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If there is one computer projection that seems consistently confounded by the Orioles, it is PECOTA. From Baseball Prospectus, that stands for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. PECOTA is the Baseball Prospectus proprietary system that projects player (and also team) performance based on comparison with historical player seasons.
The algorithm has seldom shown the ability to project the Orioles win total well. There have been rare years where it was close but many more with big, big misses.
Last year would be one, unless you don't consider predicting the eventual AL East champs for 74 wins and last place is a big miss. They were off by 27 victories.
Here were the projected 2023 AL East standings:
99 - New York (won 82)
90 - Toronto (won 89)
86 - Tampa Bay (won 99)
81 - Boston (won 78)
74 - Orioles (won 101)
Maybe even the Pecota projection system will expect the Orioles to be good in the 2024 season. Yeah, crazy talk, I know.
When the 2024 season begins the Orioles will have an opponent that is hard to define and one that has no win-loss record or playoff appearances. There are no advanced stats or metrics for it. It is expectations.
For the first time in a long time the team will be expected to do well and maybe even favored to win the AL East. This is uncharted territory for the Orioles in recent years.
Even the 2023 team, which had a stated goal to take the 83 wins from the year before, build on that and make the playoffs, had plenty of doubters.
While the Orioles' stated goal for this year is to take their 83 wins from last year, build on that and make the playoffs, not everyone believes that will happen. Or at least their predictions and projections lead you to believe they are skeptical.
The Orioles gained 31 wins last year to get to 83, and that was the second-biggest win gain from one year to the next in team history. The 1989 Orioles won 87 games, a year after the club won just 54 in 1988, for a plus-33.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 2022 Orioles were the first team since 1900 to win at least 77 games in a season after losing 110 or more games the previous year. And they were also the first team in major league history to win more than 70 games after finishing each of the previous three full seasons (150+ G) with 100+ losses.
But while Birdland is excited to see if their club can get back to the playoffs in 2023, others being heard from are trying to throw some cold water on the whole thing.
We can always count on the PECOTA projections for this.
