The Orioles Are Better Than We Thought, Again

There’s a certain urgency to a post like this. Yesterday, I talked about the Cubs, and I had little choice but to mention the Cubs probably won’t win the World Series. The Orioles, one has to figure, are worse than the Cubs, so the Orioles probably won’t win the World Series, either. The odds are strongly against every individual team, meaning fans of every individual team are likely looking ahead to crushing heartbreak. If and when that heartbreak occurs, it’ll be a little while before people want to reflect upon happy memories.

So instead of waiting, I want to slide this in today. For all I know, some hours from now, the Orioles’ 2016 season will come to an end. They have something like a 50/50 shot to move past the Blue Jays, and then they’d just be rewarded with another tough match-up against another tough roster. The playoffs are hard and the playoffs are draining. But no matter what happens soon, it was another strong season for Baltimore. And it was another strong season that the projections didn’t expect.

The Orioles won 89 times. That wasn’t enough times to win the division, but it was enough times to get them to the Fourth of October. They’ll play another team that won 89 times. But there is one big difference here. Just before the start of the season, we had the Blue Jays projected to win about 84 times. We had the Orioles, meanwhile, projected to win about 78 times. Believe it or not, the Orioles had our second-lowest American League projected winning percentage. I know that doesn’t make us look great, but better to embrace your flaws than ignore them.

The Rangers were the team that most defeated the projection game — they cleared their projected win total by 16. Now, the way the Rangers won would’ve arguably been impossible to project, but, whatever, the season’s complete and wins are wins. The Rangers beat their projection by the most. The Orioles beat their projection by the second-most. And if you’ve been paying attention, this isn’t even necessarily anything new.

We can make things really simple! Leaving aside any issues of magnitude, this was the fifth year in a row that the Orioles won more games than they were projected to win. Five years in a row, the Orioles have been projected to finish at least a hair under .500. Five years in a row, the Orioles have finished at at least .500. Let’s say a given team has a 50% chance of beating its projection, and a 50% chance of falling short. It’s a bit of an over-simplification, but it’s good enough. To beat your projection five years in a row: 3.1% chance of happening. Slim chance. And the magnitudes matter.

I’ll show you what I mean. There’s not really anything special about examining specifically the last five seasons, but that’s what I’ve done. Here are five-year preseason projected win totals:

The order of teams shouldn’t be shocking. We’ve all observed and discussed these projections. But go ahead and search for the Orioles. They’re sixth-worst, between the Marlins and the White Sox. Teams go through cycles and there are ups and there are downs, but over five years, on average, the Orioles have been projected to be fairly lousy. Here are five-year actual win totals:

The Cardinals are first. They were fourth in the projections. The Nationals are second. They were first in the projections. The Dodgers are third. They were second in the projections. The Orioles are fourth. They were 25th in the projections. I don’t think you could say that in any given year recently, the Orioles have been dominant. But over this five-year stretch, the Orioles have been almost as successful as any other organization, after having been projected to be pretty bad. I genuinely don’t know what that means, but I know that it has to feel good.

This plot is the difference between the above two plots. This shows the difference between five-year actual wins and five-year projected wins.

However you want to examine this depends on how you frame it. I’m not saying the Orioles have definitely been the trickiest team to project, but they’ve been the most underrated by the projections over the last five years. And by, you know, a ton. Shown here is a difference of 58 total wins. The Pirates are in second with a difference of 35 total wins. The Rockies are in last with a difference of -34 total wins. It’s the Orioles who stand out by a mile, and, say, I mentioned yesterday I have projections going back to 2005. Here are the most exceptional five-year stretches, in terms of actual wins – projected wins.

It’s the Orioles, again, by a bunch. They were most exceptional in 2012. The big projection-defeating years have been 2012, 2014, and 2016. The 2012 – 2014 stretch was nuttier than the 2014 – 2016 stretch, in these terms. But as fans are concerned, it’s all been the same run. The Orioles built themselves an extended competitive window, and the projections just haven’t seen it.

One more plot. I can’t not bring up BaseRuns. You could argue that differences between actual record and BaseRuns record are just about un-projectable. BaseRuns strips away a lot of the randomness. Over the last five years, the Royals have won 25 more games than BaseRuns would’ve expected. The Orioles are tied for second at +24. Why don’t we take that away, just for fun? Here are five-year differences between BaseRuns wins and projected wins.

It’s still the Orioles in first, by 10 wins. So the projections haven’t just missed on account of the un-projectable events. The Orioles have very legitimately out-played their projections, even when you take away what’s mostly explained as random. In four of the last five years, the Orioles’ BaseRuns record has been better than the projected record by at least six wins. In the fifth year, they were the same. The point being, the Orioles have knocked their projections out of the park, and they’ve done it far more than anyone else.

Once again, I don’t have an explanation. I’d like to pretend that I do, but the best I can muster is some of this credit should go to Buck Showalter. And, you know, that back of the bullpen that we’ve all discussed. I’m not an authority on why certain teams over-achieve, and I might never be. But the Orioles have pretty consistently over-achieved, to the point where, over five years, only three other baseball teams have won more games. That’s outstanding, and to some extent it should serve as consolation for various moves that haven’t worked out. Orioles fans have agonized for a few years over the loss of Jake Arrieta, and that’s fine and justifiable. Losing a guy like that sucks. Yet by and large, despite everything, the Orioles of the last half-decade have been terrific. I’m not sure how long they’ll keep it up, but three trips to the playoffs are a heck of a reward, considering the math might’ve argued for tanking.