For no specific reason, a look at some random O's individual stats

This is a bit random today and not related to any recent signings or O’s news at all. But today, just for the heck of it, I take a look at some random individual stats from the 2024 season.

Some may be surprising, many will probably not.

But in a game filled with stats - traditional, advanced and otherwise - here are a few more today.

In most cases the numbers are for only O’s players that had enough plate appearances last year to qualify for league leaders, and in most cases I left out players who during the year had only a couple of dozen plate appearances.

O’s 2024 leaders, pitches per plate appearance:

4.12 – Anthony Santander
4.10 – Colton Cowser
4.06 – Adley Rutschman
4.03 – Gunnar Henderson
3.75 – Ryan Mountcastle

Maybe a mild surprise seeing Santander as the most patient hitter among this group. He has never produced big on-base percentages but Santander has seen 4.00 or more pitches per plate appearance every year since 2021 and has a walk rate percentage of 8.4 or better the last three years. He’s no free swinger.

This leads us to another stat where he led the team, and this would not be a surprise that he is first here.

O's 2024 leaders, at-bats per home run:

13.52 – Anthony Santander
17.03 – Gunnar Henderson
20.79 – Colton Cowser
23.22 – Jordan Westburg
24.67 – Cedric Mullins

Santander ranked third in the majors in this stat behind only Aaron Judge (1 every 9.64 ABs) and Shohei Ohtani (1 every 11.78). Henderson, after hitting a career-high 37 homers, improved from his mark of 20.00 at-bats per homer in 2023.

In 2024, O's with highest percentage of swinging and missing:

45.6 – Coby Mayo
34.3 – Jackson Holliday
31.1 – Heston Kjerstad
30.4 – Colton Cowser

All young players here and maybe a little unfair to include Mayo, who had just 46 plate appearances, but fanned 22 times.

On other the end of the spectrum, Adley Rutschman (17.1), Ryan O’Hearn (18.2) and Cedric Mullins (19.1) swung and missed the least on the team.

For some reason, I wondered who led the O’s in intentional walks. It was Rutschman and Santander. With three each. As a club the O’s were only walked intentionally 14 times in all of 2024 to tie for 19^th most in the majors. The Los Angeles Angels drew four intentional walks all last year! Cincinnati had just seven while the Los Angeles Dodgers led the major leagues with 33.

Highest groundball percentage on the 2024 Orioles:

54.9 – Jackson Holliday
50.0 – Eloy Jiménez
47.4 – Gunnar Henderson
45.5 – Heston Kjerstad
44.7 – Ryan Mountcastle

Holliday has two clear areas here to improve in 2025, less swing-and-miss and hit fewer ground balls next season. With his speed he will beat out some infield hits, but with his pop he could be driving more balls into the gaps or over fences. For Mountcastle, that was a career-high groundball percentage. For Henderson, his 47.2 was up from 46.0 in the 2023 season.

Mountcastle was the leader in grounding into double plays, doing that 13 times last season. Three players were next with nine each: Rutschman, Santander and Cowser.