That’s certainly not a headline any of us expected to write or read until at least like…2030? And until at least one more World Series trophy was in the case!
This season was supposed to be the official throwing open of the Baltimore Orioles’ World Series “window.”
The developing stars had a couple seasons under their belts, having experienced both success – the magical 2023 season in which they earned the AL’s top seed – and heartbreaking playoff failure, having been swept in consecutive postseasons. Guys like Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Grayson Rodriguez, and others were all entering their prime, with career trajectories solidly on the upswing.
There were a couple grizzled veterans sprinkled in; players like Ryan O’Hearn and Cedric Mullins, along with new additions Tyler O’Neill and Gary Sanchez. While perhaps not the type of truly established middle-of-the-order bats for which some fans were pining, these were guys who’d been through plenty of ups and downs of MLB life.
The biggest question coming in was the pitching. The fans grumbled all winter about the rotation, watching Max Fried sign in New York and Boston deal for Garrett Crochet, and once Corbin Burnes put pen to paper in Arizona, the bellyaching in Birdland reached a fever pitch. Throw in Rodriguez getting injured in spring training, and we all knew we were in for some rough waters as we awaited not only his return, but those of Kyle Bradish and even Tyler Wells.
But closer Felix Bautista was back, available out of the bullpen for the first time since August of 2023. “The Mountain” was a huge part of the ’23 team’s tremendous success, and his steadying presence at the back end certainly counted for something.
Pitching questions remained, but the plan was always for this team to bash the ball all over the yard, the fruits of so many years of drafting and developing the bats during the rebuild paying huge dividends. Winning with offense would keep the ship afloat until guys like Grayson & Bradish returned, and/or could be bolstered by reinforcements as the trade deadline neared.
Sure, they’d probably have to score five or six runs to win on most nights, but this was a group that was easily up for that task.
It seems so long ago now, but let’s remember that all the smart folks who cover baseball agreed!
PECOTA projected the Orioles to win 89 games, the second-most in the AL East behind New York at 90. ZiPS put them at 88 wins, the most in the division.
Clearly, they were going to win those 85-plus games with offense. FanGraphs’ BATx projected them to have twelve above-average hitters, as measured by wRC+, this season (see below).
They All Just…Forgot How to Hit?
And thus, unfortunately, ends the happy part of our story, as the 2025 Baltimore Orioles have been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster as we sit here in mid-May.
Through 40 games, the O’s are a woeful 15-25, having won more games than just the lowly Chicago White Sox (14-29), and Colorado Rockies (7-36). Those teams, though, were expected to be awful, with 52 and 63 wins projected by ZiPS, respectively. At -70, the Birds’ run differential is worse than just Colorado (-137) and the Miami Marlins (-71, who’ve played two more games). That puts their Pythagorean expected win total at just 14 (so yay, over-performing!), tied with the Los Angeles Angels for second-worst ahead of just the Rockies.
The problems? Where do we even begin?
Let’s start with the offense, as those bats were expected to do the heavy lifting.
How about those 12 players who were supposed to be above average? Let’s see how they’ve done compared to those projections (leaving off Colton Cowser, projected at 116, who hasn’t played since the third game of the season thanks to breaking his thumb on an ill-advised dive into first base).
Yikes. The only players performing better than they were expected to are a couple of veterans mentioned earlier, O’Hearn and Mullins. Henderson dealt with an injury coming out of spring training that caused him to miss some time and start slow, but seems to have rounded into form. Jackson Holliday has been much better since changing his batting stance a couple weeks in on the advice of his father, former MLBer Matt Holliday.
As for everyone else?
Just flat-out disgusting. Under-performance and/or injuries have completely sapped the life from this offense.
