Is it Time to Press the Panic Button in Baltimore? Analyzing Orioles MLB Postseason Chances After Poor Start

A lot went right for the Baltimore Orioles in 2024, even if a Wild Card sweep sent them home earlier than the lofty expectations built up by their success in the first half of the season.

Still, the future looked bright heading into 2025, with young prospect Jackson Holliday showing his potential in the bigs, stud reliever Felix Bautista working his way back after a lost 2024 and one of the best young sluggers in the game with 2023 OROY Gunnar Henderson.

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However, not much has gone right in 2025. The Orioles didn’t shore up their lineup to replace the power lost with Anthony Santander heading to division rival Toronto in the offseason - they signed Tyler O'Neill who's had a pair of 30 HR campaigns, but who has also topped out at 14 HR and less than 100 games played in each of his five other seasons. Henderson missed the first week of the season with an injury and is still looking for his power to ramp up, though he's now trending in the right direction.

Their pitching is the Achilles heel, as they sport a 537 team ERA, the fourth-worst in MLB and a bottom-five run differential of -66. Only three teams have allowed more runs. The addition of Japanese starter Tomoyuki Sugano and his 2.72 ERA and 1.01 HIP has been completely outdone by other offseason addition Charlie Morton, who sports an 0-7 record, 9.38 ERA and 2.08 WHIP, career lows by a huge margin in his 17th professional season.

The Charlie Morton signing has backfired for Baltimore.

Now, after six weeks, the Orioles sit 14-23 and last in the competitive AL East.

Baltimore opened at +210 to win the AL East, implying a 32.3% probability, just a little behind the Yankees at +150. The Dimers model largely agreed, putting them in second like the sportsbooks, but at a slightly lower probability of 24.7%. Now, they’re down to 11.7% according to Dimers at +1800 odds, behind the Blue Jays (18.2%) and the Yankees (50.9%).

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They were the third-favorite to win the American League at +600 (14.3% implied probability) while they’re now down to 5.5% according to the Dimers model with their +2800 odds reflecting that drop as well. (down from just +1800 last week).

Opening as the fourth-favorite to win the World Series at +1100 (8.3% implied), Dimers' World Series Predictions have them down to just 2.1% after their 14-23 start, and their +6500 odds to win it all have plummeted even further from +4500 just a week ago.

Despite being projected for just 2.9% behind the Blue Jays for third in the AL East by the Dimers model,15.3% is not a big probability and for a result that’s purely win-based like winning the division, they’re trending in the wrong direction, even if they’re projected to finish higher than Boston and Toronto.

Their season-long win total opened at 87.5, with the Dimers model predicting a floor of 66 wins - the worst predicted outcome out of 10,000 season-long simulations. Through 37 games, nearly a quarter of the season, Baltimore sits 14-23. That puts them on pace for just 61.2 wins, below Dimers’ minimum preseason prediction. Their current win total on the sportsbooks is down to 74.5 with a 47.2% implied probability of going under that number.

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All that said, the Orioles' 7.5 games back from the top of the AL East isn't insurmountable.

For comparison, that’s the smallest gap between first and last in any division in MLB except the Angels who are 7 games back of the AL West leading Mariners, meaning they aren’t nearly as “out of it” as other last place teams like the Pirates, Angels and Marlins, though that’s not the company the O’s want to be in regardless.

Perhaps the only positive takeaway is that they've got a 2-1 record against the Yankees and are 3-3 vs. Toronto. They have 7 of their 10 games vs. the Yankees in the final two weeks of the season, with a three-game set vs. the Blue Jays before that. If they can chip away some wins and get in the race late, those games could end up being the deciding factor.

That could get them close enough to at least steal one of three Wild Card spots. They're 5 games back now with a chance to gain some ground in their upcoming series vs. the Angels, Twins and Red Sox. This is in play, as our model currently gives Baltimore a 55.1% probability to make a Wild Card spot, though just 17.9% to advance to the ALDS. At +570 to Make the Playoffs on FanDuel, that's some sneaky big value if you're a Baltimore believer.

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