Top Notes From the Baltimore Orioles ZiPS Projections for 2025

The Baltimore Orioles are now reaping the benefits of their difficult rebuilding seasons. The O’s have posted a winning season three years in a row and, in each of the past two seasons, have made the playoffs and won at least 90 games.

As a result of this successful rebuild, the club’s youth movement has kept the roster largely the same as what we saw at the end of last year. After many positions had largely been a revolving door for years, the Orioles have some stability on the roster.

Even though many of the team’s young players will be familiar faces, the Orioles did lose a couple of key contributors from 2024. Rental ace Corbin Burnes signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and once-longest-tenured Oriole, outfielder Anthony Santander, inked a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.

President of baseball operations Mike Elias made a slew of new acquisitions, none of which were for long-term deals. Elias is hoping that he will be able to piece together a winning ball club that is led primarily by the team’s talented young players, who are gaining experience.

With some premier young talent all over the diamond, many think the Orioles will be a strong competitor in the American League. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection model seems to agree.

Here is a summary of Szymborski’s model, courtesy of MLB.com:

ZiPS uses past performance and aging trends to develop a future projection for players. On FanGraphs, the projections are updated daily and predict each player’s numbers over the course of the remainder of the season… Obviously, no one is claiming that every ZiPS prediction will come true, but it is widely regarded as one of the most accurate predictors in the industry.

This offseason, Szymborski released his projections for members of the Orioles’ roster, as well as those on all other MLB teams.

When releasing these projections, he includes a detailed write-up with projected statistics, 20th and 80th-percentile outcomes, and player comparisons.

Let’s investigate what Szymborski’s model says about the Orioles’ roster for 2025.

Orioles ZiPS: Position Players

The Orioles’ offense is their strong suit, which has been entirely due to an organizational emphasis on developing hitters. Since Elias’ first draft in 2019, the Orioles have selected a pitcher with one of their four highest draft picks just once.

In other words, Elias has selected an offensive player with 24 of the 25 highest draft picks in his tenure. Every first-round selection made by the Orioles since 2019 has been a position player. Four of those picks were in the top five overall.

Now that these players have developed, the O’s certainly have no shortage of talent on the offensive end.

• Conservative Projections for Gunnar Henderson – In 2024, Henderson slashed .281/.364/.529 with 37 home runs, 21 stolen bases, and an fWAR of 8.0. ZiPS projects Henderson to regress in all six of those metrics. Szymborski’s model still projects Henderson to be a six-win player with 28 home runs, but that feels underwhelming. For a player with a top-ten average draft position (ADP) in fantasy leagues on the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) website, it seems apparent that close followers of the game expect more from Henderson than ZiPS.

• Still No Power for Adley Rutschman? – Considered by many to be among the best catchers in baseball, Rutschman has not yet hit more than 20 home runs in a season. ZiPS projects that Rutschman will regress even further in the power department in 2025, envisioning just 17 round-trippers in the upcoming season. He is still projected to be a valuable player, forecasted for 5.0 WAR and a 121 wRC+. However, it would be a disappointing campaign to many if he only hit 17 homers.

• Rave Review for Tyler O’Neill – Coming off of a solid 31-homer, 2.5-win season for the Boston Red Sox in 2024, ZiPS believes in O’Neill providing good value for Baltimore. While only projected to have 447 plate appearances due to his injury history, O’Neill is projected to post a 132 wRC+. His projection of 24 home runs would rank second on the team.

• Three-Win Seasons for Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser – Two key players for the Orioles’ young nucleus are Westburg and Cowser, and each is projected for at least 3.0 WAR. Both players are projected to produce 15-20 home runs, 70-75 RBI, and bat in the .250s. These seem like incredibly modest projections, yet again, for two players who are strong hitters. Westburg, an All-Star last season, hit 18 home runs and posted a .281 expected batting average while playing in just 107 games last season. Cowser hit 24 home runs as a rookie and posted some encouraging exit velocity numbers. A lack of major league sample size is causing these two young bats to be undervalued.

• Positive Outlook for Jackson Holliday – A former top prospect who could break out in 2025, Holliday is projected to finish tied for fifth on the team in WAR (3.1). Projected for over 100 runs, a .335 on-base percentage, and 15 home runs, Holliday would provide value to the team. I would expect him to get more than the nine steals that ZiPS forecasts.

