The good news for the Baltimore Orioles is they won the first game of their three-game series against the first-place New York Yankees on Monday night. The bad news is the win only improved the team’s record to 11-17, the fourth-worst mark in baseball. As it stands Tuesday morning, the Orioles sit in last place in the AL East, and with nearly a fifth of the season over, it’s getting harder to dismiss the poor start as merely a blip.
Where the Orioles have struggled is not that hard to pinpoint: nearly everywhere. The rotation has combined for a 5.62 ERA/5.14 FIP and 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings, numbers that firmly place Baltimore at the bottom of the league. The defense hasn’t been much better, and after a decent start, the offense has evaporated over the last two weeks.
The season is longer than just April, of course, and the Orioles theoretically still have plenty of time to right the ship. But do they have the deckhands? To show whether or not they do, I took the current Orioles depth chart, and estimated the projected WAR based on playing time, using both ZiPS WAR from the preseason and the updated ZiPS WAR I ran overnight. Let’s start with the offense. Read the rest of this entry »
Isaiah J. Downing and Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Anything worth doing is worth doing right, and when it came to losing games, the 2024 White Sox were the grandmasters of the art. Sure, the 1899 Cleveland Spiders had a worse record, but that was an intentionally terrible team thanks to an owner who sent the club’s good players over to another team they owned, the St. Louis Perfectos. The 1962 Mets edged the Sox in win percentage, but that notorious team had the advantage of being an expansion club in their first year after an expansion draft that was so short on talent, it resembled a grocery store’s toilet paper aisle during the height of COVID. Last year’s White Sox were just two years removed from a .500 record, and by all accounts, ownership and the front office intended to actually win games. A strong record, however, needs to be forged in the fire of new challengers, and this season, two early contenders have emerged: the Colorado Rockies and the reigning lastpions themselves.
The Rockies are off to a blazing cold start and are the current frontrunners with a 4-20 record. For a team with a winning percentage short of .200, Colorado has received some surprisingly competent pitching performances, with the two main splats being former Cy Young contender Germán Márquez and top prospect Chase Dollander. Where the Rockies have been stunningly poor is on the offensive side of things, with the team hitting .213/.287/.345 and just barely averaging three runs per game. Fourteen hitters have at least 20 plate appearances and more than half of them have a wRC+ below 70. Ryan McMahon’s performance is a particularly low lowlight; the third baseman has 39 strikeouts already thanks to an out-of-zone contact rate under 20%, a number so bananas that it looks like a programming glitch that proves our existence is actually a simulation.
ZiPS thought the Rockies would struggle in 2025, but not to this level. The system’s projection, for a mere 99 losses, even came with a (very) small chance of Colorado making the playoffs as a Wild Card team. After Thursday’s games, I did a full re-simulation of the 2025 season to get a projection for what the Rockies could achieve if they fail to get the wheels back on the cart:
ZiPS Win Projection – Colorado Rockies
Wins
Percentage
Cumulative
28
0.0%
0.0%
29
0.0%
0.0%
30
0.0%
0.0%
31
0.1%
0.1%
32
0.1%
0.2%
33
0.1%
0.3%
34
0.2%
0.5%
35
0.3%
0.7%
36
0.5%
1.2%
37
0.7%
1.8%
38
0.8%
2.7%
39
1.0%
3.7%
40
1.5%
5.2%
41
1.8%
7.0%
42
2.0%
8.9%
43
2.6%
11.5%
44
2.9%
14.4%
45
3.3%
17.7%
46
4.0%
21.7%
47
4.1%
25.8%
48
4.4%
30.2%
49
4.7%
34.9%
50
5.2%
40.1%
51
5.0%
45.0%
52
5.4%
50.4%
53
5.2%
55.6%
54
5.1%
60.7%
55
5.0%
65.7%
56
4.7%
70.4%
57
4.3%
74.7%
58
4.1%
78.8%
59
3.7%
82.5%
60
3.3%
85.7%
61
2.8%
88.5%
62
2.4%
91.0%
63
1.9%
92.9%
64
1.7%
94.6%
65
1.3%
95.9%
66
1.1%
97.1%
67
0.9%
97.9%
68
0.6%
98.6%
69
0.4%
99.0%
70
0.4%
99.4%
71
0.2%
99.6%
72
0.2%
99.8%
73
0.1%
99.9%
74
0.1%
99.9%
75
0.0%
100.0%
76
0.0%
100.0%
77
0.0%
100.0%
78
0.0%
100.0%
79
0.0%
100.0%
80
0.0%
100.0%
81
0.0%
100.0%
Naturally, the team’s small sliver of playoff probability has been wiped out by April. In the preseason projections, the Rockies only had a 1.5% chance of matching 121 losses and a 0.8% chance of setting a new record. So while the feat was at least plausible, it was a long shot. The odds are still strongly against — losing this many games is really hard — but seven and five percent are bonafide countin’ numbers.
