Why a healthy Jordan Westburg could be the Orioles most important player in 2026

Why a healthy Jordan Westburg could be the Orioles most important player in 2026

Out of all the injuries the Orioles suffered in 2025, the ones to Jordan Westber may have hurt this team the most. We’ll recap what was left of his 2025 season coming up on this episode of the Locked On Orioles podcast. You are Locked On Orioles, your daily Baltimore Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hey there, Orioles fans. Today is Friday, October 17th, 2025, and welcome back in to the Locked Ono podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, I’m your host, Connor Nukem. And coming up on today’s episode, we are going to recap the 2025 season for Jordan West. Taking a look at how good he was he was when he was on the field and healthy, how he struggled when he was playing through injury and the multitude of actual injuries that placed him on the IIL this season. But that’s all coming up on this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast, which is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today. So, we will continue on with our Orioles season review series for each player, talking about what went right, what went wrong, and what their biggest storyline is heading into 2026. Yesterday’s episode was Dean Kramer. Make sure to go back and check that one out. Kind of was posted later in the day than usual. So, if you missed that one, it is there wherever you listen to podcasts and here on YouTube. And we’ve got today Jordan Westper going in descending order of fan graphs war these players acrewed in 2025. I do understand that I haven’t really talked much about the Orioles reportedly being interested in Albert Pulhos as their manager. Again, that’s going to be coming up most likely on Monday’s episode. Um, just want to have a little bit more managerial stuff to talk about by then. My overall take about Puhols before we jump into Jordan Westber, I think it’s much more likely he is hired as the Angels manager than the Orioles. that’s been pretty clear. He is their top target. He’s still being paid by the Angels. He played there for a long time. But if you’re Post and you’re looking for the better team and better organization, it is clearly the O’s over the Angels. I appreciate in general, I don’t think Albert Pos is going to be the Orioles manager, but I appreciate that the Orioles are willing to look outside the box a little bit in terms of who is going to be that next manager. I think Pulos, even though he’s a Hall of Fame player, kind of fits into that mold of looking a little bit outside the box. So, I do appreciate that kind of Mike Elias and the team turning over a lot of stones in this process. But let’s move on to Jordan Westber who again had an injury riddled season and he played 107 games in 2024 before he got hit by a pitch and broke his hand. This year it was multiple injuries that kept him to only 85 games in 2025. He had 352 played appearances. Final slash line for Westber, a 265 average, a 313 on base percentage, and a 457 slugging percentage was good for a 115 W wrc plus this year, meaning he was 15% better than league average as a hitter. That was down from 124 last season. His walk rate around 5%, his strikeout rate around 23%, all very similar to 2024. He did hit 17 home runs in about a 100 fewer plate appearances after hitting 18 last year. So the power number purely with homers went up, but he only stole one base after six last season. Drove in 41 runs. All in all, it was a 1.9 war season for Westber, playing about half the games in the year, according to Fan Graph. So let’s start for Westber in what went right this season. And what went right was he was essentially almost as productive this year as he was last year despite all the injuries he suffered. and we’ll get to him and when we talk about what went wrong, but it was a hamstring, it was an ankle, it was an upper body issue, it was other things he was dealing with throughout the season. But remember, last season, Westber was awesome. He was an all-star in 2024. He was having an amazing year, and then in late July, he gets hit on the hand by a fast ball, breaks part of his hand, misses all of August, most of September, comes back late in the season, and does play in the two games in the postseason against the Royals, but you weren’t even sure if he was 100%. He only played in six regular season games before the postseason and so that 124 WRC plus he had last year was when he was healthy. So a 115 this year among all the injuries he played through is is pretty impressive as well. And and after the hamstring injury when he came back from that one, that was the first major injury this year. He was really really good. He returned in June, had a 136 WRC plus that month. Had a 160 in July and a 126 in August. in the parts of those three month, it wasn’t three full months because of injuries, but the parts of those three months that he played in Westber looked like a really good player. The issue was his June got cut into coming back from the hamstring injury. His July got cut into as well, I believe. Was that when he had like the some sort of finger thing going on? I mean, that was his his healthiest month. He played 21 games and that was his best month as well. So, you love to see that. And his August got cut into maybe the the August was the finger thing. Either way, he only played 16 games in August. I mean, it was