A few more facts and O's opinions

Time today for a few more facts and opinions about the 2023 Orioles and the Birds who will take the field in 2024.

Fact: The Orioles’ team ERA for last season was 3.89 which ranked fifth-best in the American League and seventh-best in the majors. In the second half, their team ERA of 3.58 ranked first in the AL and third in the majors.

Opinion: Is the O’s pitching really that good? Well it was last season and they were rolling in the second half. Several pitchers made improvements as the year went on. The back-end of the bullpen will be interesting to watch as Craig Kimbrel tries to replace Felix Bautista.

O’s executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said this in early November, before the Kimbrel signing: “I am worried about Bautista’s absence and I don’t believe we felt that fully in September of 2023. We are going to try like hell to bring in some help from the outside for the back of our bullpen.”

Well they got some help and now we see how that works out and if the bullpen, which appears a strength with some depth on paper, plays out that way once the games begin.

Several starters were really rolling as last year went on. Kyle Bradish was 10-5 with a 2.18 ERA his last 19 starts. Grayson Rodriguez was 5-2 with a 2.26 his last 12 starts. Dean Kremer went 3-1 with a 2.89 ERA his last 10 starts. John Means had an ERA of 2.66 in his four late-season starts. That is some darn fine pitching. The O’s may not get the same results when the new season begins but certainly, they have hopes of each of those pitchers pitching to a level similar to what we saw in the second-half of last season.

Fact: Means posted that 2.66 ERA and an 0.718 WHIP while walking just 1.5 batters per nine innings and allowing a .558 OPS against.

Opinion: Can Means pitch like that next season and how many innings can he take on? These are great questions. Means' performance was very, very encouraging. Frankly, I did not expect that. It was big for the O’s down the stretch and they really missed him on the playoff roster.

But we know Means is a pretty good pitcher, so seeing him pitch well was not a shock, just perhaps a bit unexpected coming off his Tommy John surgery. Sometimes pitchers go through some ups and downs along the way to a road back to a consistent performance after TJ. Maybe this is still coming for Means, but he was pretty darn good for the Birds in September.

Can Means throw 150 innings? Well first of all, last year, between the majors and minors he pitched 45 1/3. In 2023 Grayson Rodriguez packed on 87 2/3 more innings than he had thrown the previous year. So throwing 100 more could certainly be doable for a veteran pitcher that twice previously in his career has thrown that many. Means pitched 155 innings in 2019 and 154 2/3 in 2021. He’s done it before and I say he can do it again.

Fact: The Orioles went 30-16 in one-run games playing .652 ball which was easily the best AL record in one-run games. In fact 10 of 15 clubs in the league had losing records in one-run games in 2023.

Opinion: Can the O’s do that again and will it be needed to make the playoffs? Maybe not but it certainly is not a prerequisite to win 100 games. There are other ways to get there and the ’24 Orioles may need to pile up the wins while not counting on another one-run record that is so good.

The Texas Rangers could tell the Orioles it might not be that important. The Rangers last year went 14-22 (.389) in one-run games which ranked 28^th best in MLB. Of course the Rangers went 3-1 in the playoffs in one-run games which included a 3-2 win over the Orioles in Game 1 of the AL Division Series.

Fact: The Orioles drew 1,936,798 fans in 81 dates at Oriole Park, the largest annual attendance at Camden Yards since the 2017 season. According to baseball-reference.com, the Orioles had the third-largest year-over-year attendance increase in MLB from 2022-23.

Opinion: Is 2.5 million in reach at the gate this season? It seems a good goal and reachable. I find that teams that go from losers to winners have a bit of a delay until that kicks in at the gate.

The Orioles saw an attendance increase from 2011 to 2012 when they won 93 games and returned to the playoffs after a 14-year absence. But they drew even more the next season in 2013 – a year when they missed the postseason. The fans had a season to see the team return to winning and then the attendance grew from there. Coming off 83 wins in 2022, some fans (and oddsmakers) might have expected some regression before a further move ahead. It didn’t happen. The fans might be ready to now support the team even in bigger numbers than they did in 2023.