhouse and that was disappointing to hear but understandable based on how young a lot of the guys are but I think it would be much better if this time next year veterans that come in call it “Gunnar’s clubhouse”.
Jordan Westburg
AVG: .264 | OPS: .792 | HR: 18 | RBI: 63 | WAR: 2.4 | SB: 6 | WRC+: 125
In 2024 Jordan Westburg cemented himself as a foundational part of this Orioles core. He made big improvements at the plate hitting for much more power than he did the year previous and was a versatile glove on defense playing multiple positions. He was rewarded for his efforts with his first all star appearance despite playing a position where the American League has a ton of talent.
It was unfortunate that Westburg’s injury cost him about a third of the season otherwise his counting stats would have been even more impressive and also his absence preceded the worst stretch of the Orioles season so clearly his presence in the lineup as a quality right handed bat is very important to balance out the Orioles heavily left handed lineup.
Westburg is famous for his work ethic and his intensity so I would not be surprised at all if he comes back next year and is even better. I also think he is a dark horse to take over that leadership role in the clubhouse.
Westburg gives the O’s the positional versatility to fill in the rest of the infield. Depending on which of the other young guys emerges as the best major leaguer Westburg can fill in at second or third which is also valuable for building the team going forward.
Colton Cowser
AVG: .242 | OPS: .768 | HR: 24 | RBI: 69 | WAR: 3.1 | SB: 9 | WRC+: 120
Colton Cowser will likely be the American League Rookie of the year. After Cowser’s disappointing debut in 2023 it was very encouraging to see him comeback and have a very strong rookie season. He got off to an incredibly hot start carrying a 1.003 OPS through the first month of the season. He was hitting for average and power and getting on base at a high clip and he looked like he was going to run away with the rookie of the year award.
But in the inevitable tug of war between hitters and pitchers, pitchers found a weakness in Cowser’s approach and began to exploit the fact that Cowser really struggled to hit changups and he entered a long slump over the next two months before bouncing back in July and then leveling out through August and September.
Cowser is a really interesting player. He is very streaky which leaves him vulnerable to having his stats butterknifed where people can say “since such and such date Cowser is hitting this” or “if you remove these 4 games Cowser’s stats look like this. I don’t think those kinds of stats are always fair. There is value in consistently contributing and there is also value in riding a hot streak and impacting winning at an elite level in short bursts. Obviously you’d prefer if he could perform at his best more consistently but streaky hitters exist and sometimes you just have to live with that.
I do think it is within Colton Cowser to be more consistent than he was this year. He already showed last year that he is able to use an offseason to look at his shortcomings and work hard to improve them. I believe that next year there will not be a 2 month stretch of hitting under .200. Hyde tried Cowser at leadoff for a few weeks this year and it went pretty well, Cowser has a good eye and takes a lot of pitches so he can give you a long first at bat of the game but I think his bat is best suited for somewhere like 5-6 hole.
One of the other criticisms that Cowser faced this year was how he struggled to hit with runners in scoring position. Obviously this manifested itself most clearly in his last at bat of the season as he struck out with the bases loaded. With “clutch” or RISP stats it is easy for there to be large swings of variance year to year so it’s hard to make sweeping judgements on a player based on those stats but baseball is a very mental game and there were definitely times where in those RISP at bats it looked like Cowser was pressing. I don’t think that Cowser will be “not clutch” for the rest of his career but it will be interesting to see if next year he can relax and perform better in those spots.
I believe that if next year Cowser can be a little more consistent and have a better approach in high pressure situations we could be looking at someone that could put up 30 homer 100 RBI seasons like we just saw Anthony Santander do this season.
I haven’t even mentioned Cowser’s defense which was excellent all year. There was some doubt coming into the season that he could even be a center fielder but he played very well in center field this year while Cedric was either hurt or slumping. Whether it is in center or in Baltimore’s spacious left field, Cowser is the level of defender that makes it easier to deal with the long slumps he was prone to during the season.
Disappointments
Jackson Holliday’s rookie season
AVG: .189 | OPS: .565 | HR: 5 | RBI: 23 | WAR: .1 | SB: 4 | WRC+: 63
Holliday came into the season the number 1 prospect in baseball and was among the favorites to win rookie of the year. There was a huge outcry against the O’s when he didn’t make the opening day roster including some weird “we’ll remember this” quotes from Matt Holliday. But when the O’s did call him up he struggled mightily and had one of the worst 10 starts to a major league career in history before being sent down.
