One number that defines every Orioles hitter’s 2024 season

What one offensive number defines the Orioles’ offensive season?

Ultimately, the 2024 season was a positive one for the Orioles’ lineup after they finished in the top five in most offensive categories. But, fair or not, two numbers will stand out more than any other when assessing Baltimore’s bats in 2024: one run in two games.

That’s the production the Orioles’ offense put up in the club’s two postseason games, resulting in a sweep at the hands of the Kansas City Royals. Last October, it was the pitching staff that let Baltimore down. This time, it was the offense that couldn’t come through.

“No. 1, it’s two games. But we do this two years in a row, and in the context of a second half where the sort of run creation just dissipated in the second half,” general manager Mike Elias said during his end-of-season news conference. “And there were health reasons for that, but I’m not going to pretend that that was the entirety of it, especially with the way that the quick postseason went.”

It’s imperative that Elias and company find ways to get over the postseason hump, but how the club’s sluggers performed across the 162-game season is far more important than the tiny two-game sample size in October. Given that, here is one number that defines every Orioles hitter’s 2024 season.

Catchers

Adley Rutschman: 257 — What happened to Rutschman in 2024 is one of the most perplexing aspects of the Orioles’ season. In the first three months of the season, Rutschman was putting up a career-best .821 OPS, and the Orioles were 53-31. But the switch-hitting backstop spent the final three months engrossed in the worst slump of his young career, posting a .564 OPS — 257 points lower than across his first three months — as the Orioles went 38-40 to end the season.

James McCann: 22 — Of the 41 starts made by veteran pitchers Corbin Burnes and Zach Eflin, McCann caught 22 of them (54%). He was behind the dish for 41 of the other 121 games (33%).

Infielders

Ryan Mountcastle: 4 — Since the Orioles moved back the left field wall at Camden Yards, no MLB hitter has been adversely affected more than Mountcastle. His four homers robbed by the wall upped his MLB-high total since 2022 to 11, according to Statcast tracking data. Mountcastle ended the year with a .733 OPS. Turn those four batted balls into homers, and it would have been .762.

Ryan O’Hearn: 0.67 — In 2023, O’Hearn posted the 10th-worst walk-to-strikeout ratio in baseball at 0.18 — meaning he struck out five times as often as he walked. In 2024, he maintained the same offensive production (122 OPS+) while altering his approach to strike out less and walk more. His 0.67 walk-to-strikeout ratio — nearly three times better than last year — ranked best on the Orioles and 12th in MLB.

Jordan Westburg: 90 — Westburg’s value to the Orioles’ lineup became more evident when he couldn’t be in it. With Westburg healthy, the Orioles hit .258 with a .776 OPS compared with .230 with a .686 OPS — a difference of 90 points — when he was injured.

Jackson Holliday: 33.2% — During his historic 2023 minor league season, Holliday struck out in 20.3% of his plate appearances. As a rookie in 2024, the 20-year-old punched out in 33.2% of his trips to the plate. That was the 15th worst strikeout rate among the 365 MLB hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

Jorge Mateo: 22.9% — These were the swing-and-miss rates from Mateo’s first four big league seasons: 35.1%, 30.4%, 30.9% and 27.8%. In 2024, before his season-ending elbow injury, Mateo whiffed on only 22.9% of his swings — a significant improvement in the biggest hole in the speedster’s offensive profile.

Ramón Urías: 3rd — Urías was relegated to the bench as he put up a .452 OPS in April. But from May 1 on, he ranked third on the Orioles in OPS at .802. The only hitters ahead of him: Gunnar Henderson (.873) and Anthony Santander (.836).

Emmanuel Rivera: 14th — Before joining the Orioles in late August, Rivera was hitting .214 with a .563 OPS for the Miami Marlins. But in his five weeks as an Oriole, his .578 slugging percentage ranked 14th in MLB over that span.

Coby Mayo: .964 — It’s easy to overreact to Mayo’s miniscule sample size in the majors during which he went 4-for-41 with 22 strikeouts. But his elite minor league season, headlined by his .964 OPS, is more indicative of the type of player the prospect could be than his rough first stint in the show.

Gunnar Henderson: 5.7 — The last time an Orioles player was as valuable to his team as Henderson was in 2024, Cal Ripken Jr. put up the best season in franchise history in 1991. The difference between Henderson’s wins above replacement (9.1 by Baseball-Reference’s estimation) and the next-highest Oriole (Corbin Burnes at 3.4) was 5.7 WAR. The last time the WAR gap between the Orioles’ top player and second-best player was that large was in 1991, when Ripken put up 11.5 WAR to Mike Devereaux’s 4.9 — a difference of 6.6.

Outfielders

Colton Cowser: 1st — Cowser’s offensive campaign — a .768 OPS, 24 homers and 69 RBIs — was impressive for a rookie, but it’s his defense that could carry him to win the AL Rookie of the Year Award and a Gold Glove. Cowser’s 11 outs above average, per Statcast, ranked first in MLB among primary left fielders.

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Austin Slater: .003 — The Orioles surprisingly traded Austin Hays at the deadline and acquired Austin Slater to replace him as the club’s platoon outfielder versus left-handed pitchers. The results? Slater’s .675 OPS in 79 plate appearances was .003 better than Hays’ .672 OPS in 80 plate appearances with the Phillies.

Eloy Jiménez: 250th — The Orioles took a low-risk bet on Jiménez returning to form with them in the second half, but despite his impressive bat speed and exit velocity, he was never able to get his swing back on the right path. Jiménez ranked 250th of 252 qualified hitters in launch angle sweet spot percentage — or, in layman’s terms, how often his batted balls were struck at the ideal launch angle (between 8 and 32 degrees).

Heston Kjerstad: 96.8 — That was the mph at which a Clay Holmes fastball struck Kjerstad in the helmet July 12, a play that altered the outfielder’s season. From his recall June 24 to the hit by pitch, Kjerstad appeared to finally establish himself as a big leaguer, posting a 1.141 OPS during that stretch. But the hit by pitch gave Kjerstad a concussion, which lingered into September and stunted what could’ve been a breakout season .

Cedric Mullins: 3rd — Mullins’ May was so bad (.344 OPS) that it raised questions about his future as an Oriole, but he fully bounced back in the second half to revive his season. His 2.0 WAR, by FanGraphs’ estimation, ranked third on the Orioles in the second half, behind only Cowser (2.4) and Henderson (2.3).

Anthony Santander: 3 — Only three switch-hitters in baseball history blasted more homers in a season than the 44 Santander tallied this year: Mickey Mantle (54 in 1961 and 52 in 1956), Lance Berkman (45 in 2006) and Chipper Jones (45 in 1999). Quite the way to go into free agency this offseason.