Evaluating baseball teams early in the season is always suspect work.
Sample size becomes an annual discussion.Â
Clearly the more data you have, the less noisy whatever statistic you are looking at becomes.
So early on, you run the risk of both underrating, and overrating the limited information available to you.
Extrapolating from limited data points can lead to significant swings and misses with immediate assessments.
All you are doing right now is to trying to determine what matter, and what doesn’t?
What is sustainable, and what’s not?
Do the players have track-records which give some indication of what we should expect?
Historical precedence?
Fans and Media come into seasons with expectations for teams and players.
I’m sure Front Offices, Managers & Coaches, and players also have their own preexisting expectations.
Then the games start, and the results start to come in.
And the results either serve as confirmation bias towards the thoughts you had before a season started, or live in contradiction.
When the results match your expectations, you expect that to continue.
When the results contradict what you anticipated, you expect a course correction as sample size grows.
Baseball will always be a game built around failure.
It’s also a game where statistical analysis grows and tells a more complete story as seasons progress.
The analytics which have infiltrated baseball the past 25 years have changed the game in some ways, but more accurately have just revealed more truths.
However, for all of the analysis and data which exists; seasons do not always go to plan when the lights turn on.
Why might that be?
Well, there will always be variance. Every season begins with a myriad of possible outcomes within an expected window.
But you aren’t playing these seasons 1,000 times in a simulation.
You are playing it once, in real life, and that can lead to season which surprise in and out of that expected window.
Most things will find their equilibrium.
The .260 career hitter with 1,000 career ab’s that’s batting .315 in the middle of May; typically will find his average creeping down towards the career average with more at-bats.
Or maybe that early success is a harbinger of what’s to come, and this season becomes a career year?
Baseball can be a cold game.
At some point the numbers are the numbers.
You are what the numbers say you are.
In these early weeks of a season, there is a degree of artistry in-determining what’s real, and what’s not.
Some snap judgements and pronouncements you make now, will likely look silly later.
Some snap judgements and pronouncements you make now, will likely look prescient later too.
Here we review some things we’ve seen in this 9 game stretch, and give our snap judgements.
The Defense Is Limiting
I don’t think we need a larger sample to determine the ceiling for this group is only so high.
Rutschman, Henderson, and Cowser all have the ability to average and above at their positions.
That probably holds true for Alexander, Jeremiah Jackson, and Jackson Holliday (when Holliday returns) at 2nd.
Mayo is below average a 3rd.
Alonso is average at best at 1st.
Ward, and O’Neill are below average on the OF corners. Beavers might be average.
If Enrique Bradfield takes over CF at some point, and Cowser takes over an OF corner; the OF defense can improve.
If Westburg returns in June, and shows he can stay in the lineup – then 3rd base can be improved as well.
Right now you probably start Mayo at 3rd, and look to bring in Alexander as a defensive replacement in close and late.
You are probably replacing O’Neill or Ward with Beavers when possible.
There isn’t a great scenario for bringing up Bradfield.
That would likely take Cowser not hitting at all, or an injury occurring to Ward or O’Neill.
With or without Bradfield, and Westburg joining the roster and improving the glove-work, this isn’t going to be an elite defensive team.
Which means the pitchers aren’t helped.
Less put-outs made, more runners on the basepaths.
Less room for error for the staff.
The Touted Rotation Depth Already Has Issues
Eflin lasted 3.2 innings before his IL stint, and is now getting a 2nd opinion on his elbow. Would like to be wrong, but can’t say I have a lot of confidence in him contributing this year.
37 year old Chris Bassitt has now made two starts as an Oriole, and is giving 2025 Charlie Morton vibes. Bassitt made 30+ starts each of the last four seasons, and has been a reliably productive starter.
If he’s suddenly done, that’s limiting to the O’s expectations as a whole.
I’m glad Kremer is still around, I trust him to help the back of the rotation.
If another starter is needed, Tyler Wells and Albert Suarez give the O’s a couple of possibilities. Ideally both would be able to stay in the O’s pen and help there.
Ultimately Rogers, Bradish, and Baz have to lead the staff. Bradish having 6 walks in his first two outings isn’t great.
I think myself and other O’s fans will breathe easier, if he’s strong his next turn.
The Bullpen Is Not Good Enough
My thought entering the year was if the rotation was solid in-front, and Helsley was at All-Star form at Closer; the ‘pen could be good enough.
I did say my expectation would be that the O’s would need to add a high-leverage arm at the deadline.
Those would still be my general opinions.
But looking at this group further, I just don’t have a lot of trust in these arms.
If I were the O’s Front Office, I’d consider prioritizing acquiring another arm you can have confidence in sooner than later.
Is This Team Going To Hit Enough?
Through 9 games, the O’s have had 5 games of 3 runs scored or less.
They entered today 7th in on-base %, but just 16th in slugging %.
This team is expected to slug.
They need to slug, and consistently hit for power.
The rotation and bullpen can be good enough to win a lot of games with; if the O’s are a powerful offense which produces regularly.
The rotation and bullpen are not good enough, if the O’s offense proves to be more middling vs. elite.
Alonso is not going to slug .343 all year.
On the other-hand, Rutschman isn’t going to post an OPS near 1.000 all season.
Henderson has 37 ab’s.
Basallo has 27, Mayo 20, O’Neill 20, Cowser 17.