He came back up later in the season after the O’s dealt Connor Norby to the Marlins and got off to a hot start in his second stint. Hitting a towering grand slam and then 4 more home runs in his first few weeks back and it felt like the Jackson Holliday we had been promised had arrived.
But then he got right back on the struggle bus and even though he was still better than he had been in his first stint the numbers his second stint numbers also ended up well below average.
Obviously this was a disappointing season based on the lofty expectation that everyone had for Holliday coming into the year but I am far from giving up on him or writing him off as a bust. Next season he will be just 21 years old so he’ll still be one of the youngest players in the league and hopefully he can use that famous Holliday baseball compound to work on what he struggled with and come back and have the season we expected just a year later.
Holliday was just too good at every level of the minors to be someone who just can’t workout at the major league level. Despite the overall numbers there were some encouraging signs towards the very end of the very end of the season. We saw after he sat out a bit once Westburg and Urias came back when he played again he changed from his high leg kick swing to more of toe tap which I think will help him not get stuck in between getting to the fastball and covering the off speed stuff that it looked like had him in a blender when it wa going bad.
Adley Rutschman’s mysteriously horrible second half
AVG: .250 | OPS: .709 | HR: 19 | RBI: 79 | WAR: 3.4 | SB: 1 | WRC+: 104
On June 27th Adley Rutschman’s slashline looked like this: .300/.351/.479/.830 and he was pacing to hit a career high of home runs with 15 though the first 77 games of the season. To me it looked like we were getting the Adley Rutschman I always knew was he could be hitting in .300s while also getting on base at an elite rate and hitting for plenty of power. He looked like objectively the best catcher in the league.
From that game on Adley went from the best catcher in the league to arguably not the best catcher on the Orioles and not because James McCann had an awesome second half. He had no power and instead of controlling the zone and working at bats he looked absolutely lost at the plate, striking out way more than usual and not walking nearly as much.
I and many other speculated that he must be hurt and that very game on June 37th was examined because in that game Adley was hit on the hand by a foul ball and because the stats dived so dramatically from that day it did feel like it would make sense if that foul ball had resulted in a hand injury that was dramatically impacting his ability to hit.
However throughout the season Adley and Hyde insisted that he was not injured and after the season in the end of season press conferences the official statement on Adley was that he had suffered normal wear and tear from playing the catcher position which I think seems rather alarming because he didn’t even play catcher that much compared to a lot of best catchers in the league and it’s not like next year he won’t have to play catcher so the “normal wear and tear” of the catching position is not going away.
The idea behind the normal wear and tear reasoning for Adley’s decline doesn’t make a ton of sense to me because that would mean he made it less than halfway through the season (while splitting time with McCann quite often) before completely falling apart physically and I just don’t think he was that unprepared for the season.
I think that the foul ball off the hand was what I would call a major minor injury. Meaning it was the kind of injury that wasn’t serious enough that he couldn’t play but it was also the kind of injury that was going to bother him for an extended period of time especially if he continued to play through it.
It may have been in Adley’s best interest to sit out for a few weeks to get his hand better but these kinds of athlete’s don’t always do what is in their best interest especially if what’s in their best interest means not playing.
That being said I wasn’t there so maybe Adley was just fat this year and got tired IDK.
Whether he suffered an injury or his girlfriend made him eat a bunch of cheeseburgers it doesn’t matter, at this point what matters is that Adley should be able to look back on this season as the worst season of baseball he’s ever played at any level and do what it takes to be in the kind of shape that can withstand a full season behind the dish.
Coby Mayo Debut
AVG: .098 | OPS: .293 | HR: 0 | RBI: 0 | WAR: -.7 | SB: 0 | WRC+: -6
I remember when Cowser debuted and had to get sent down and I thought “wow that was a really tough way to start your career” and since then both Holliday and now Mayo have come up and played much worse.
IDK if there is something that Orioles are doing that is making it so our guys struggle so much when they come up from triple A because both Adley and Gunnar also struggled for the first few weeks/months of their rookie years or if the jump from triple A to the majors is just hard across the league but I feel like I see other rookies come out and look really good to start their major league careers even if they come back to earth later on and it doesn’t seem like that ever happens for us.
As far as Mayo specifically I really thought out of all of our prospects he would be able to come up and give the O’s at least an offensive boost over what the O’s were getting out of the amalgamation of Ramon Urias and Emmanuell Rivera and Livan Soto but I was very wrong and out of all those guys Mayo was by far the worst at the plate.