Colorado’s biggest obstacle in the pursuit of infamy is that there are real reasons for hope when looking at the roster. As mentioned above, Márquez and Dollander have been terrible, but there is still at least some remaining chance that the former can get back to where he was, and the latter is an elite prospect. Michael Toglia is a Triple-A-caliber first baseman, not a pitcher dragooned into the lineup, and will surely fall short of his -6 WAR pace. Ezequiel Tovar is a better player than this, and guys like Zac Veen and Adael Amador have legitimate upside. The Rockies simply have a lot of saving throws that could lead to more positive outcomes this year. The start makes it possible that the Rockies will match the 2024 Sox for futility, but when you watch Colorado, your eyes aren’t physically forced to stare blurrily into middle distance at the Stygian maw, where nothing will give your frozen gaze succor from the dread of oblivion and Chris Davis‘ contract.
But hey, we still have the OGs, the White Sox, to look at. At 6-19, they’re a game and a half behind the Rockies for these purposes, but if ZiPS is to be believed, they’re a fundamentally worse roster. Chicago’s 52-110 projected record coming into the 2025 season is the worst projection ZiPS has ever given a team (not counting that article last year where I projected how Triple-A teams would fare in the majors):
ZiPS Win Projection – Chicago White Sox
Win
Percentage
Cumulative
28
0.0%
0.0%
29
0.1%
0.1%
30
0.1%
0.2%
31
0.2%
0.4%
32
0.3%
0.7%
33
0.4%
1.1%
34
0.6%
1.7%
35
0.9%
2.6%
36
1.3%
3.9%
37
1.5%
5.4%
38
1.9%
7.3%
39
2.4%
9.7%
40
2.8%
12.4%
41
3.4%
15.8%
42
3.7%
19.6%
43
4.1%
23.6%
44
4.7%
28.3%
45
5.1%
33.4%
46
5.3%
38.7%
47
5.5%
44.2%
48
5.4%
49.6%
49
5.3%
54.9%
50
5.1%
60.0%
51
5.0%
65.0%
52
4.7%
69.7%
53
4.4%
74.1%
54
4.2%
78.3%
55
3.7%
82.0%
56
3.2%
85.2%
57
2.9%
88.1%
58
2.5%
90.6%
59
2.0%
92.7%
60
1.6%
94.3%
61
1.5%
95.8%
62
1.2%
96.9%
63
0.8%
97.7%
64
0.7%
98.4%
65
0.5%
98.9%
66
0.4%
99.2%
67
0.3%
99.5%
68
0.2%
99.7%
69
0.1%
99.8%
70
0.1%
99.9%
71
0.0%
100.0%
72
0.0%
100.0%
73
0.0%
100.0%
74
0.0%
100.0%
75
0.0%
100.0%
76
0.0%
100.0%
77
0.0%
100.0%
78
0.0%
100.0%
79
0.0%
100.0%
80
0.0%
100.0%
81
0.0%
100.0%
ZiPS gives the White Sox a 16% chance of matching last year’s loss total and a 12% chance — better than the probability of an Aaron Judge homer — of besting it. Where the White Sox and Rockies differ in the pantheon of lousy teams is that the Sox are currently configured in a way that greatly limits their upside. For a rebuilding team, the starting lineup is surprisingly old and established; players like Nick Maton, Michael A. Taylor, and Matt Thaiss have a use as role players on a good team, but the ceiling on their performance is quite low. Currently injured players such as Josh Rojas and Mike Tauchman are in the same boat. The Sox have built a Triple-A-caliber team with a roster that looks like one. If you had been out of the country and behind on the baseball news and someone gave you a printout of this roster with “Charlotte Knights” at the top, would it immediately register as wrong?