Our friend Zach @PigTownSports dives into these depressing numbers regularly, so let’s lean on him a bit here:
19 of last 29 games The Orioles have scored 3 or less
259 Ks
84 BBs
.212 avg
.657 OPS
19 Double PlaysAvg 3.38 runs per game
A change is needed in the worst way https://t.co/5XfW9NlaL6
— PigTownSports (@PigTownSports) May 14, 2025
It isn’t just this season, either. As we O’s fans know, these problems started nearly a calendar year ago:
Since 7/1/24 The Os Rank
Hits – 22nd
HR – 10th
RBI – 22nd
Ks – 16th
XBH – 20th
AVG – 19th
SLG – 14th
OPS – 17thAnd you want to tell me you are going to stick to the plan ? Not make changes?
THROW AWAY that hitting plan .. Times ticking Mike— PigTownSports (@PigTownSports) May 15, 2025
It doesn’t stop there. He also finds that these problems exist up and down the organization:
Orioles Hitting 2025
Orioles – 289/1271 – .227 46 HRs 343Ks
Norfolk – 317/1257 – .252 42 HRs 342Ks
Chesapeake – 207/997 – .208 22 HRs 294Ks
Aberdeen – 236/1063 – .222 14 HRs 303Ks
Delmarva – 226/1026 – .227 13 HRs 315 KsOverall – 1275/5614 – .227 137 HRs 1597 Ks
— PigTownSports (@PigTownSports) May 13, 2025
What on earth is going on? Hell, it was just last October that articles like this one were coming out:
So you’re telling me that they went from having some “secret to developing great hitters,” to suddenly having atrocious offensive numbers from Low-A through the major leagues?
Something doesn’t add up.
Following 2024’s second-half offensive collapse, the team parted ways with co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller over the offseason. However, they promoted his partner in 2024, Cody Asche, to the lead role. They also brought in Tommy Joseph and Sherman Johnson. Joseph’s only MLB coaching experience was as the Seattle Mariners’ assistant hitting coach last year. Just about any M’s fan will tell you they feel they’re better off without his services (they had an awful offense for most of 2023, then fired their manager and hitting coach in late August and brought back M’s legend Edgar Martinez, and “suddenly, they mash.“)
Johnson was the hitting coach in Bowie in ’23, then the O’s upper-level hitting coordinator last year.
Under Asche and Johnson so far in 2025, the results have been even worse than those we saw to end 2024. In addition to the dismal numbers outlined in the above tweets, the team has regressed even further in clutch situations.
In 2023, the Orioles were the best in MLB hitting with runners in scoring position with a .287 batting average and a 121 OPS+. In 2024, those numbers dropped to the middle of the pack at .251 (17th) and 99 (16th).
Here in 2025, they’ve completely cratered. The O’s are hitting an MLB-worst .192 with runners in scoring position, with a 62 OPS+. They strike out 26.4% of the time in such situations, again better than only the Rockies at 26.8.
Percentage of AB w/RISP ending in a strikeout;
1. Rockies 26.8
2. Orioles 26.4
3. Angels 25.3
4. Red Sox 25.1
5. Reds 24.5— Eutaw Street Report (@EutawStReport) May 15, 2025
(Side rant:
THE ROCKIES HAVE BAD PLAYERS! THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO SUCK! WHY ARE YOU NEAR THEM IN ANYTHING?!?!)
If it were just bad luck, as some fans insist (and as the front office and staff seem to agree), you’d expect normalization to set in at some point with a bit of positive regression. Yet, day after day, they fail in clutch situations and those numbers just keep getting worse, not better. In yesterday’s doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Twins (the second time the O’s have been swept in a twin bill this season), they played 18 innings of baseball and scored runs in only two of them.
Something is very wrong with either the approach at the plate, the mindset overall, or a combination of both.
Firing hitting coaches in May seems like a band-aid, like the proverbial rearranging of deck chairs on The Titanic. But the time for sitting around, watching, waiting, doing nothing, and expecting the results to suddenly do an about-face is over.
More on that in a bit…
Ah Yes, the Pitching
We’ll spend less time on the pitching, because, again: that was supposed to be mediocre at best at this point in the season. However, mediocre would be an improvement.
The O’s currently have the fourth-worst ERA in baseball at 5.73, and the worst ERA+ (72), while allowing the most home runs (63), and racking up the second-fewest strikeouts (303).
