How will the O's rate on offense and defense? How about the pitchers?

As we are now just a few weeks away from the start of spring training and the new season, today let’s take a look at the O’s roster in terms of four components.

They are the offense and defense and the pitching – starting pitching and the bullpen.

We don’t know the Opening Day roster yet, obviously, or the final roster that will start camp, but at this point it’s pretty set. Yes, we could get a change or a few of them, but today we're going with what they have right now to assess how it all looks.

If you break those four down, I see all four as solid units for the team heading into the season. I will rank them as they look today, from strongest to weakest:

Offense

Bullpen

Starting Pitching

Defense

I don’t see any of these units as weak, but to each his own here, and others might rank defense much higher or offense much lower. To me, all four are pretty close, which could make for a well rounded roster and a team that can beat you in a variety of ways.

How it will all play out starting March 27, we’re going to see, but that is the fun of the season. No one knows exactly how it will go. There will be injuries and possibly trades, there will be call-ups and there will be players that exceed expectations and others that don’t meet them.

The offense: This was a big discussion topic as the offseason began after the Orioles scored one run in two playoff losses to Kansas City. And their offense had struggled in the final two months of 2024.

And now they have lost Anthony Santander, who hit 44 homers, so how could this offense be better? Well, I don’t say better but I do say it’s still a good offense.

In 2023, the O’s ranked seventh in the majors in runs per game and last year they were fourth, even with the late-year falloff. Yep, still a good offense.

In runs per game in the majors since 2023 the top teams are the Los Angeles Dodgers (5.40), Atlanta (5.10), Arizona (5.04) and the Orioles at 4.92. The Yankees rank 13^th (4.59) during that same period.

Even after losing Santander, some ways this unit could get better include Adley Rutschman overcoming his poor second half, Jackson Holliday starting to figure it out at this level, Jordan Westburg playing more than 107 games and Ryan Mountcastle hitting more than 13 home runs.

The bullpen: This unit, on paper, looks pretty solid. They don’t play on paper, or they would need a really, really big sheet, and it could break at some point.

But the eight hurlers that project for that ‘pen right now all have at least one career save, and several throw a mid-to-high-90s fastball and a few can touch 100 mph. They get the Mountain back, right-hander Félix Bautista. It was tough without him, but let’s not forget how good he has been. A 2023 All-Star, he has recorded a 1.85 ERA and 0.924 WHIP while recording 14.1 strikeouts per nine innings in two major league seasons. At his best, he is among the best closers in the game.

To me it looks like, at its best, this bullpen group could be among the best in the American League.

The rotation: Did you hear that Corbin Burnes is gone and the Orioles have no proven ace? Well, it’s all true and overcoming his loss will be challenging.

But in 2025 they hope that Grayson Rodriguez makes more than 20 starts and expect that righty Zach Eflin will make more than the nine he made after he was traded to the team. The two, fingers crossed by the club, could make 60-plus starts and not the combined 29 of last season.

Tomoyuki Sugano is a bit of an unknown. How will his stats from Japan translate? No one knows, but he a 1.67 ERA there, so even with some falloff he would still be a positive. Some fans are concerned that Charlie Morton will turn into a pumpkin, but his 3.92 ERA since 2023 is better than that of Rodriguez or Dean Kremer.

This unit has some depth and hopes to get Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells back around mid-year.

The defense: Hardest to quantify, the O’s defense could be solid too. Last year this unit did not score that well, actually, ranking 10^th in the American League in team Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and 10^th in Statcast’s Outs Above Average (OAA).

Defensive metrics, at least for one observer, me, are hard to quantify and understand.

But I see Westburg, Gunnar Henderson, Holliday, Mountcastle, Rutschman, Colton Cowser and Cedric Mullins as solid defenders. Some may not agree. And Tyler O’Neill has two Gold Gloves on his resume.

So these four units could all be solid this coming season.

How do you see it? How do you rank the four?