That’s not to say there aren’t any players with upside. I actually like the return the Sox got for Garrett Crochet, and think that Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth, and Braden Montgomery could all have futures in the majors. Shane Smith has been a highlight for me as a starter, and I’m totally digging Brandon Eisert’s hot start as a junk-tossing Doug Jones-esque reliever, an archetype you don’t see very often in modern baseball. But the prospects won’t be prominent quickly enough, and the interesting pitchers are too few, to give this team a real sense of short-term optimism.
There’s even a chance that both teams tie or set the record, with the Rockies and White Sox both at least tying the record in 1% of simulations and both beating the record in 0.6% of the runs. It’s too soon to known whether we’ll see a true Lossapalooza or merely two ordinarily lousy teams come September, but it’s fun to dream… darkly.
The Braves entered 2024 with high hopes for the coming season, but their campaign ended in disappointing fashion. After making the playoffs by the slimmest of margins, they were unceremoniously eliminated by the Padres. It’s now been more than seven months since Atlanta’s early exit, and the calendar has flipped to a new season. The same cannot be said for the team’s fortunes.
Indeed, the Braves have started off this year in a funk, and not of the good Sly and the Family Stone variety. A season-opening series against the Padres, followed by a trip to Chavez Ravine for a matchup with the defending-champion Dodgers, left Atlanta with seven losses to start the season and Reynaldo López on the IL for most, if not all, of 2025. A sweep of the similarly underwhelming Minnesota Twins staunched the bleeding somewhat, but another wound opened up soon after, as Spencer Strider strained his hamstring playing catch on Monday and returned to the IL just one start after coming back from major elbow surgery.
A 9-14 start, even when coupled with the loss of López and Strider, doesn’t make 2025 a lost cause, but it does complicate matters considerably. Let’s first look back at the ZiPS preseason projections for the NL East standings. Read the rest of this entry »
Guest: Given his past performance, and what you’ve seen from him so far this season, when do you expect Lindor’s slow start will end?
12:00
Dan Szymborski: April 🙂
12:01
Houzer: More excited this year for Jack Leiter or McKenzie Gore?
12:01
Dan Szymborski: Maybe Gore slightly? The nats pitching holding up and a Gore breakout is their playoff path, and that intrigues me. Though I get more of a benefit with Leiter since he was on his breakouts list
12:01
Bubbles: Is there any research on how many pitches to a hitter it takes for swing metrics like O-Zone Swing % to start becoming signal over noise of small samples?
Back in December, the Red Sox acquired pitcher Garrett Crochet with the intention of signing him to a long-term contract, and that’s just what they did on Monday, extending the big lefty on a six-year, $170 million deal that kicks off starting in 2026. There’s no deferred money in this deal, nor is there a no-trade clause, though there is a $2 million bonus in the event that he is traded. There is also the typical incentive clause (up to $10 million) for Cy Young Award finishes and an opt-out after 2030. In an extra bit of injury protection, the Red Sox get a $15 million team option and the opt-out disappears if Crochet misses 120 consecutive days to a significant arm injury. Crochet was the main reason to watch about 20% of White Sox games in 2024, as he threw 146 innings over 32 starts, put up a 3.58 ERA, a 2.85 FIP, and 4.7 WAR, and earned his first All-Star selection. He then changed his Sox over the winter in that trade from Chicago to Boston.