Bautista is back and awesome again, yes (he has a 2.25 ERA in 12 appearances, and looks more like his old self every time out), but much of the bullpen is a bummer. Seranthony Dominguez has a 4.26 ERA in 12.2 IP. Gregory Soto is at 4.50 in 14 IP. Cionel Perez? 8.44 in 16.0 IP. Fan punching bags Bryan Baker and Keegan Akin have been very nice surprises at 2.08 in 17.1 IP, and 3.26 in 19.0 IP, respectively.
Unfortunately, Yennier Cano, who’d been a revelation since coming over from Minnesota in the Jorge Lopez deal in 2022, has been shaky, posting a 4.40 ERA in 14.0 IP, and basically single-handedly gave away the second game of yesterday’s doubleheader when he entered with a 6-5 lead in the eighth and went single, balk, walk, home run.
Making things even better is that Danny Coulombe, who was awesome for the Birds in ’23 and ’24, was let go this offseason over medical concerns. He’s yet to allow a run in 16.2 IP with the Twins, and has shut down the Orioles several times over the past week. So that’s fun.
Starters?
Yeah, you know the story. Dean Kremer is Dean Kremer: a fine 4-5, who will sandwich a couple good outings around an awful one, and who could have a single terrible inning derail things at any point (as we saw in game one yesterday). Charlie Morton should have retired. Cade Povich would be a fine #5 on a team with a solid 1-4, but isn’t reliable at this point in his career. Kyle Gibson should probably be golfing with Morton. Zach Eflin is awesome, but was hurt for a while and is now probably going to be on the trade block. Tomoyuki Sugano is Mike Elias’ single success story from this offseason (thanks Adam Jones!), and seems likely to be joining Eflin in being sent off to greener pastures.
Icing on the cake? Rodriguez seems nowhere near a return, and with the team cratering, there’s no reason to rush Bradish or Wells back either.
Not great, Bob dot gif.
Time for a Shake-Up
I know I’m a broken record on this, because I’ve been calling for him to be canned for about five years now, but Brandon Hyde needs to go. I’m sorry, you don’t get to preside over an 0-5 playoff record, the collapse we saw in the second half last season, then the dumpster fire to begin 2025, and keep your job.
(You also shouldn’t get to lose 19 games in a row and keep your job, but I digress…)
Hyde was a rebuild manager. He steered the team through the process and took his lumps with them, then was given the chance to take them to the promise land. After being swept in consecutive postseasons, and now having his team, which was supposed to once again contend, turn into a laughingstock in record time, there’s no more runway.
Is it all his fault? Of course it isn’t. It never is when professional managers or head coaches are fired, but you can’t get rid of all the players, so that’s just part of the gig.
Everyone in Birdland, those who don the smiling Bird and those who prefer the realistic variety, are sick of hearing about how the front office supports him, and how the team loves him, and plays hard for him.
The Orioles' rough start has led to speculation about Brandon Hyde's future, but reliever Danny Coulombe, now with the Twins, stands by his former manager. "He's a great manager," Coulombe said. "I know that the guys there really do enjoy playing for him." https://t.co/Iz6Ohd78KI
— PressBox (@PressBoxOnline) May 14, 2025
Personally, I don’t care what the guys here enjoy. As a parent, sometimes you have to take your kids’ toys away when they’re misbehaving. These young players need to learn that there are consequences to not performing up to potential and expectations for so long. Maybe they shouldn’t love their manager. Maybe they shouldn’t be buddies. Maybe they need someone they look up to and respect, but don’t want to hang out with.
The kids need a kick in the rear.
Maybe I was premature in showing Hyde the door previously, but I’ve noticed more and more of Birdland coming around to the idea that he needs to go.
Will he?
Probably not. Because he is insulating Mike Elias & the front office a bit at the moment. Once the manager is canned, the crosshairs fall on the GM – again, that’s just how this works. Elias and SigBot like having a manager who, like so many nowadays, is just a puppet of the guys with the spreadsheets. An old school baseball guy who will thumb his nose at the analytics department when they tell him to play Jorge Mateo over Holliday because a lefty is on the bump for the other team?