Going forward it will be interesting to see what the O’s choose to do with Mayo. Will he play 3rd or first or could he be shoved into right field or is he more of a trade piece?
Heston Kjerstad’s injury
AVG: .253 | OPS: .745 | HR: 4 | RBI: 14 | WAR: .4 | SB: 1 | WRC+: 116
Heston Kjerstad being in the disappointment section does not have much to do with his play but more so the fact that it looked like he was about to really get on a roll and carve out an everyday role on the team when he was hit in the head by a 98 mph fastball and suffered a concussion that derailed his season.
It was really disappointing for Kjerstad because he has the potential to be an incredible power hitter and up until this point he just hasn’t had the opportunity to play everyday and get into a real rhythm at the plate and show us what he could be at the big league level. It was also disappointing for the O’s because he would have been a big help to the team when they collectively forgot how to hit.
Similar to with Mayo it will be interesting to see what the Orioles plan is with Kjerstad because right now there isn’t an obvious everyday place for him in the outfield and the additional wrinkle with Kjerstad is that he will be 26 next season so he’s not a young pup that can just hang around and wait for an opportunity to fall into his lap.
Most Memorable Seasons
For every season there are a few performances that really stand out to the point that when you think of that season a certain players performance. 2021 is the Cedric Mullins 30-30 season and 2022 was the Adley Rutschman arrival season and 2023 was a lot of people’s season but I’ll remember it for Felix Bautista, Kyle Bradish and Gunnar Henderson. So here are some people whose seasons I’ll remember for 2024.
I did already talk about how good Gunnar was so just know he would be in this category too
Corbin Burnes
W: 15 | Innings: 194.1 | ERA: 2.92 | WHIP: 1.096 | K: 181
Corbin Burnes was exactly what the Orioles were hoping for when they traded 2 of their top prospects for him this offseason. He was incredibly consistent making all his starts this year and except for a 3 start stretch in August he gave the Orioles a chance to win every time he took the mound.
He was among the very best pitchers in all of baseball this year and when the Orioles needed him most in the playoffs he came through and gave the Orioles one of his best starts of the season.
In the past the Orioles young pitchers have been mentored by guys like Jordan Lyles and Kyle Gibson and those guys were great but I think seeing a real MLB ace like Burnes pitch through a whole season was great for guys like Grayson and Povich and even Bradish on the IL.
His future in Baltimore is uncertain as he goes into free agency where he has earned the right to seek out a massive deal but whether he stays or leaves this season will be memorable for what he did on the mound.
Anthony Santander
AVG: .235 | OPS: .814 | HR: 44 | RBI: 102 | WAR: 2.9 | SB: 2 | WRC+: 129
Anthony Santander has been a constant presence in the middle of the Orioles lineup over the past three seasons and this year in what could be his final season as an Oriole was his best season yet. Santander finished third in the league in homers with 44, the fifth most by a switch hitter in a season ever. He was also the first Oriole to reach 100 RBIs in a season since Jonathan Schoop.
Besides just the raw production that was very valuable to the Orioles this year Santander provided another batch of incredible moments. The grand slam against the Astros and the walk off against the Giants stand out as particularly electric moments but there were also multiple late innings bombs to tie the game against the Phillies and Diamondbacks earlier in the season.
Anthony Santander is clutch, he is a leader and and he was one of the best power hitters in the league this year and again no matter where he plays next year 2024 will always be the year Anthony Santander hit 44 homers.
Albert Suarez
W: 9 | Innings: 133.2 | ERA: 3.70 | WHIP: 1.294 | K: 108
The stats for Albert Suarez are not as eye popping as those of Corbin Burnes but when there were injuries to the starting rotation that could have very easily sunk the season Albert Suarez stepped and filled whatever role the O’s needed him to.
He started the season in the minors, he came up after there were cluster injuries to the rotation, he pitched in the bullpen, he gave multiple starts on short rest when a starter went down. There were long stretches of the season where Suarez was basically our second best starter and during that stretch when Burnes struggled in August Suarez was our best guy.
All Suarez had to do this season was make a couple of appearances in the big leagues and he would be an inspiring comeback story but he did so much more than that, he was an integral part of the rotation for one of the best teams in the league. For the first half of the season it felt like it was a dream and that it had to end eventually but after a while it became clear that Suarez was just a good pitcher.