I talked a little about this a few weeks ago, when I discussed what I’d do as a brutal despot of MLB. What I demanded — without, as I remind you, any legal authority to do so — was that the Red Sox close the deal with Crochet. The extension was, in my view, one of the most obvious things that should happen in baseball right now. The Red Sox appear to be on the verge of a return to contention, supported by a very good farm system, and they really needed a high-end pitcher for the top of the rotation. Before the extension, Crochet was set to hit free agency after next season, and keeping him around long term was essential for both baseball and public relations reasons; an ace pitcher was unlikely to come cheaper for the 2027 season, and his departure might have opened up old Mookie Betts-related fan wounds that have healed to an extent.
Suffice it to say, ZiPS likes him quite a bit. I discussed the projections for Crochet in the aforementioned article.
After also taking into account his $4.5 million salary for 2025 and the fact that he’s still arbitration eligible for 2026, ZiPS suggests offering Crochet a seven-year, $175 million contract starting this season. That doesn’t need to be Boston’s final offer, but it is a solid framework for what an extension could and should look like. Yes, there are risks, but the Red Sox shouldn’t sit at the high rollers table if they’re not willing to push in their chips.
That projected deal was a bit lighter than his actual six-year, $170 million contract, with the main difference being that I had it going into effect this year, when he’s scheduled to get paid $4.5 million. Projections aren’t static things, however, and Crochet is coming off a dynamite spring in which he struck out 30 batters in 15 2/3 innings and allowed just a single run. He also had a decent, though not amazing, Opening Day start against the Texas Rangers. Spring training and one regular-season start aren’t enough to drastically change most projections, especially for established players, but they do nudge them in one direction or the other. Let’s stuff some stats onto the ZiPS griddle and flip off some projection flapjacks.
ZiPS Projection – Garrett Crochet
Year
W
L
ERA
FIP
G
GS
IP
H
ER
HR
BB
SO
ERA+
WAR
$
STATUS
2026
12
5
2.88
2.68
29
29
137.3
117
44
11
43
172
145
3.6
$18.1M
ARB3
2027
12
5
3.01
2.78
29
29
140.7
123
47
11
43
172
139
3.5
$32.8M
FA
2028
12
6
3.14
2.88
30
30
140.7
127
49
12
42
167
134
3.4
$32.4M
FA
2029
11
7
3.21
2.98
30
30
140.0
129
50
12
41
161
130
3.2
$31.8M
FA
2030
11
6
3.36
3.08
29
29
136.7
128
51
12
40
153
125
3.0
$30.3M
FA
2031
11
7
3.42
3.14
30
30
139.7
133
53
13
42
154
123
3.0
$31.3M
FA
With a projected $18.1 million salary in 2026, which would’ve been Crochet’s final season before free agency, ZiPS would offer him a six-year, $176.6 million extension (though in both the previous and current projections, I think ZiPS is being too optimistic on his final arbitration year salary given how large a jump it is). The opt-out clause in Crochet’s new contract isn’t a major one in that it only allows him to exit a year early, so it doesn’t have the same dramatic effect as one after 2026 or 2027 would have.
You could say that this is a lot of money for a pitcher with 224 career innings in the majors, an injury history, and a résumé that was more speculation than results at this time last year. You’d be right that it’s a lot of money, but the projections already factor in these risks. Crochet, with a lengthy track record and a spotless injury history almost certainly would’ve received a larger sum of cash. I actually accounted for this by telling ZiPS to assume that Crochet throws 200 innings in 2025, and to insert pre-injury projections of him as a starter in 2022 and 2023. With that lengthier and more durable track record, ZiPS would project him to get a six-year, $270 million contract! You can look at this actual extension as the Red Sox saving about $100 million for the risks they’re assuming, on top of the injury protection clause in the contract.