just it was just a season injury-wise to forget for Wester, but when he was on the field again, like he was he was good and he was he struggled in April when he was playing through something. When he came back in September, it was very similar. He comes back from the ankle injury in September and plays in in 12 games down the stretch. He wasn’t very good there. It’s possible he wasn’t even 100% when he came back and it was only 12 games. But after May 1st, he had a 127 WRC plus. That’s better than his production last year in the All-Star year. He had a 45% hard hit rate, 11% bail rate after May 1st. That that’s pretty in line with the healthy part of 2024. So those are those are all good things for Westber. Now, at the end of the season, his advanced data doesn’t look as good as it did last year, but some of that was because it was so bad early in the year when he was trying to play through injury, as we’ll get to. I I think overall in the times when he was on the field and was actually playing healthy, it was pretty good, which we’ll get to in a little bit as well. And I think the other thing that went right for Jordan Westber this season was he finally got to settle at a position at third base and he played really well there defensively. We always known Westber has been a skilled defender. Kind of came up as a short stop then moved over to third base and second base. But in 2024 he was still mainly playing third base. 60% of his starts in the field came at third base. 39% of them came at second base. Then he also did start one game at shortstop last year. but he had a negative five total fielding run value. Fielding run value is kind of the all-encompassing fielding stat over at Statcast and Baseball Savant. That kind of includes ounce above average and other things to really put your fielding into how many runs you’re helping or costing your team. And he basically cost the Orioles five runs defensively last year. But here was the thing. When you break it down by position, he was a negative six fielding run value at second base and a plus one at third base. Remember that was more time spent at third than second. In the smaller amount of time he played at second base he was kind of a disaster metrically. It was very clear that third base even from the eye test was the much better defensive position for Westber. But they kept jostling him around. This year third base became more of his start. 76% of his starts were at third with only 24% of them on defense coming at second base. He also it was only 16 total starts at second this year. He also dhaged more this year when he was trying to like play through injury and the O’s were trying to give him like that half day off, but he was overall went from a neg five to a plus two fielding run value. He was also a plus one at each position. So he did improvements at second base, but the Orioles also just allowing him to settle in more at third. I think made his defense better. And and early in the year, he was playing some second base. Actually started at second in seven of the first 10 games of the year that he played in for the Orioles. Because back then, even early in the season, Jackson Holiday was still platooning and the Orioles faced a ton of left-handed starting pitchers early in the year. So, Jackson was on the bench. They would put Westber at second and start Aras at third and even play, you know, like a little bit of of Matteo or others at shortstop. After those first 10 games when he started seven games at second, he only started nine more games at second base all year. So, really were able to slot him in at third base. It’s clearly his much better spot. And now I think we can all agree and again he still has some steps to take and some things to prove. But I feel comfortable saying Jackson Holiday is pencled into second base next year from opening day and and isn’t going to really be sitting much against left-handers. That allows you to pencil in Henderson at shortstop and pencil in Jordan West at third base, his better position where he knows he’s going to play. I really don’t think unless Holiday gets injured. Westber is going to play much second base at all next year. Like it was 16 starts this year. I if Holiday’s healthy, I can guarantee it’s going to be less than 16 this coming year for Jordan Westber. He’s better at third. It fits the defensive alignment in the infield better anyway. And I think it was definitely a positive for him this season. But unfortunately, as I mentioned, it was just an injury riddled year. And that that is really the big part of what went wrong for Jordan Westber this season. We’ll get to that right after this. But first, this episode of the Lockdown Orioles podcast is brought to you by Prize Picks. 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Let’s talk about what went wrong for Westber this year, and a lot of it has to do with the injuries. I mean, injuries just destroyed his season again. And Westber started out redhot in Toronto. First three games of the season, Westber homers three times, including having a two homer game as the Orioles win two out of the first three against the Blue Jays. Then something happened. We’re still not exactly sure what it was, but he got hurt. He the Orioles sat him, gave him a day off in that Sunday game, the fourth game of the year when he was dealing with something. He came back in that next week and was playing, but was clearly not okay. He was on the active roster through most of the month of April, but he was terrible for those next 20 games when Westberg came back. He was not good. Like when he he got that one day off and then he came back for 20 games, he was terrible in those next 20 games in April. 