The Orioles had a very eventful offseason. They resigned Matt Wieters, Darren O’Day and Chris Davis, traded for Mark Trumbo and added Yovani Gallardo, Mike Carp and Pedro Alvarez. Despite all of these additions, the projections sure don’t like the Orioles very much. PECOTA thinks the Orioles are a 74 win team while Fangraphs thinks they’ll win 80 games. Part of the Orioles’ problem is that the projection systems think that the Orioles have weak projected starting pitching and minimal replacement level depth. If things go wrong, and Spring Training hasn’t gone well for them so far, then this is going to be a long season for the bullpen. But I’d argue that the Orioles major problem is that they didn’t sign Ian Desmond and David Freese. Ian Desmond …show more content…
Players like Schoop, Machado, Jones and Joseph both have decent bats and are able to play premium defensive positions. Wieters will also be a huge help to the offense and defense if his elbow isn’t ruined. Chris Davis is likely to lock down 1B. Aside from those positions, the Orioles have question marks. JJ Hardy will likely at least be a good defensive option at shortstop if he’s healthy enough to play. If he isn’t, the Orioles will likely need to choose between Machado, Flaherty or Janish at shortstop. Reimold would be able to lock down a corner outfield position if he could stay healthy, but he can’t. Hyun-Soo Kim appears to have below average fielding ability at LF and is having a horrendous Spring Training. Players like Trumbo and P. Alvarez are able to hit but will be disasters in the field. Players like Avery, Hoes or D. Alvarez would be acceptable in the field but aren’t able to bat. The Orioles have a limited number of offensive pieces but the pieces they do have don’t fit together. As far as I can tell, the Orioles likely will have 2 DHs, 2 1B/LF, a catcher, utility man, center fielder, second baseman and third baseman in the projected everyday lineup. And if other players than Reimold and Hardy are injured then the Os will quickly need to resort to hoping to receive production from replacement level