Not happening.
The best we can hope for at this point would be a similar puppet, but at least one who offers a different voice. Moreover, the fact than any change at all occurred would signal that there is SOME accountability in this organization.
The players need to see that signal. The fans are desperate to see that signal. There were just 10K fans in The Yard for yesterday’s doubleheader. Yes, it was a dreary mid-week affair, but make no mistake about it: we’re staring at a very long summer with a ton of empty seats at the greatest ballpark in baseball, and that’s completely unacceptable.
Pretty impressive, tbh pic.twitter.com/VIm4eZq8vt
— Eutaw Street Report (@EutawStReport) May 14, 2025
Just as we’re tired of hearing about how the players support the manager, we’re sick of hearing that nothing will change. That it’s a long season. That they’re going to flush it and start turning things around. That nothing is broken. That the expected stats say they should be better. That this is “in the extreme of outcomes.”
Enough. Enough talk. Decision time, Mike. And if he won’t…
The new ownership group has been silent throughout the slow start. David Rubenstein’s tweets about the O’s and appearances at OPACY tossing out hats have vaporized along with the team’s offensive output. Nobody wants a meddling owner, especially already. But if Elias continues to refuse to hold anyone accountable, those further up in the organizational hierarchy need to think about stepping in.
The Orioles are unbelievably, unfathomably terrible. It makes absolutely no sense. When failures this catastrophic arise, nobody should feel safe.
But hey, maybe we’re all wrong, O’s fans. Maybe they don’t make any changes, positive regression smiles upon us, and they go 25-15 over their next 40 to get to .500 by the end of June. Feel free to come back and throw this in my face at that point. I’ll be as happy as anyone to eat that crow.
30 Responses
The biggest mistake Elias made was not drafting Bobby Whitt. Adley is below adverage runing, throwing and hitting for adverage or power and he l plays at the top of the lineup. That pick will haunt the O’s for years.
Adley was a consensus #1. The pick wasn’t a problem. The problem is that they’ve ruined his swing. They probably would have done the same to Witt.
You’re ridiculous. How quickly you forget the amazing way he handles pitchers and their record when he was called up and how the team had the best W-L % in Major League Baseball. Rutschman ain’t the problem. We lose him we’ll see how horrible our pitching really is.
Why should anyone think that the right manager for a rebuild is the right one for contention?
It is all about accountability. I agree with this article, wholeheartedly. I live in AZ, grew up in CT and am a lifelong Orioles fan. The announcers on MASN/radio need to be more critical of this team. These players make a ton of money and need to be doing their utmost to perform. Baseball is primarily an individual sport (one players hitting should not affect another’s). This is a pathetic team. ACCOUNTABILITY.
The announcers are not going to be more critical of this team. Do you remember when Kevin Brown was suspended over some comments that he made about the team that were actually true?
Elias is the issue.
1) Adley over Witt
2) traded away Stowers, Norby, Ortiz, Hall for zero playoff wins.
3) haven’t extended Gunnar
4) allowed Fried, Crochet, Bueller to be added to AL East while we added no one.
The rebuild is a failure.
As I said above, Adley was a consensus #1. They probably would have ruined Witt’s swing too. The trades were all fine, except that they were too late, once those players had lost value. We see Stowers going elsewhere and flourishing with more playing time, which he never got here (and woudn’t have). Ortiz, on the other hand, is having an awful season so far.
I see coaching as the problem.
Witt was a consensus 1A and teams debated the pick. We PICKED THE WRONG GUY. At this point that is not even debatable. The Stowers and Norby trade was horrific. They have allowed Mayo’s value to whittle to nothing.
There is no leadership on this team. For some unknown reason the team didn’t bring back the only veteran player that took a ball to the face and played the next day to sign Sanchez. The team is poorly constructed. We have a manager that insists on batting Ruschman a 196 hitter cleanup. We have the 3rd worst record in the majors and the players need to find out quickly that there are consequences to their performance and at a minimum they need to fire this useless manager.