• Start Coby Mayo at First Base? – The Orioles have been rotating between Ryan Mountcastle and Ryan O’Hearn at first base for the past couple of years. Despite this, ZiPS projects Mayo to be more valuable than both if given similar playing time. Mayo (2.5 WAR) is projected to hit more home runs and doubles than Mountcastle (1.2 WAR) and O’Hearn (1.3 WAR). O’Hearn, the only lefty of the bunch, is still projected a 120 wRC+ and would be a valuable strong-side platoon player at first base and designated hitter. What ZiPS seems to believe, though, is that the Orioles should move on from Mountcastle and give Mayo his role. This has been a buzz-worthy topic for many all offseason who believe Mayo would provide similar if not better value.

Orioles ZiPS: Pitching Staff

The Orioles have a huge void in their starting rotation with the departure of Burnes. Not only was he phenomenal at preventing runs, but he also threw nearly 200 quality innings. Nobody in this rotation is expected to come close to the 3.7 fWAR Burnes posted last season.

Fortunately for the Orioles, they also will be filling a huge void in their bullpen by getting back star closer Félix Bautista. Bautista underwent Tommy John surgery in the fall of 2023, and after missing all of last season, he will resume his role as closer in 2025.

• Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez to Pace Pitchers in WAR – Eflin (projected 2.3 WAR) and Rodriguez (projected 2.1 WAR) are expected to lead this Orioles staff in 2025. ZiPS projects Eflin to throw 148.2 innings and post a 3.75 ERA with a 20% strikeout rate. His strong projected 4.1% walk rate gives him a decent 15.9% K-BB%. As for Rodriguez, ZiPS only forecasts him to throw 121.2 innings, due to his injury history. Rodriguez is projected a 3.77 ERA with a solid 25.6% strikeout rate. His ability to miss bats leads many, including myself, to believe he could be the Orioles’ next ace.

• ZiPS Views Dean Kremer as the Clear #3 Starter – The Orioles may have brought in more veteran arms as depth, but none are expected to accumulate 1.5 WAR, like Kremer. While his walk rate is a bit more of a burden, Kremer’s projected 21% strikeout rate is better than Eflin’s. ZiPS’ projected 3.95 ERA for Kremer is lower than that of any other projection system listed on FanGraphs.

• Projections Don’t Expect Much from Tomoyuki Sugano – One of the team’s highest-earning new additions, the 35-year-old Sugano, signed for $13 million to come over from NPB. He is not known to get strikeouts but posted a sub-two ERA in two of the past five seasons in Japan’s premier league. ZiPS projects that Sugano’s inability to consistently miss bats will prevent him from being a valuable major league pitcher. He is forecasted to throw 91 innings with a 4.88 ERA and 0.5 WAR.

• Give Cade Povich a Chance – It was a challenging rookie season for Povich in 2024, as he registered a 5.20 ERA in 79.2 innings pitched. ZiPS is higher on Povich than other projection systems. It has him posting 1.5 WAR and an improved 4.24 ERA, while striking out batters at a 21.6% clip in 135.2 innings. ZiPS projects Povich to accumulate more WAR than Sugano, Charlie Morton, or Albert Suárez, all of whom he is competing with.

• Yes, Félix Bautista Will Be Great – While the ZiPS projections don’t foresee another 46% strikeout rate like in 2023, the system believes he will be effective post-Tommy John. In 52.2 projected innings, Bautista is forecasted a 2.56 ERA with 26 saves and a 35.8% strikeout rate. The Orioles will need to manage his workload this season, especially if they want to unleash him fully for a playoff run. However, he should be one of baseball’s best if all goes according to plan during game action this spring.

• Andrew Kittredge Projected as Least Valuable Reliever on Opening Day Roster – At 0.2 WAR, Kittredge is projected to be the weakest link in the bullpen for Baltimore. The veteran right-hander signed a $10 million contract with the club for the 2025 season. Here is how his teammates stack up: Bautista (1.0 WAR), Keegan Akin (0.9), Yennier Cano (0.7), Gregory Soto (0.6), Suárez (0.5), Cionel Pérez (0.4), Seranthony Domínguez (0.3).

Orioles ZiPS: Final Thoughts

Many of the ZiPS projections seem to be undervaluing the potential of these talented young Oriole hitters, due to inexperience. It would not surprise me to see many of the team’s projected starters outperform their forecasted statistics.

Even with the modest offensive projections, ZiPS sees the Orioles in the thick of the American League East race yet again. According to Szymborski’s model, the Orioles are projected to tie the Yankees for the division crown with 89 wins — and technically speaking, ZiPS likes Baltimore ever so slightly more than New York.

If the team’s core players — Henderson, Rutschman, Westburg, Cowser, Holliday, and Rodriguez — can outperform their ZiPS projections, the Baltimore Orioles will be a force to be reckoned with.