Injuries
I don’t like using injuries as an excuse but when you look at the injuries the Orioles faced in their starting rotation it feels like they were fortunate to even make the playoffs. Every team deals with injuries so I won’t bemoan losing guys like Westburg and Mountcastle for chunks of the season but losing that many important pitchers would have sunk a lot of teams so the O’s deserve some credit for powering through despite being very short handed in the rotation and the bullpen.
They lost Means at the end of May.
They lost Bradish in mid June.
Wells only made three appearances before being out for the season in April.
Grayson Rodriguez went on the 15 day IL at the end of April and then suffered a season ending injury in early August.
Dean Kremer went on the 15 day IL in mid May.
Danny Coulombe went down in early June with left elbow inflammation that sidelined him until late September. (I am including him here because he is an impactful as a starting pitcher I won’t include any others)
And new addition Zach Eflin hit the IL in late August.
So there were 4 season ending injuries and several long IL stints. This resulted in 16 starts from Cade Povich, 16 starts from Cole Irvin, 4 starts from Trevor Rogers, and 1 start from Chayce McDermott and yeah we lost most of those 37 starts.
This section makes it very clear that Albert Suarez saved the season.
You could argue that the O’s should have been more prepared for this because Means and Bradish were injured in the offseason but I would say they entered the season with 10 guys on the roster that they thought could make starts at some point in the season and they knew they were going to add more at the trade deadline so they had reason to think that they were going to be ok but they had even more injuries than they ever could have prepared for.
Cluster injuries can sink a very good team and it takes a lot of talent to rise above the injuries and still have a winning season and make the playoffs. At the end of the day these injuries are no excuse for their playoff loss to the Royals because they got about as good of a performance out of their injured pitching staff in those 2 games as you could ever ask for.
I wish I could say that because the O’s dealt with so many pitching injuries in 2024 they won’t have to in 2025 but that is not the case injuries are random and there is no promise that your injury luck will regress to the mean. Even if there are fewer pitching injuries the O’s could have a season derailed by an injury to a key position player so it is always important to have a deep roster that can withstand injuries.
The Trade Deadline
This was the Orioles most active trade deadline in a decade so when we are looking at the 2024 season and discussing what went well and what went wrong the trade deadline acquisitions are a big part of it.
Zach Eflin
GS: 9 | IP: 55.1 | W-L: 5-2 | ERA: 2.60 | FIP: 3.94 | WHIP: 1.120 | K/9: 7.6
Eflin was the best addition the O’s made at the trade deadline. When the O’s got him it felt like he would be a good third starter for the rest of the season but Eflin performed well above expectations. He went 6+ innings in 7 of his 9 starts and allowed 3 or fewer runs in all 9 of his starts. So every time Eflin took the mound for the O’s he gave them a chance to win the game and he gave the bullpen a breather which was key during a time when they were worn down after having to pitch a lot of innings.
Eflin will also be back next year which is great not only because he is a good pitcher and as of right now you could argue he would be our best starter on the team should the team fail to re-sign Burnes or not make any aggressive moves but also because he is not cheap and it was cool to see that the new ownership group was not afraid to increase payroll.
Seranthony Dominguez
SV: 10 | IP: 22.2 | ERA: 3.97 | FIP: 5.33 | WHIP: 1.279 | K/9: 11.1
Dominguez came on strong for the Orioles taking over the closer spot from a struggling Kimbrel. Just by the fact that he wasn’t Craig Kimbrel made Dominguez a huge upgrade but in the end he was overtasked as a lockdown closer. He had a bit of a home run problem and also occasionally struggled to find the zone. Going into the playoffs it felt like we were going to be doing closer by committee but for the second year straight it didn’t end up mattering who the closer was for the O’s
Just because it may not be Dominguez’s destiny to be a closer doesn’t mean he won’t be valuable to the O’s going forward. Next year Felix Bautista should be back so Dominguez will be free to be a 6th or 7th inning pitcher and occasionally fill in at the closer spot on days when Bautista isn’t available. We should be able to expect him to pitch to 3.00 ERA over a complete season in the bullpen.
I would rate Dominguez as a good acquisition for both what we got from him in 2024 and how we should be able to use him in 2025.
Gregory Soto
IP: 17.2 | ERA: 5.09 | FIP: 3.79 | WHIP: 1.528 | K/9: 10.7
The numbers for Soto with the O’s do not look pretty BUT if you look at the game logs you can see Soto allowed 8 ER and walked 3 in his first 1.1 innings with the O’s, which served to make him not exactly a fan favorite in Baltimore and also made it basically impossible for him to have good stats for the rest of the season. In the next 16.1 innings in an Orioles uniform Soto allowed just 2 total ER and 4 walks which comes out to an ERA of a little over 1. Soto and Dominguez basically had opposite Oriole runs this year where Dominguez came on strong and was recognized as a hero before getting worse and worse and Soto came out flat and called a bust before locking down and being really good.