Agreed. The lack of leadership is a huge problem. They don’t have it from their ‘nice guy’ manager and all of the young players they drafted seem to have the same laid back / quiet personalities. Vets like O’Hearn and Mullins hardly speak. When things go badly like they have, there is NO ONE to help right the ship.
None of that helps the current team. How does extending Gunnar do anything when they are in last place? Adley over Witt is Monday Morning Quarterbacking – that pick was praised across the board when it happened – just because Witt is a superstar doesnt fix the problems with Adley. The current issues are the injuries to the pitching staff and the lack of leadership / competence in the coaching staff. All of them (French, Asche need to be gone along with Hyde ASAP
I agree with this article 100%. May we also add that batting with runners in scoring position is also about mental toughness, which the O’s have none. I also believe we lack physical toughness as well, but I’ll leave that one alone for now because that is all throughout professional sports minus football and hockey. There is no leadership in the clubhouse as well. In addition to management holding people accountable, the players need to hold each other accountable as well.
The most frustrating part of the coaching to me is the inconsistent ‘’strategy’’. Analytics have led the team to consistently start inferior players vs southpaws, but wouldn’t you think basic analytics (aka every possible metric) also tell you that Adley should never be in the top 4 batting positions as he ALWAYS is?
As for Elias, he seems to be a strong amateur scout, nothing more. Decisions at the major league level have been disastrous. Burnes trade was fine and not ticket science, but to give up EITHER Norby or Stowers for the guy who owned the worst WHIP in all of baseball was moronic from day 1. To think Coulombe for $4M wasn’t worth it was unbelievable. To not pull the trigger on a true blockbuster trade while your minor leaguers’ values are highest and instead blocking Mayo and watching his value plummet is mind boggling.
I’ve been wanting Hyde gone for the past 2 seasons. History shows that the rebuilding manager usually isn’t the manager that will take a team deep into the postseason. Didn’t happen that way in Houston, Elias’ former employer. Elias needs to go, too, but dumping the manager would be a good start at least.
I’ve never seen so many comments that I agree with. Adley is another Matt Wieters. In fact, worse. After Stowers and Norby escalated in a new uniform, I’m convinced the rebuild is necessary—in the managerial and coaching ranks this time.
Adley won a silver slugger. he also finished 12th and 9th in MVP voting in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Is he terrible right now? yes. why cant we get him back to SS status… who knows…. but these coaches certainly don’t know how.
Wieters was worth 9.2 bWAR over his first 3 seasons, and 18.2 total in his 12 year career. Adley put up 13.1 in his first 3 seasons, and has 13.4 currently.
I get that we want to compare him to Wieters, but he’s already been so much better that it’s night and day.
They have to get him straightened out, of course.
I’m so glad someone is finally saying this. I don’t even want to talk about pitching. We knew it would be bad, plus we have been wracked by injuries (also Grayson is a Grade-A wuss, but that’s not the focus of my ire.)
Hitting. What is going on?! We have been bad since the All Star break last year. All these good hitters can’t go bad at the same time. There has to be a larger issue at play here. Probably the coaching, but it’s gotten so bad, I almost wonder if there’s something in the stadium that’s making everyone sick. Either way, Hyde has to go. It is downright mind-boggling he is still the manager. The benching of hot hitters, the lack of ANY attempt to manufacture runs, the regression of all of our young hitters (except Holliday.) I am so done with Hyde. “Gotta Go Brandon.” Just fire him already.
Also, let’s drop the idea that Adley wasn’t a good pick. Everyone is going to draft a catcher with his tools with the first pick. The problem is that he has gotten worse…just like most of our other hitters. There is something systemic happening here.
Elias and Hyde are past their prime, and they both need to go. But I see ownership as a culprit for the 2025 season. He hasn’t shown that the team wants to win by signing our young talent along with significant free agents. You can’t fire the owner but yesterday’s attendance of 10,000 puts him on notice.
Hyde should definitely be fired! Elias needs to go as well! At this point wholesale changes are needed. This team has too many talented young guys to be playing so bad.
