Opening Day Arrives For The 2023 Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles begin their 2023 season tomorrow in Boston.

The O’s are coming off a ’22 campaign where they won 83 games that raised expectations for the franchise; followed by a Winter that has largely kept the fanbase from fully buying in.

There is an abundance of young talent on the Opening Day roster, and there is more on the way.
Every Orioles fan is looking forward to the first full Major League season for Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson.
Yet, many Orioles fans are annoyed there didn’t seem to be a greater organizational impetus to augment the existing core with some higher-end external talent.

Is 2023 the season the Orioles reach the World Series for the first time in 40 years?
Probably not.

It does feel totally plausible though that the O’s could get to post-season for the first time since 2016.

Quick Hits:

1) The starting infield looks like Rutschman (C), Henderson (3rd), Jorge Mateo (SS), Adam Frazier (2nd), and Ryan Mountcastle (1st). All eyes of course are going to be glued Adley and Gunnar; but there are things to watch across the board here.

With ‘the kids’, there is no question of their talent. There are questions of how much can you expect from them this year. Nobody doubts they’ll be productive. The question is how productive will they be? With Adley, there is also a question of how many games does he get behind the plate?

Mateo was a lot of fun to watch last year. He was fantastic at SS, and he has elite athleticism / wheels. But his .267 on-base % was putrid, and needs to improve. There were multiple Free Agent options at SS, which would have given the O’s more of a sure thing. The O’s elected not to spend that money, and Mateo has the position to begin the year. Is it too much to ask for him to elevate his offense to .250 / .300 / .400?

I’m not real excited about the O’s allocating $8M of their limited overall spending towards Adam Frazier, but I’ll stick up for him some. In ’21, he was a 3.6 fWAR player. Obviously the Orioles think he is closer to the guy that slashed .305 / .368 / .411 in ’21 vs. the guy who slashed .238 / .301 / .311 in ’22. While I’d prefer the O’s to be starting this ’23 season with Jordan Westburg as their 2nd baseman, I acknowledge the O’s could get something out of Frazier. If they don’t, he’ll be replaced sooner than later.

Mountcastle saw his ISO drop from .232 in ’21 to .173 in ’22. You can attribute that at-least partly to the changed LF dimensions at OPACY. I think Mountcastle is a very solid regular, especially given his current contract. He crushed lefties in ’21, and struggled a bit vs. southpaws in ’22. The O’s need him to be a bit more consistent overall in ’23.

2) The starting OF looks like Austin Hays (LF), Cedric Mullins (CF), and Kyle Stowers (RF). I’ll include Anthony Santander here as well, as Santander figures to rotate between DH and RF.

I’ve been and continue to be a Hays fan. Through June last year, he was probably the O’s best everyday player. The wheels came off after July 1st, and he struggled mightily. The Baseball Savant full season numbers are rough across the board. Outside of arm-strength, he looks like a below average regular. I think if you could isolate his numbers through June 30th, he’d look more like the player I envision him to be. A quality defensive player, who runs well, and has some pop. But that could rightfully be called cherry-picking. His overall numbers are what they are. He begins ’23 as the starter, and gets that opportunity. He either produces and stays in the lineup, or he’ll get pushed out of the way by Colton Cowser relatively soon.

Mullins was a 6 fWAR player in ’21, and a 3.4 fWAR player in ’22. The ’22 regression wasn’t a surprise, and he was still productive. All of his offensive numbers dropped, and like Mountcastle he went from being strong vs. lefties in ’21, to really struggling vs. lhp in ’22. His arm is below average, but he covers a lot ground with his speed making up for his initial reaction. He’s one of the better defensive CF’s imo.

Santander saw his BB% increase from 5.3% in ’21 to 8.5% in ’22. He barrels balls, and he hits them hard. There is nothing fluky about the 33 bombs he hit last year. When you think about the next great Orioles team, you probably don’t envision Santander as a part. But he’s a contributing piece right now that adds to the lineup.

Stowers was able to get 91 Major League ab’s last year after coming up. Before ascending he had a .884 OPS over 349 ab’s at AAA Norfolk. 45 xb’s, a .750 OPS, and steady defense in RF are reasonable goals for Stowers here in ’23. The O’s need him to provide that, and extend the lineup.

3) Outside of one of the FA SS’s, another area where the O’s could have easily elected to spend more was for a legitimate front-end starter. Instead they signed Kyle Gibson to replace Jordan Lyles, and added Cole Irvin. I don’t think there is much discernable difference between Lyles and Gibson; other then Gibson is 3 years older. It’s a 1 year deal. The O’s decided they liked Gibson better for ’23, and that’s fine.

Irvin was a nice pickup. 178.1 innings in ’21, 181 innings in ’22. He should regularly take the ball, and keep the O’s in games.

With respect to those additions, my focus rotation wise will be on Dean Kremer, Kyle Bradish, and eventually Grayson Rodriguez.