177 226 266 with a 37 WRC plus low bat speed low hard hit rate. That was his stretch of 20 games. That included a stretch at the plate where he went 0 for30 before he had a home run at home late in April. It was clearly something that was wrong. And Westber even talked about it with the media a couple times. Didn’t exactly say what was going on. The Orioles said it was some sort of upper body thing. The O talked about how he got run down playing on the turf in Toronto and something happened injury-wise. And Westber even was quoted a couple of times saying that, you know, he was he was dealing with something and he just he felt like he was going to be playing through it for a while. And clearly it got to the point where either he couldn’t play through it or it seemed like he he sustained another injury and that gave him I guess a better excuse to just go on the injury list because on April 28th the Orioles placed him on the 10-day I with a left hamstring strain. one of the many Orioles that somehow suffered a hamstring strain this season. And again, it seemed like there were multiple injuries though that he was dealing with. He missed almost six weeks and did not come back until June 10th. Now, he came back June 10th and he was healthy. We saw a healthy and really, really good Westber. For those next 50 games where he was healthy after coming back June 10th, that was all-star level Jordan Westber. 304 354 513 slash for a 143 WRC plus he was the Orio’s best hitter for those 50 games June through July he looked awesome. It was like, “Wow, this this looks like the Orio’s second best player behind Gunnar Henderson when he was out there.” And then he gets hurt again. August 19th, goes on the injured list a few days after spraining his ankle, rounding second base at Fenway Park, and misses about a month. Returned on September 16th, still did DH some when he came back and he just he wasn’t right. He had just a 58 WRC plus in those 12 games in September when he returned. Maybe wasn’t ready. Obviously, wasn’t a lot to play for either. So truly by the end of the year he played 85 games, but you could argue he was maybe only healthy for 53 of them, right? The 50 in the middle and then the three at the beginning of the season in Toronto before he suffered the injury. In those 53 games, he was the Orio’s best hitter. He was one of the better hitters in the American League if you cut out those 53 games. Unfortunately, you can’t because you got the other games he played and then all the games he missed because he was on the injured list. Now, when he was out there, the other thing was, you know, the kind of damage he did was not the same. Now, he did have a 513 slugging in those 50 games he was fully healthy. That would have been a careerhigh, so the power was still there, but the biggest issue when he tried to play through injury was was hitting the fast ball and driving the fastball. In 2024, Westber had a plus 10 run value against four seam fast balls. the run value by stat cast showing like how many runs essentially you’re producing for your team when you’re facing a four seamer. Plus 10 is great. He hit 294. He slugged 624 against four seamers. This year had a negative one run value against four steamers. That’s the most you know common pitch you’re going to see. 212 average slugging down to 365. Average exit velocity was down. Now some of that is certainly the injuries he was trying to play through especially in April but some is also some lower production. He was just he was not turning those fast balls into the best kind of batted balls like he was in that All-Star 2024 season. Now, we’ve talked about this before on this show, but the kind of batted balls that lead most to hits are pulled balls in the air. Those generally leads to the most extra base hits and the most home runs. And then if you’re going to hit the ball on the ground, more hits coming from hitting the ball on the ground the opposite way. Those are the two kind of best batted balls to lead to hits. Opposite field grounders and pulled fly balls. Now, line drives are usually the best way to do it, but if you’re not going to hit consistent liners, it’s hard to hit consistent liners. That’s how you want to hit the ball. Jordan Westber, only 2% of his grounders were hit the opposite way. That’s not going to do it. His pulled air rate fell from 25% in 2023, which is an elite number, to 20% last year, which is really good, to 12% this year, which is pretty bad in 2025. Now, these stats don’t mean that you are necessarily bad. These things don’t mean you are necessarily good. But for example, the number two guy in pool air rate this year is Cal Raleigh, the guy who might win AL MVP and is in the process of leading his Mariners probably to the World Series. Now, there’s other guys in pool air rate who aren’t as good of hitters. There’s guys at the bottom of the pool air rate list who are good hitters. But in general, those are things you want to do. And we’ve seen it for the past two years be something Westber’s been good at and that has allowed him to have success at the plate. And it’s just not really something he did this year. And it’s interesting again because again he hit 18 homers last year, hit 