I totally agree with this article, and these comments from like minded, frustrated, long time O`s fans. I agree with Juan in that there has to be a larger issue at play here. I refer specifically to injuries. Yes the regression in hitting is a major issue as well, but I refer to players like Rodriguez who it seems has been injured more than he`s played. His big league debut was delayed by an injury, last year after 20 starts he was hurt again, and was expected back in September but missed the remainder of the 24 season. This year hurt AGAIN in pre-season and my guess is he`ll miss the entire season. Which brings me back to my earlier point of a larger issue. What kind of off season workout/rehab programs do we have these guys doing? I understand pitching injuries are endemic around MLB, but why do we have all these pitchers who become re-injured just after rehabbing for the same injury? Bradish, Rodriguez and how about John Means? I think the organization needs to be stripped down to the bare bones and re-tooled. Starting with Hyde and Elias.
Not just pitchers. Look at all the soft-tissue injuries to position players. Gunnar, O’Neill, Urias, now Westy has a hammy that won’t heal. They need to take a long, hard look at how they do things.
Excellent article Derek.
I don’t blame Hyde that much, I lean toward the front office more than anything. I don’t think the front office did enough, if anything to make a better team than the one that got swept in the first round two seasons in a row, there were absolute no upgrades whatsoever. Santander is struggling right now but O’Neill is no better, Sanchez? I would have keep McCann, Laureano? come on… if you can call any of those guys at least a similar performance from what we had that would be great, but not.
The same thing happened with the pitching, I would say the only good addition was Sugano, I wont even mention the other two. This has made the tough decision to bring in young arms that I don’t think are ready yet. I definitely understand that the injuries are taking a big toll on the rotation but that’s baseball and we were not ready for it.
I really think that the struggle of the rotation has put a heavy load on the batting, they know that the pitching is not there so they are trying to do to much with every at bat and is not working out well.
Hyde is trying to do as much as he can with what has and what he was given, that was nothing…
As part of the larger issue theme here as well, we must include the owner in this as well. Rubinstein stated he had no problem with a $200 million dollar payroll. I read where Elias said he preferred to build rather than buy a winner. I also read where Elias was falling on his sword to protect the new owner because the O`s really did not have the money to add front line pitching, which as we all know is expensive. So which is it? If in fact Rubinstein does not have the money, then we are still stuck in the Angelos years. If Rubinstein is flush with cash, then Elias is guilty of being derelict in his duties. Should not a competent GM use all tools at his disposal? Something does not add up.
Rubenstein bought Magna Carta for fun. He has plenty of money. Michael Bloomberg is part of the ownership group.
This is a case of Elias wanting to do it his way (cheaply) to prove how smart he is. If he won’t spend the money, it’s time for the ownership group to have a serious chat with him about his future.
If you are indeed correct that Rubinstein has lots of money, then the obvious answer is Elias needs to be fired. Billy Beane followed the same course in Oakland, (out of necessity to be sure), and although he had some great years in Oakland, his way of doing things never got them to the promised land. Take notice Mike, history repeats itself.
Well written, Derek. The young core of this team grind through every AB. All the arrows were pointing upwards just before the AS Break last year, but once adversity/pressure hit (playoffs, funk to start this season) they have wilted. And the early loss of the goofy Cowser – who keeps everyone loose – really hurt. Team needs a sports psychologist-and much better swing decisions w/RISP. The pressure should be on the pitcher, but the O’s either miss/take/foul off hitable offerings and get in bad counts.
I was done with Hyde after last years playoff sweep. That made two sweeps in a row. I’m sure the players are like, we not winning with this dude. Yet, Hyde is allowed to run it back again and the players morale is just in the toilet. Gunner is like, another season of me yoyo’ing up and down the lineup. I’m sure after each loss they are saying to each other, will this be the day we will be set free?
Too many routine plays, especially OF base throwing mistakes, are being botched. THAT is a direct reflection of the manager and drilling the players so the issue is remediated, but it keeps happening…still!!!
Been a Bird watcher since the ’70’s. I am stunned by how much talent has gone so wrong so fast. It is sad to see the best ballpark in baseball with only 10,000 people. I’m pulling for you Baltimore!