Anyway, back to non-imagination Crochet. You should ignore the games started total in the projections, as ZiPS is a little befuddled on his exact usage because of his very unusual workload pattern. More than half his 2024 starts lasted fewer than five innings, as the White Sox were (rightly) extremely careful with him as he was coming off Tommy John surgery and being converted to a starter. The innings totals, though, are far more solid, and this projection is generated based on Crochet never having better than coin-flip odds to qualify for the ERA title. ZiPS projects Crochet to be the fifth-most valuable pitcher in baseball through the 2031 season, behind Tarik Skubal, Logan Webb, Paul Skenes, and Corbin Burnes, and just ahead of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Hunter Greene. Who among those names would you likely get for merely $170 million if they were free agents soon?
Crochet clearly wanted this deal, making public statements last year to the effect that he was seeking a long-term contract no matter where he ended up. The Red Sox clearly wanted this deal; while they have better prospects, I doubt they would have traded Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, and Chase Meidroth if they had zero expectation of extending Crochet. And Red Sox fans ought to have wanted this deal. Crochet is a true no. 1 starter who, in just six years, is projected to become the fifth-most valuable lefty in Red Sox history. The last day of March 2025 was a good day for the Boston Red Sox.
The Vernal equinox was last week, but we all know that today, Opening Day, marks the real end of winter. As I’ve done for the last two decades, I’ve had ZiPS crunch the numbers and generate projected standings for the upcoming season. Now, we just wait for reality to destroy all those neat little projections. But first, a quick reminder of methodology.
The big change here is that ZiPS now does include spring training performance. The data is weighted significantly less than regular season performance, but one should treat projections as a constantly moving thing, not one static unchanging number. Every baseball thing has some potential to change a player’s outlook; just because data is harder to use doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. So check out some projections such as Jac Caglianone, Cam Smith, and Spencer Schwellenbach to see some of the players who got significant spring boosts. Read the rest of this entry »
As someone who runs a lot of projections, I’m used to being very wrong. Of the approximately 4,000 players projected every season, some 800 or so will fail to meet their 10th-percentile projection or exceed their 90th, meaning ZiPS, and by extension Dan Szymborski, will be/look horribly wrong. There’s still time before the start of the regular season to put myself into even greater jeopardy, meaning it’s time for my annual list of favorite booms and busts. The concept for these is simple, in that these are my picks for players to change how they are currently perceived. Sometimes it’s because of a projection, sometimes because of a hunch, a gut feeling, or just something I think projections might not be capturing. Since we’re going on a limb here, there will be some epic failures, and maybe [prayer emoji] even a success or two.
As usual, let’s start with a quick review of last year’s picks, this time the pitchers.
Last season was one of my weaker years, though there were a few highlights, mainly Hunter Greene and Hunter Brown. Maybe all I need are more guys named Hunter in baseball. I said I’d eat Cincinnati chili if Nelson finished the season with an ERA above four, but he missed almost the entire year with thoracic outlet syndrome, so I’ll need a ruling from the comments whether I have to face my meaty fate or if I get a mulligan because of the injury.
OK, on to the picks, before I get sidetracked into a 700-word rant about my chili proclivities. Read the rest of this entry »
In order to bolster their Grayson Rodriguez-less starting rotation, the Baltimore Orioles agreed to a one-year contract worth $5.25 million with free agent starting pitcher Kyle Gibson. The 37-year-old Gibson pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2024, posting a 4.24 ERA and a 4.42 FIP in 30 starts over 169 2/3 innings, good for 1.5 WAR.
In 2023, the Orioles signed Gibson as a veteran arm who could eat innings, a useful purpose for a rebuilding team transitioning to contention and seeking to buttress a patchwork rotation. This was a task that Gibson accomplished successfully that season, scarfing down 192 innings for a 101-win team that lacked any other well-established starting pitchers. After the emergence of Kyle Bradish and Rodriguez’s relatively successful big league debut, the O’s saw less need for a caretaker starter in 2024. So Gibson moved on to St. Louis, a team that was stung in 2023 by the fact that nearly every starting pitcher except Miles Mikolas missed significant time due to injuries. While the 2024 Cardinals didn’t get back to to the playoffs, their failures could hardly be pinned on Gibson, who put up his typical workhorse season, finishing second in innings on the Cardinals, just behind Mikolas.