17 homers this year and 100 fewer plate appearances. Some of that shows, hey, the power was better, but also the general isolated power was down. The slugging percentage was down over 20 points. So, just something was not right. And I really think it was he was driving four seam fast balls last year. Just didn’t do it at all. Guys could easily get those four seamers by him this year. And maybe it’s some injury, losing bat speed because of injury, can’t get to the high fast ball, whatever it may be. If you can’t hit four seamers, it is really tough to stay in this league. You know, we talk about a guy like Colton Cowser who struggles so much with the breaking balls and the off speed, but he demolishes fast balls. And that’s why Colton Cowser can still be a big league player because he’s a good defender. And when he gets a fast ball, he will rip the baseball and do a lot of damage. He just needs to get better on breaking balls and off speed. If you hit off speed, but you can’t hit fast balls, it is much harder to stay in the big leagues as a hitter like that. Now, we’re not near that level with Jordan West. Again, he was still 15% better than league average this season, but it’s something to monitor and it’s something you just hope was because of injury and not because of other issues that he was dealing with offensively. So, that brings us to, you know, what are the biggest storylines, biggest questions for him heading into 2026? I think the easy one is, can he just stay healthy? And that’s what we’ll talk about coming up next to finish off the show. If he can stay healthy, if we can finally see a full big league season of Jordan Westber, how important could he be to this Orioles team? But first, this episode of the Lockdown Orioles podcast is also brought to you by FanDuel. Now, the NFL season is here and FanDuel has an offer you don’t want to miss. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. Just pick a bet, put down five bucks, and if it hits, you’ll unlock $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. And I love how FanDuel gives you so many ways to play. You can build parlays. You can try player props. You can even follow the live lines during the game. It makes watching football even more exciting when you want to avoid the Ravens or when they’re on a buy and you got a little something riding on the action. So whether you’re a casual fan or love diving into the stats, FanDuel makes the game day experience so much better. So what are you waiting for? Visit fanuel.com to download the FanDuel app today and get started. So for Westber, he had some really productive stretches when he was healthy. He had some bad stretches when he was trying to play through the pain. And he spent again a lot of time on the injured list. It’s not good when you’re a really important player and you only play 85 games in a season. That is what we saw from Westber. So, he’ll turn 27 in February, kind of right around when the Orioles start reporting to spring training. He’s still, you know, right around his prime years. He’s put together when he’s been on the field back-to-back good seasons, but we still have not seen a full year for Westber. So, let’s talk about biggest storylines for him heading into 2026. The first one is, can he stay healthy? When he’s on the field and he’s healthy, he’s an all-star level player. It’s it’s it’s that simple. When Jordan Westber is not playing through pain and he is on the field for the Orioles, he’s a good defender at third. He’s a really versatile hitter. He lengthens this lineup. He’s a really great guy to have in the middle of the order. He is just a special player. And I think for with the way the Orioles are constructed right now, a healthy Jordan Westber is probably the second best hitter on this team behind Gunnar Henderson. Now, there are ways that Jackson Holidayiday or Samuel Bisayio or resurgent Adley Rutman could change that, but right now I think most would agree it’s Jordan Westber number two behind Gunnar Henderson when he is healthy and out there. If he’s not out there, it’s probably a lot of Jeremiah Jackson at third base who really showed up on the scene and then kind of faded down the stretch this year in his first chance in the big leagues or whatever, you know, veteran utility type player the Orioles will probably sign to a one-year deal this offseason. I think it’s it’s pretty likely they signed one of those guys to the roster because again they did trade Ramona. Most likely he won’t be back. And that kind of player, whoever it is, Jackson, Aras, whatever, it’s it’s it’s going to be a guy who helps. Yeah, right. Ramona Reas played some some great time for this Orioles team the last two years filling in for Jordan Westber. But Aras was still always a step down from Westber and Jeremiah Jackson or, you know, a player like Willie Castro or something is still going to be a downgrade from Jordan West. you need Westy to be healthy and to be in that lineup. So the other question is if he’s healthy, can he take another step forward? Because we still have not seen a full West big league season. We’ve seen, you know, fuller minor league seasons, but not in the major leagues. Remember, in 2023, he debuted kind of in the middle of the year, so he played 68 games. 