Sizing up the 2020 Orioles offense

In judging the 2020 Orioles offense, a rating may be in the eye of the beholder. And it may heavily depend on when that person watched this team. If they saw them only play National League teams, they may rate the offense as one of the best in the game. If they saw only games against the American League, they will have a few questions about the bats. If they saw only the last few weeks, they will ponder if this group is just terrible.

But more on the timing later.

Let's first take a look at a 60-game body of work and how it compared to a 162-game body of work from the year before. The Orioles were better this year almost across the board. That was true despite the fact they did have some prolonged team slumps and played all year without 2019 key performers Trey Mancini and Jonathan Villar. It was true, despite the fact that José Iglesias played only 39 games, Anthony Santander 37 and Ryan Mountcastle 32. None of the three, who produced the three best OPS numbers on the club, played in more than 65 percent of the games.

O's in 2019: .246/.310/.415/.725 OPS, 4.50 runs/game, 7.5 walk rate, 23.2 strikeout rate.
O's in 2020: .258/.321/.429/.750 OPS, 4.57 runs/game, 7.3 walk rate, 22.9 strikeout rate.
Major league average in 2020: .245/.322/.418/.740 OPS, 4.65 runs/game, 9.2 walk rate, 23.4 strikeout rate.

This team improved across the board in the team slash line and scored a bit more than the 2019 club. That said, the runs per game still comes up a bit below major league average.

There were four O's regulars who posted an OPS of .800 or better. Iglesias was at .956, Santander at .890. Mountcastle at .878 and Renato Núñez at .816. The O's hope to add Mancini to that list in 2021. He posted an OPS of .899 in 2019 over a 162-game season, so that would be a significant addition for this offense.

Now, about the league splits: No AL team hit better versus the NL in 2020 than the Orioles. They batted .286/.346/.491 with an OPS of .837. They rated first in all four stat categories against NL teams. They went 11-9 versus the NL and scored 121 runs (6.05 per game) in those games. No other AL team had more than Boston's 101 runs against the NL.

And the Orioles numbers versus the NL look even better when you remember they scored just eight runs in a four-game series against Miami. They scored 20 runs in three games against Atlanta, 30 in four games versus the Mets, 26 in three games against Philadelphia and 37 in six games versus Washington.

But in 40 games against the AL East, the O's batted .243/.307/.397/.704 and scored 3.83 runs per game. Quite a difference and one reason they went 14-26 against AL teams. That is a big falloff from the NL numbers. Does it show us the O's offense still has a ways to go? Yes, it does. But next season, should we have the normal 162 games, they will be playing the AL East in 47 percent of their games, not 67 percent. This year, they faced four AL teams and three of them made the playoffs. They faced five NL clubs and two made the postseason.

If someone starting watching the Orioles this year on Sept. 11, they would have seen not much offense from this club and they would have just missed a two-game series where they scored 17 runs at Citi Field. In the first eight games of September, the Orioles scored 52 runs (6.5 per game) and they scored 22 in four games against the Yankees in that span. But then they scored two runs or less in 11 of the last 18 games, scoring 65 runs (3.6 per game). Of those 65 runs over 18 games, they scored 27 in just two games. So, yes, they were struggling to get even two or three runs most nights toward the end of the year.

So someone could pass several different judgments on this offense based on when they saw them play and against which teams. But the 60-game grade looks better when you consider they rated third in the AL in team batting average, eighth in OBP, sixth in slugging, seventh in OPS and tied for eighth in runs.

The late slumps of Hanser Alberto, Rio Ruiz and Pedro Severino, along with Santander being out of the lineup, made it tougher to score runs.

If the O's get full seasons from Mountcastle, who will not join the team mid-year next year, and Mancini, that should provide a significant boost.

So, yeah, a lot of ways to look at and judge this offense in 2020. How do you see it?