Soto is the kind of reliever where when he’s on he is striking people out and inducing weak ground balls but when he’s off he is walking guys on base and creating crooked number innings. A lot of good relievers are like this and as a closer it’s actually kind of acceptable where you come in the game and you are either going to win the game or lose it and Soto is the kind of guy where he’s either going to lock it down or he’s going to blow it and it’s be pretty obvious what kind of inning it will be early. That being said he won’t be the closer for the O’s next year so where will they find space for him? He wanted out of Philly because he wasn’t being given high leverage opportunities but do we want to give him high leverage opportunities?
I would guess that Soto comes into the season next year as our second best left handed pitcher behind Danny Coulombe and will get plenty of opportunities to pitch late in games when the platoon splits dictate it especially if the O’s are concerned about a now older Danny Coulombe getting through the season.
Austin Slater
AVG: .246 | OPS: .675 | HR: 1 | RBI: 6 | SB: 1 | WRC+: 76
Austin Slater ended up playing a lot for someone who we got for cash considerations. With injuries to Mountcastle, Westburg and Urias there was suddenly a deficiency in right handed bats in the lineup so Slater ended up leading off vs lefties for the last 2 months of the season.
As far as the trade goes he was fine, as you can see from the numbers overall he was not great at the plate but compared to the rest of O’s offense those numbers weren’t bad at all. He was a short term rental platoon outfielder and he won’t be back next year.
Eloy Jimenez
AVG: .232 | OPS: .586 | HR: 1 | RBI: 7 | SB: 0 (lol) | WRC+: 78
Jimenez was a buy low dice roll that the Orioles made that showed some promise but ultimately didn’t work out. Jimenez signed his big deal with the White Sox because he showed a lot of potential early in his career and it was that same potential that motivated the Orioles to give him a shot.
There was a lot of victory lapping from O’s fans when he got off to a hot start but even when his batting average was high he was still hitting mostly ground balls and he still wasn’t walking hardly at all and he clearly could only be played at DH so as time went on he was clearly limited in how he could contribute to a team.
He finished the year in triple A and I would be surprised if the O’s pick up his 16.5 million dollar club option although I would not to be too surprised if he is unable to sign elsewhere he doesn’t end up taking a small deal with the O’s as it seemed like he enjoyed his time here.
Trevor Rogers
GS: 4 | IP: 19 | W-L: 0-2 | ERA: 7.11 | FIP: 5.01 | WHIP: 1.842 | K/9: 5.7
Oof. This move was a stain on the whole season honestly. The Orioles only got 4 starts out of Rogers and he didn’t pitch more than 5 innings even once before being sent down to triple A for the rest of the season.
Once in triple A he had some good outings but IDK how impressed I am supposed to be by that when you have been in the big leagues since 2020. One thing that was concerning was that his fastball was sitting at 89. I don’t want to discriminate against low velo guys but sitting 89 at 26 when you were sitting 95 at 23 does not seem like a good development.
The O’s have him through all of 2025 and 2026 so there is a long runway to try to figure him out and get something out of him. It’s been awhile but he was at one point a very good pitcher in the big leagues and if the O’s can ever get him back to 75% of what he was in 2021 he would be a valuable addition to the rotation.
This is the only trade where I will mention what we gave up since with all the other trades I made peace immediately with the price. Giving up both Norby and Stowers seemed bad at the time of the trade even when I was trying to be optimistic about what Rogers could give the O’s but now in full hindsight with Rogers giving the O’s nothing before being sent to triple A and the Norby and Stowers both being everyday players for the Marlins down the stretch while the O’s really struggled to put good lineups together.
If the trade deadline was a week later and the front office had seen Westburg get hit on the hand and Kjerstad have to be demoted because of his concussion, maybe they wouldn’t have made this move at all. At the end of the day the O’s did have to clear out some of the prospect logjam they had and it made sense to do it for some controllable pitching but unless there is a dramatic change for Rogers it looks like they made the wrong deal.
However the thing about trading top prospects is that suddenly you have new top prospects that you can trade again it never stops so the O’s should not stop taking swings.
Christian Pache
We barely knew ye.
