2023 ZiPS Projections: Baltimore Orioles

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

The building of Baltimore’s offense is coming along quite nicely; graduating two arguable no. 1 prospects to the majors in a single season has a curious way of doing that! The O’s should at least be locking up Adley Rutschman as soon as possible and ideally Gunnar Henderson as well. There’s no need to stay on both too long; everyone knows about Rutschman’s awesomeness, and I’ve written near-panegyrics about Henderson already. Similar to Mike Devereaux three (!) decades ago, Cedric Mullins is a borderline star.

The O’s aren’t amazing anywhere else in the lineup, but they are at least adequate, with a couple of exceptions. ZiPS does think the team could use an outfield upgrade, but one can at least understand why the Orioles are waiting to see which of their young outfield prospects takes a big step up, if any. I’m crossing my fingers, because Nomar Mazara was signed to a minor league contract and is lurking in the wings, like a replacement-level Sauron after the fall of Númenor.

Just in case you have only seen the graphic and not the tables below, ZiPS does project Ryan Mountcastle to be an above-average first baseman. What it isn’t crazy about is the backup situation with Mountcastle expected to spend some time at DH. Lewin Díaz is far from a ZiPS fave, but it sees him as quite a bit superior to Ryan O’Hearn, whose acquisition never made much sense to me given his poor track record.

I’m not going to grump about the O’s being quiet here, nor am I a particular fan of the Adam Frazier signing, since I’m going to complain elsewhere in a minute.

Pitchers

It is to my profound disappointment that the Orioles were not seriously involved, as far as I can tell, in the market for pitchers such as Justin Verlander or Carlos Rodón. Top-end starting pitching is what Baltimore is missing most, and unlike past seasons in the rebuild, during which I never (as far as I remember) complained about the team’s lack of free-agent spending, a serious addition here could make a meaningful difference in Baltimore’s postseason fate. The O’s could have signed both pitchers and still been a below-average payroll team. It’s hard to have much faith in the rotation, and that’s with ZiPS giving a legitimately excellent projection to Dean Kremer. John Means may come back quicker than our depth chart playing time believes, but that’s not enough; he’s most charitably a solid no. 2 pitcher coming off a major injury.

ZiPS likes the chances of Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall becoming top-end starters, but why wait? If they do, it certainly makes the expensive ace easier to swallow, and no team has ever had too much good pitching as an actual problem. Sure, the O’s can still trade some of their deep prospect pool to acquire a pitcher, but it’s easier to make money than make prospects, and they have been running basement payrolls for years (and will continue to in 2023).

The relievers, I’m more confident in. ZiPS isn’t keen on the back of the bullpen, which is why the overall lower-than-expected WAR projection, but the Orioles have done a good job identifying live arms that can become dependable relievers. ZiPS also has a torrid love affair with Phoenix Sanders, whose employment status I’m not even sure of; I probably should just contact the team and find out for sure! If pitchers like Andrew Politi or Joey Krehbiel fail to impress, I’m sure the front office will look elsewhere quickly.

In sum, I’m generally quite pleased with the Orioles as a franchise right now. It’s only the lack of solutions in the rotation that is causing me to want to add the negative version of the Grape Job! sticker to their book report. Is there a scratch-and-sniff “Bad Job Broccoli!” sticker somewhere that smells like that vile weed?

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.