2025 Team Previews - Baltimore Orioles
As part of my 2025 team previews series, I go through all fantasy-relevant players on the Baltimore Orioles ahead of the 2025 season.
Check out the intro and team links page here.
Roster
The Orioles have had one of the best farm systems in recent memory over the last few years, but they’ve failed to do much as the talent has been arriving. They did put together a nice regular season last year and hosted a playoff series, but the Royals went in there and swept them.
Something strange happened with the O’s last year - a few of their guys who were elite in the first half struggled mightily in the second. They limped to the finish line and didn’t have the starting pitching to make you think they could really play for a World Series.
Things have gotten worse this year, I’d say. The lineup is still pretty good, but there are plenty of question marks in it.
The rotation is a problem for them. They lost Corbin Burnes, and they could only replace him with Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano.
I think you have one potentially very good pitcher here (Grayson Rodriguez), one guy that can be pretty good (Eflin), and then three guys that I’d consider landmines. I wouldn’t bet on the Orioles being a bad team this year, but it’s not looking like a roster that will be much of a threat to make a deep run this season.
Hitters
Gunnar Henderson
Age: 23
Pos: SS
Gunnar fully arrived last year. He hit 37 homers, stole 21 bags, and hit .281. There were no weaknesses in his game. Here is his young career by the box score data:
I don’t think this is a concern, but he did a lot more damage in the first half than the second.
1H: 432 PA, .286/.373/.584, 28 HR, 14 SB
2H: 292 PA, .271/.349/.453, 10 HR, 7 SB
That second half made him look more like a “very good fantasy player” than an “elite first-rounder” guy. But I am not going to ding him or that. Here’s the wOBA/xwOBA moving plot:
You do see lower production in the latter half of the year there. His career line
1,473 PA, .268/.346/.504, 24% K%, 10% BB%, 69 HR, 32 GS
That’s a homer every 21 PAs and an 11% stolen base attempt rate. He’s better for power than for speed, but he did reach a career-high 13% attempt rate last year.
The power marks are elite. He posted an 11.2% Brl% last year with a high .378 xwOBA overall, and he got the ball in the air at a good rate (47% GB%).
I don’t have much doubt that he’ll clear 30 homers again next year, but it’s possible that the 37 will prove to be near the high water mark for him.
The Orioles' lineup is still strong, but they haven’t piled on this offseason. I could see them being a somewhat mediocre team, but that is more likely to be due to pitching woes than hitting.
I’m splitting hairs. Gunnar is a first-round bat. It does hurt a little bit that he lost 3B eligibility. There are a lot of great shortstops out there. I don’t worry about positions early on in the draft, but you can consider that if you’re in need of a tiebreaker. Maybe you’re happier taking Jose Ramirez over him because you feel better about the SS you can get in the later rounds. That’s fair enough. I don’t think Henderson is all that much better than Francisco Lindor, and that guy falls into the second round all the time.
I’d rather start with Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor than Gunnar Henderson and Rafael Devers—that’s just a general idea of my thinking.
Rank
Projection
684 PA, 106 R, 35 HR, 102 RBI, 16 SB, .273/.352/.512, $15.43 roto value
Adley Rutschman
Age: 27
Pos: C
Rutschman is another player who really struggled in the second half. This reduced his season line to the point that it wasn’t very helpful for fantasy purposes.
638 PA, .250/.318/.391, 19 HR, 1 SB, 68 R, 79 RBI
Here are his numbers by month, You’ll see that 15 of his 19 homers came before July began, and then he did almost nothing useful in the final three months.
He did not hit the IL at all last year, but he did have a few minor injuries. Maybe those hurt the production in the second half.
His best season so far for roto fantasy baseball was 2023. He hit .277 with 20 homers and one steal that year. It’s just not very good production in category-based fantasy leagues.
The plus side is:
You aren’t getting steals out of any catcher
With almost every other catcher you have to choose between AVG and HR, Adley gives you solid production in both
He plays a ton and racks up counting stats
All of that stuff, plus the age, makes him clearly a top-five catcher again. He’s just not really my cup of tea. The 90th-percentile EV was 102.3 last year. In the first half, when he was hitting those homers, it was pretty low at 103.2 as well (8.6% Brl% in that sample). I have trouble seeing a 30-homer ceiling here.
It’s a different story in OBP or points leagues. He’s more valuable there. But for standard roto, I’ll be lower on Adley than most.
Rank
Projection
620 PA, 75 R, 17 HR, 73 RBI, 2 SB, .265/.347/.417, $8.02 roto value
Jordan Westburg
Age: 26
Pos: 2B/3B
Westburg was a breakout player in 2024. He finally broke into the lineup and put up a pretty decent season:
447 PA, .262/.309/.478, 18 HR, 6 SB, 21.7% K%, 4.9% BB%
He was another guy on this team that didn’t end the year well. He hit just .232 in July and then broke his hand and missed almost the full rest of the year.
Let’s look at some indicators because we don’t really know Westburg all that well.
Brl%: 11.8%
Cont%: 70.7%
Swing: 51%
EV90: 106.3
GB%: 42%
Sweet Spot: 40%
xwOBA: .356
xBA: .277
This is all pretty impressive stuff. I didn’t even know the guy was this good!
He does not look all that great in my projection model. That’s because we saw a decent bit of him in 2023, and he was pretty bad, and my model is still considering that:
Westburg is pretty fast, and that could lead to more steals this year, as I detailed here.
I’m torn. All of the indicators in 2024 make him look like a very good hitter, but I’m not sure if I want to spend the top-100 pick on him that is required to get him this year. I do really like the 2B/3B eligibility, though.
Rank
Projection
533 PA, 76 R, 19 HR, 73 RBI, 8 SB, .262/.316/.456, $9.58 roto value
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