Kremer was left for dead by many (maybe most) Orioles fans after his disaster of a ’21. He rebounded in a big way in ’22.
Bradish showed immense arm-talent with the Birds. He also struggled with consistency as rookies often do.

Tyler Wells begins the year as the 5th starter with Rodriguez being sent back to AAA to begin the year.
Wells is adequate enough as a starter, and can really help the pen.
Rodriguez – even with a likely innings restriction on him in ’23 – will give the rotation a jolt whenever he joins the Birds.
I’d expect Rodriguez’s ’23 to be similar in ways to Bradish’s ’22. There will be games where he looks overwhelming. And there will be games where he looks like a Rookie. Overall, it’s not too much to ask him to be a league average 4th to 5th starter in his first year. I’d assume he joins the Orioles by mid-May once the O’s have locked in an additional year of team control, and would think he’s good for 150 +/- combined AAA and ML innings for the season.

The other wildcard for the O’s is John Means. Can Means be ready by July 1st?
When he’s back on the mound, what’s his feel for his change-up? Sometimes pitchers coming off Tommy John have trouble with ‘feel’ when they first return.

4) The bullpen was excellent last year. How good will they be in ’23? It’s an open question because we know relievers can be volatile year-to-year. My general feeling is that if the rotation is solid enough in-front of them, the bullpen should continue to be ‘good’, even if there is some regression. Last year, the O’s had 3 (Felix Bautista, Cionel Perez, Dillon Tate), of the top 30 relievers in baseball in regards to WPA (Wins Probability Added). This year they added Mychal Givens (51st overall among relievers in WPA) to their group.

It’s unfortunate that Tate and Givens are starting the year on the Injured List, but both should return relatively soon, and have been durable so far in their careers.

When Wells gets back to the pen, I think that helps.
Austin Voth made 17 effective starts for the O’s last year, and now has a chance to help the pen.

What do you get out of Bryan Baker, Keegan Akin, and Joey Krehbiel?
If you had to wager, you’d bet they would collectively take a step-back from ’22 – but the fact remains, they gave you a lot of useful innings last year.
They get another opportunity here to begin ’23.

I’m interested to see Mike Baumann as a reliever.
I’m also interested to see what happens with DL Hall. Hall begins the year starting for AAA Norfolk, but I can envision him being asked to add to the ML bullpen at some point this year.

5) Ramon Urias, James McCann, Ryan McKenna is the making of a good bench. To reiterate what we said above, we are curious how many games Rutschman gets behind the plate. Urias gives the O’s flexibility and options at multiple positions.

6) Our colleague Jordan Katz recently went into detail with the schedule changes for ’23, which you can read about here. Going from 76 games against the Division to 52 games is huge. Every team in the AL East is entering this ’23 season feeling like a playoff birth is possible. 3 of the East teams (Toronto, New York, and Tampa Bay) are in the Top 10 of everyone’s Opening Day Power Rankings. I feel the O’s benefit as much as anyone by this scheduling change.

7) We’ve mentioned we expect Rodriguez to join the O’s sometime relatively soon. I feel Westburg has an opportunity to take over 2nd. Think Hall will be up to help the bullpen. Cowser could end up replacing Hays. Joey Ortiz could be an option at SS if Mateo fails offensively. Beyond expected and possible promotions, you have a deep system that could be utilized to obtain a needed piece.

8) There is some pressure on Orioles Manager Brandon Hyde, and Orioles General Manager Mike Elias. With Hyde, this is his first time managing an Orioles team with some expectations. By their own accounts, the O’s have post-season aspirations. The Orioles won’t sneak-up on teams like they did last year. The question has always been, will Hyde be the guy when it’s time to win? We will see.

As we said in the opening, expectations from the fanbase increased after last season, and for many were subdued by the Winter results.
How much of the O’s inaction do you place on Elias? For me, probably none. I feel like he probably anticipated utilizing the company checkbook more often, and was rebuffed with the Brothers Angelos internal Ownership squabble.

That’s just a guess of course, but logically I’d think Elias would have welcomed adding a solidifying piece or two.
That said, whatever budget he was handed, it was on Elias to figure out how to best make it work.
For instance, him choosing to spend $10M on Gibson, and $8M on Frazier is on him.
That’s $18M that could have been allocated differently.
Individually the moves he did make were fine. Collectively, it left something to be desired.
The minimum expectations for this ’23 team are a .500 season, and playing games that matter into September.
If that doesn’t happen, Elias is going to feel the ire of the fanbase for the first time.

Prediction?

Anywhere from 75 wins to 89 wins feels reasonable to me, though I’d be more surprised by 75 vs. 89.
I’ll split the difference and say 82-80.
I think there’s enough talent to get to the playoffs.
I also think there are enough questions to not expect it.

Checkout The Warehouse as we preview the O’s 2023 season, and MLB as a whole.

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.