ESPN's Season Preview

[Too Tall]

YAWN - If it's congruent with your agenda, run with it! IMHO, ESPN is not worth any "fretting time." I picked 90 to 93 earlier and ESPN can pound sand!  Doubt they'd do that well either.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Uli2001 said:

The ESPN season preview is out:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39785389/mlb-2024-season-preview-opening-day-power-rankings-playoff-odds-all-30-teams

I know these rankings are good for nothing, but here the predict the Orioles to win 14 fewer games than last year, and give no rationale whatsoever for that.

I don’t think you need their rationale to understand that it’s possible they are right.

[Spy Fox]

If you’re worked up about ESPN anti O’s bias, watch the season preview video up top where we are one of three teams given 30-second overviews as AL favorites. The Yankees get a ~10 second follow-up to the Orioles section and the rest of the AL East isn’t mentioned by name. 

Though yes, beyond Jeff Passan who is good and one of the most plugged-in guys in the industry, ESPN baseball coverage doesn’t bring much to the table. 

[Sanity Check]

2 hours ago, Uli2001 said:

The ESPN season preview is out:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39785389/mlb-2024-season-preview-opening-day-power-rankings-playoff-odds-all-30-teams

I know these rankings are good for nothing, but here the predict the Orioles to win 14 fewer games than last year, and give no rationale whatsoever for that.

I'm over-simplifying it a bit, but if you really think about it, we traded:

Bautista, Bradish, Hicks/ McKenna and Frazier

for

Kimbrel, Burnes, Cowser and Nevin

Only for the fact that we outperformed pretty heavily last year, I would expect to see a regression, but not 14 games worth.  Maybe 7 to 10.

[Say O!]

The ESPN power rankings have the Os as 4th best team behind ATL, LAD, HOU (in that order).

Re: W-L record projection.  Most simulation models are built on some form of mean regression of individual player stats.  So bullpen will get dinged due to lack of track records for most.  Additionally guys like Mullins and to lesser extent Hays and Mountcastle have variability/injury skew which add noise to the models.

The youth and depth of Os roster will (hopefully) allow them to exceed these type of regression models. 

Edited March 25 by Say O!

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

We outperformed it by 7 games, they’re expecting a regression of 14 games. I don’t enjoy the constant media complaints, but I don’t think a 14 game regression is likely either.

In addition to outperforming our Pythag, we also scored way more runs than would be expected based on the elements of our offensive performance, mainly because our RISP hitting was ridiculously good.   As I recall, that accounted for about 5 extra wins.

[ledzepp8]

16 hours ago, DrinkinWithFermi said:

We significantly outperformed our Pythagorean record last year and didn't upgrade this year's roster to any notable degree.

By 7 games? We can quibble if that qualifies as "significantly outperformed" or not. I could easily argue that it doesn't mean that much considering how well the Orioles hit with RISP and how well they played in close games. Either way, why should they regress by 14 games?

[Matt Bennett]

17 hours ago, Aglets said:

How many Cy Young Award winners would we need to add to our rotation for it to count as a "notable" upgrade?

More than 1 when that NL CYA-8 is replacing the AL CYA-4. 

Jordan Montgomery over Cole Irvin would be a notable upgrade. 

[Aglets]

10 minutes ago, Matt Bennett said:

More than 1 when that NL CYA-8 is replacing the AL CYA-4. 

Jordan Montgomery over Cole Irvin would be a notable upgrade. 

To be clear...... Burnes was brought in to replace Gibson for the most part.

Now if Bradish throws essentially 0 innings this year and if Means pitches less than 23 innings this year than this pretty cynical take above becomes much more valid.  And then I would certainly agree we need to add more arms to the rotation.   And I would definitely be thrilled if we added someone like Montgomery right now obviously.

If however they come back in April-May and throw a bunch of innings then all of a sudden this talk of one Cy young contender replacing another becomes nonsensical.

Neither one of us can foresee exactly how it will play out..........but thankfully Bradish and Means have not suffered any additional setbacks so far.

Edited March 26 by Aglets