My head says evaluating any of them based on their 2026 body of work is ludicrous; but I do have thoughts.
Henderson’s floor is All-Star, and his ceiling is MVP. For this offense to be great, I think he has to be closer to ’24 Henderson vs. ’25 Henderson.
Basallo’s homer the other day, bounced against the batter’s eye past the CF wall at Camden Yards.
The power is prodigious, and clearly evident for anyone.
Give him enough ab’s, he’s going to run into a number of homers.
He’s got 11 k’s in his 27 ab’s, and he’s yet to double.
He’s staring at a .167 batting average in 132 ML career ab’s right now.
It’s natural power, he doesn’t have to try and hit the Warehouse with every swing.
He’s going to have to show an ability to find more green.
We talked about Mayo’s defense above.
I’ve said for years his future with the O’s was 1st or DH.
With Westburg starting on the IL, I was comfortable with him getting starts at 3rd, and figuring there would be defensive replacements in close and late.
I said I wasn’t going to regularly comment on his defense, and just hoped he would prove to not be a butcher.
Opening Day, he made a couple of good plays.
Yesterday was more of what you’d expect. Missed a double play because of a bobble. Missed another play which could have been called an error.
It’s not fair to kill him repeatedly for not being the glove you need / want at 3rd. He’s standing there, he’s trying his best, and by all accounts he works hard. It’s not just his skillset.
That said, if he’s going to stand there for these first two months while Westburg is out (and potentially longer if Westburg can not return); then has to hit.
Like Basallo, Mayo has plus power.
Mayo continues to look very stiff to me, and I think he struggles to cover the plate.
It’s probably not practical to be working on now, but I think he’d benefit by doing regular flexibility training.
That aside, he should be looking to drive the ball opposite field with pitches on the outer-half. He looks to me like he fixates on pulling everything, which I don’t understand with his existing power.
O’Neill’s track record says he can’t stay healthy.
It also says if this is a season where he can give you 110 games, and 400 ab’s; that he’ll provide some power.
One of the ways this lineup can prove to have some depth, is if he’s giving the O’s some punch.
He used to be a quality fielder. He’s not now.
If he doesn’t hit, he can’t play.
Cowser is a quality LF, and an average ish CF.
The .627 OPS in 17 ab’s means nothing, but his struggles against anything off-speed means something.
Adam Jones struggled against a slider his whole O’s career. Numerous bad looks on 2 strike counts.
But Jones adjusted his approach, and made opposing pitchers pay earlier in ab’s. He seemed to hunt for fastballs.
Cowser should be the same. Jones had a .771 OPS for his career. Numbers very consistent throughout his prime.
It’s concerning that after 904 career ab’s (702 career OPS), we’re not sure if Cowser is a lineup fixture or someone that will need to be replaced.
I do expect Cowser’s ’26 to more closely resemble his ’24 season vs. his ’25 season. 17 ab’s hasn’t changed my feelings there.
Is It Getting Late Early?
The O’s are 3-6, and have lost back-to-back series after being swept by the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
It has not been a good product so far, and the Orioles have already managed to fall 4.5 games back of the New York Yankees in the AL East.
Typically I think most of us would understand that with 156 games (or 95% of the season) left to be played; that it would be extremely hyperbolic to overreact to these initial 9 games.
Typically.
That said, even for an O’s optimist like myself, the play has raised some alarms.
Since the second half of ’24, the team has played under some general malaise, and there is some worry that we’re seeing that continue here as this ’26 season begins.
How much of that is real?
The Manager and Coaching staff have changed.
Numerous players on the current ’26 roster were not part of the ’25 roster.
This is a different group, even if they’re wearing the same uniform.
Whatever opinion you had about this group entering the season, shouldn’t be particularly different now after 9 games.
Still, these early games still matter.
You can’t win the Division in April, but you can dig a hole that can be tough to dig out of.
The O’s are in the AL East. Most prognosticators and Power Rankings had the O’s entering this ’26 season as the 10th to 14th best team in the game, but only the fourth best team in the East (NY, Toronto, Boston).
Those teams are all projected to win somewhere between 88-95 games.
The O’s can not afford to get buried early.
I’ve talked about my goal for the O’s being to win the East, and to not be reliant on a Wild Card.
Wanting the O’s to earn their way back to the post-season, and hope they have success with limited sample sizes once there.
That’s months and months away, and to far of a goal.
You don’t get to win 90 games just because you have the talent to do so.
You don’t get to be a Wild Card, or a Division Winner, without producing.
You don’t get to hope the Baseball Gods shine favorably on you in October, without first earning your way there.
The focus should be 1 game, and 1 series at a time.
You’ve lost two series back-to-back.
Rebound with a series win in Chicago vs. the White Sox, and then follow that up with a series win at home vs. the Giants.
Don’t do that, and the O’s risk putting themselves in a difficult predicament before Tax Day arrives.
Chris Stoner
Owner
Chris Stoner founded Baltimore Sports and Life in 2009. He has appeared as a radio guest with 1090 WBAL, 105.7 The Fan, CBS 1300, Q1370, WOYK 1350, WKAV 1400, and WNST 1570. He has also been interviewed by The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Business Journal, and PressBox (TV). As Owner, his responsibilities include serving as the Managing Editor, Publicist, & Sales Director.