Projection Systems Disagree on How Baltimore Orioles Will Perform This Season

Projection systems cannot come to an agreement on how the Baltimore Orioles will perform in 2025.

Oct 1, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson (2) looks out from the dugout against the Kansas City Royals in game one of the Wild Card round for the 2024 MLB Playoffs at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. | Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The Baltimore Orioles witnessed their overall record take a 10-win hit from 2023, which saw them finish at 101-61, to 2024, when they finished at 91-71.

The decrease in win percentage saw the team's standing in the American League take a hit, too, as they won the AL East in 2023 but had to settle for a Wild Card berth for the 2024 playoffs.

With pitchers and catchers slated to begin reporting across MLB over the coming days, projections for the 2025 campaign have begun to be released by multiple sites.

Those projections have failed to come to an agreement on how the Orioles will perform this year, with PECOTA giving the team a 75.6% chance at making the playoffs, while Fangraphs has their chances at only 44%, a 31.6-point difference and the second-largest in MLB.

"PECOTA projects the Orioles to overcome the losses of Burnes and Santander and challenge the Yankees for AL East supremacy," writes Thomas Harrigan in a recent article for MLB.com. "FanGraphs, though, sees things differently, ranking the O’s eighth among AL clubs in terms of playoff odds."

It is hard to imagine Baltimore overcoming the loss of both Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander in the coming season, as they have done a lot of nothing this winter to make up for those losses.

While Santander could fail to reach the 40-home run plateau for the second time in as many years, he is still a solid source of 30 or more homers on an annual basis, and that power will be sorely missed in this lineup.

The loss of Burnes will have a much greater impact on this club since they have done nothing to replace him at the top of the rotation.

As things currently stand, Fangraphs projects Zach Eflin to front the starting unit, rounded out by Grayson Rodriguez, Charlie Morton, Dean Kremer and Tomoyuki Sugano.

There is no true ace to be found amongst this group.

It is hard to envision Baltimore having as much success in 2025 as they had in 2023, or even 2024, based on the drastic step back their starting rotation has taken, especially when considering the star-studded lineups they have to face in the AL East.

While the projection systems cannot come to a decisive assessment of this team, both are far more generous than they should be, since the Orioles' best chance at a playoff berth in 2025 may be as the third Wild Card team.