With the Cardinals in transition and seemingly determined to do nothing of substance during the offseason, they made little attempt to retain Gibson’s services for a second year. As one of the last remaining starting pitchers in free agency with a résumé to command a major league contract, it was likely only a matter of time until Gibson found a suitor to sign him. He joins a familiar club facing a familiar situation, as the Orioles are once again dealing with a thin starting rotation. Corbin Burnes is gone, Rodriguez is out with a triceps injury, and Bradish isn’t expected back for a while after undergoing Tommy John surgery last June. Over the winter, Baltimore added two-time All-Star Charlie Morton and NPB veteran Tomoyuki Sugano to make up for the loss of Burnes, but considering Morton is 41 and Sugano is a 35-year-old control pitcher who hasn’t yet played in the U.S., both of them come with plenty of risk attached.
The hope for the Orioles is that Gibson becomes unimportant to the roster sometime in the summer, as Rodriguez, Trevor Rogers, and prospect Chayce McDermott (no. 71 overall, 50 FV) return from injuries, with Bradish possibly due back in the second half, but this would represent a best-case scenario. Gibson’s contract reflects this uncertainty; based on innings and games started, he can earn just over another $1.5 million in incentives.
Gibson doesn’t have a fastball that flirts with 100 mph or one of those crazy 90-mph changeups that would have seemed like a tall tale 30 years ago. What he does do is make the most out of a six-pitch repertoire, resulting in a better pitcher than one might expect from his middling stuff. Star-level performances get teams to the playoffs, but so too do players with immaculate attendance. It may seem weird, but Gibson’s 112 wins is enough to rank him sixth among active pitchers, and he also ranks seventh in starts and eighth in innings. These three metrics aren’t indications of excellence, but competence, and that also has value.
ZiPS Projection – Kyle Gibson
Year
W
L
ERA
FIP
G
GS
IP
H
ER
HR
BB
SO
ERA+
WAR
$
2025
7
8
4.55
4.53
25
25
138.3
143
70
19
54
117
87
0.8
$4.6M
ZiPS Projection Percentiles – Kyle Gibson
Percentile
ERA+
ERA
WAR
95%
117
3.41
2.7
90%
108
3.69
2.2
80%
100
3.97
1.7
70%
95
4.17
1.4
60%
91
4.39
1.0
50%
87
4.55
0.8
40%
84
4.73
0.5
30%
79
5.02
0.1
20%
75
5.30
-0.2
10%
69
5.78
-0.8
5%
64
6.22
-1.3
Suffice it to say, ZiPS isn’t terribly excited about Gibson’s 2025, but then again, that’s beside the point. The O’s are no longer rebuilding or on the cusp of competing; they’re expected to contend for the AL East title. For a lot of teams, signing Gibson would be a bad idea, as they’d get a lot more out of signing a fourth starter with real upside rather than an innings-eater in his late 30s. But for the O’s, they’re getting the right pitcher at the right time, and basically for the right price. Despite my curmudgeonly inclinations, I can’t find a good reason to complain about that.
As someone who runs a lot of projections, I’m used to being very wrong. Of the approximately 4,000 players projected every season, some 800 or so will fail to meet their 10th-percentile projection or exceed their 90th, meaning ZiPS, and by extension Dan Szymborski, will be/look horribly wrong. There’s still time before the start of the regular season to put myself into even greater jeopardy, meaning it’s time for my annual list of favorite booms and busts. The concept for these is simple, in that these are my picks for players to change how they are currently perceived. Sometimes it’s because of a projection, sometimes because of a hunch, a gut feeling, or just something I think projections might not be capturing. Since we’re going on a limb here, there will be some epic failures, and maybe [prayer emoji] even a success or two.
Dan Szymborski
