Orioles Close on Rays' Heels

I’ve written quite a bit about the Rays and the Yankees. When the Red Sox were surging after a terrible start, I dabbled in some short-term optimism about their chances. But I’ve hardly paid attention to the Orioles and the Blue Jays.

Today, I look at the Orioles and assess their strengths and weakness.

On Wednesday, I will dive into the Blue Jays and see if they have what it takes to make a real push for the AL East Division title.

But first, I want to return to a subject I’ve written about before, in 2016, for The Sporting News. Yesterday, of course, was Mother’s Day. MLB players were festooned in pink socks, pink batting gloves, and caps with pink stitching. Not because pink is the most stereotypical color the league could choose to honor women, but because MLB uses Mother’s Day to raise awareness of and funds for the Susan G. Komen Fund, a breast cancer organization.

As I wrote in 2016, MLB’s efforts to focus attention on breast cancer is laudable, but doing it on Mother’s Day reduces mothers to an illness when their contributions to baseball go much deeper. I envisioned a different way for MLB to commemorate women and mothers:

Seven years later, I reiterate my call for MLB to honor mothers in a more meaningful way.

Birds Taking Flight in Baltimore

Are they rebuilding or are they competing? That’s been a key question about the Orioles since the team’s payroll for the 40-man roster hit a high water mark of $167 million in 2017 and then trended downward, significantly, through 2022. That year, Baltimore’s 40-man player salaries totaled just over $60 million. This season, the Orioles opened the season with a 26-man roster in that same $60 million range.

According to Baseball-Reference, Baltimore has the fifth-youngest roster of position players and eighth-youngest rotation and bullpen. Thanks to excellent play by these young and inexpensive players, the Orioles are rebuilding and winning at the same time.

Let’s talk about pitching first. The rotation is solid but not spectacular. The starters’ strikeout rate is too low (7.93 per 9), the walk rate is too high (3.03 per 9) and they give up too many home runs (1.43 per 9). Tyler Wells has been Baltimore’s best starter by most metrics, but he’s also been lucky: he’s giving up a batting-average-on-ball-in-play (BABIP) of only .145, which is insanely low. And we know it’s luck and not the Orioles’ defense because the O’s have played some of the worst defense in the league so far.

The bullpen, though, has been very, very good. Baltimore’s relievers are striking out 10.72 per 9, the best mark in the American League, and stranding 76.8% of runners on base, second only to the Yankees’ pen.

Yennier Cano has the led the charge for O’s relievers. In 19.2 innings pitched, Cano hasn’t walked a batter or given up a home run. Felix Bautista dominates batters with his fastball-splitter combination. Bryan Baker is the third best Orioles reliever and he’s sporting a 1.89 ERA. This Giants fan is very, very jealous.

A lot of Orioles fans are looking Adley Rutschman the way Rutschman looks at Felix Bautista.

The 25-year-old, second-year catcher is doing it all for Baltimore. Rutschman has played in every game so far this season. When he’s not behind the plate, he’s in the lineup as the designated hitter. He’s a switch hitter, so O’s manager Brandon Hyde can use him in any situation.

Rutschman is batting .287/.412/.455 with 6 home runs, 22 RBI and a 144 wRC+. Only Jonah Heim in Texas has better offensive numbers among American League catchers. And while Rutschman’s pitching framing, blocking and throwing can use improvement, he’s performing at an exceedingly high level for a catcher at his young age.

Cedric Mullins II leads Baltimore’s offensive charge. The O’s centerfielder came into the season with some high intensity innings under his belt after playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Championship. Mullins is .267/.359/.466. He’s stolen 12 bases and driven in 31 runs.

In addition to Rutschman and Mullins, five other regulars in the Orioles’ lineup have wRC+ over 100—meaning they are producing more runs for their team than the average major league player, adjusted for park effects. Those five are Jorge Mateo, Ramon Urias, Anthony Santander, Austin Hayes, and Ryan McKenna. First baseman Ryan Mountcastle strikeouts too much and hardly ever walks—which hurts his wRC+—but he has hit 8 home runs.

Amid all this early season success, there are some troubling signs for the Orioles as they chase the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Orioles have scored 200 runs and allowed 170, making their expected record 23-17, compared to their actual record of 26-14. It helps that they are 8-4 in one-run games, thanks to their excellent bullpen. At some point, though, the O’s less-than-mediocre defense will hurt the team, particularly in close games.

The offense has bailed the rotation out of some bad starts. If the offense cools at all, the starters will need to perform at a higher level than they have so far. It’s unclear if they can.

It’s also unclear if Orioles ownership will authorize General Manager Mike Elias to take on more salary in a trade for, let’s say, a quality starter and better defenders. If they don’t, then we’ll know the Orioles remain more in rebuilding mode than winning mode.