Livan Soto
AVG: .300 | OPS: .862 | HR: 0 | RBI: 0 | SB: 0 | WRC+: 113
Livan Soto was an interesting pickup. The O’s had been trying to sign and sneak him through waivers all offseason before they just went and traded some cash for him and Austin Slater. The rate stats look pretty good but those were just in 13 PAs so IDK if you can take those numbers too seriously. His biggest contribution was that he played ok for a few weeks between Hyde deciding he couldn’t stomach anymore Jackson Holliday at bats and Jordan Westburg returning.
Next year he could be around if the O’s want him to be either at the end of the bench or in triple A but I wouldn’t be too surprised if during the offseason the 40 man gets crowded and he gets DFA’d and then snagged off waivers again.
One thing I will say is that he could carve out a decent bench role because I think the O’s need need to lean into the future of the team and that would involve pushing guys like Ramon Urias and Jorge Mateo out of regular starting roles and those 2 guys are tenured enough and still good enough that they might not be happy about that so maybe we would be better off moving on from them and having Soto be the utility backup guy that come in and get some slappy singles on a day when Jordan Westburg or Jackson Holliday need a breather.
In summary I think it was good to see the O’s take some swings and I like that they were focused on getting guys that will be back in 2025. You could call the incoming players disappointing because a chunk of them didn’t even make the playoff roster and the ones that did didn’t lift the O’s any further than they would have gotten had they just stood pat. But I don’t know what moves they could have made that would have made it so they weren’t going to have the worst offensive performance of the entire postseason. Eflin, Soto, Dominguez and Slater all contributed in the playoffs as much if not more than some of the guys we consider franchise cornerstones.
Time to get Positive
I am going to try to put a positive spin on a season that by a lot of metrics was a bit of a disappointment.
It could have been worse
So the O’s had a worse record than last year and they got swept out of the playoffs by one of the only teams they would have been favored to beat. That’s bad, BUT it could have been worse. Plenty of teams have had flash in the pan seasons, were then anointed the future of the league and then completely missed the playoffs the next season and then those once promising young cores fade into oblivion. So the Oriole at the very least beat the one year wonder allegations.
In addition to the team making the playoffs in back to back years many of their young players took steps forward. Similar to with teams sometimes young players enter the league and play well and even finish top 3 in rookie of the year and then the next year they’re already a shell of themselves. Look at Kyle Lewis and James Outman in recent years as examples of guys that looked good in that rookie season will now be relegated to quadruple A players destined to bounce around the fringes of the league. For the O’s Gunnar was better, Westburg was better, Cowser was better, and Grayson Rodriguez was better so all of the sophomore Orioles took a step forward which is a great sign that this team’s success will continue for many years.
Success isn’t always linear
It would be great if the path to winning the World Series was as simple as year 1 -> make the playoffs, year 2 -> win a playoff series, year 3 -> make the world series and year 4 -> win the world series but that just isn’t how it works in baseball. Just look at the teams still in the playoffs: the Yankees, Guardians and Mets all made the playoffs in 2022 and then missed the playoffs in 2023 and are all playing in the ALCS in 2024. So to quote Matthew McConaughey “Sometimes you’ve got to take a go back to take a step forward.”
The Dodgers are another good example of the frustrations that surround being a perennial winning team. The Dodgers have made the playoffs every single season since 2013 and they haven’t been sneaking into the playoffs. They have been one of the best teams in the league every single year but plenty of those seasons have ended in brutal disappointment at the same time plenty of those seasons have also resulted in deep playoff runs.
What I am trying to say is that when you are a good team you aren’t just going to win the world series every year, there are going to be years where despite a great regular season and high expectations going into the playoffs you fall short. The way the MLB playoffs are set up you cannot build a team to guarantee yourself a World Series. The key is to stay competitive and make the journey back to the playoffs every year and give yourself a shot. The Dodgers have been doing it for over a decade and it has netted them 1 World Series victory, and 3 NL pennants (people will say that the 2020 World Series is mickey mouse but they were also robbed by the cheating Astros so I say it balances out and they get full credit for 1 total World Series)
The Orioles will never have the resources that the Dodgers have (although I think a lot of teams could afford to operate more like the Dodgers if they weren’t greedy cowards) but they have built a strong young core to give themselves a long runway to win the World Series sometime in the next 6-7 years. I was disappointed by the way that this season ended but I still feel confident that this Orioles core will deliver a World Series to Baltimore in the 2020s.
The Dishwasher 
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