2024, he was on an all-star pace, 107 games. Then he gets hit by the pitch, breaks his hand, you know, misses 50 games or so before he comes back. And then this year only 85 games with the multiple injuries that he suffered between the hamstring and the, you know, the finger issue he dealt with for a little while there and the the ankle thing he dealt with. Like that, that was the other thing. Remember when Westberg had like that finger thing and he didn’t really go on the injured list, but he also missed like a week because of it. Like that that’s another thing that shows up in this season. And if we see, you know, 150 plus games of Jordan Westber, can we see a fully sustained season of a 120 130 W wrc plus player who plays good defense and helps out the team? Like Jordan Westber was worth three wins via fan graphs in 2024. That was only in 107 games. And in a season where his defensive metrics weren’t very good because he was so bad with the amount of second base he was playing, imagine a season where he plays maybe even just 140 games hits the way he does and is pretty much every day at third base his better defensive position. We’re looking at I think pretty easily could be a four to five win player to go along with Gunnar Henderson who I think is going to take a step you know back in the in the positive direction next year. You got a guy who you can hit second, third, fourth, fifth in your order and feel really, really good about it next season. That is what the Orioles are going to be looking for out of Jordan West. And I honestly think from what we’ve seen from Westy there, there are still questions about his game even when he’s healthy, right? He has doesn’t really walk much. You know, he when he came up, he walked a little bit, but he’s had a sub 5% walk rate each of the last two years. Not really where you want to be. Strikeout rate isn’t absurdly bad, right? 22 and 23%. You can be a star player with that kind of strikeout rate, but you’d like to walk a little more than 5% of the time. And there’s some other things in his swing that can get a little wacky as well. But I think in general, like if he’s a healthy player who plays a full season, this is an all-star level player. I don’t think that was a fluke, him making the All-Star team in 2024, I think that’s something he can do a couple more times in his career and be a really good hitter for a long, long time in this Orioles offense. And I think the other question for Westber more long term is just, you know, are the Orioles able to commit some years to him. Like he’s got plenty of time before we have to worry about it. He’s not a free agent until after 2029. So the Orioles still have four more years of team control of Jordan Westber, but he seems like the the perfect kind of player if he can show you in 2026 a full season healthy that maybe next off season you tried to get a an extension done with West. And I understand he is a Scott Boris client, which just in general makes it tougher to get an extension done. But the kind of player like Westber who isn’t going to get that, you know, I don’t think gigantic money when he would hit free agent after 2029 is maybe someone where he can work with Boris and they’re more likely to do a long-term extension with the Orioles. He would be a guy I’d be just so willing. I think his game could translate as he gets later into his career. Would be a perfect guy to extend if you’re able to do it. It’s going to be tougher because of Boris, but I just think him being healthy and I think the number one guy that has to get healthy is Adley Rutman on this team more than anyone else just because the defense, the offense, the leadership, everything. But a very close number two and maybe a 1B to Adley’s 1A is Jordan Westber. A full season of Jordan Westber could absolutely change the fortunes of this Orioles team back in a positive direction in 2026. But that’ll do it for today’s episode. Thank you so so much for tuning in. Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the Locked on Orioles YouTube channel. Make sure you are following, subscribing wherever you listen, Apple Podcast, Spotify. Leave a fivestar rating and a review as well. It really, really helps out the show. And if you have Orioles questions, you we’re going to do some mailbag questions uh later here in the off season. You want to just talk some ball, you want to give feedback to the show, I always appreciate it. You can always email me lockedonorolesgmail.com. That will do it for this week. Not just today, but this week on the show. I will be back on Monday. Enjoy the baseball this weekend. We’ll see if uh by the time I get back, we have two World Series contenders potentially by then. And most likely we’ll see what else happens over the weekend. We’ll chat a little uh Albert Pool host as Orioles manager and some other things coming up on Monday’s episode. We’re still five days a week. We’ll still continue to go through some of these player reviews for the 2025 season. Next up, when you’re looking at uh by the descending fan graphs war, we’re taking a look Kade Povich, Adley Rutman, and Jackson Holiday. Some of the players on tap for next week. But until then, I’m Connor Nukem and this has been the Lockdown Orioles podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Jordan Westburg had another good year when he was on the field, but he once again spent too much time on the injured list. Host Connor Newcomb recaps Westburg’s 2025 season with the Baltimore Orioles, discussing his mutliple injury, his defensive improvement, and why he will be an All-Star again.

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