Which MLB Teams Do Our Models Like More Than Vegas Does?

Baltimore Orioles

Projected Wins By Our Models: 78

2018 Over/Under: 73

It is possible a potential midseason Manny Machado trade is baked into the Vegas number, and while that is something our model would not be able to forecast, that does not explain the entirety of the difference between the two numbers.

Machado is projected to deliver about five wins worth of value this season, per FanGraphs, so he’d need to be traded pretty soon for this to be the only factor.

The Orioles’ BaseRuns record was only 70-92 last year, and while their pitching rotation still looks pretty bad, it should be moderately better in 2018. Free agent signings Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner are projected by FanGraphs to be worth 2.4 fWAR and 0.8 fWAR, respectively. Cobb has been a solid MLB starter when healthy, and while Cashner may not get your heart racing, those 0.8 wins would have been tied for the third-most for an Orioles starter in 2017.

As far as the returning starters, Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman will also be looking to build off solid 2017 seasons, and if Chris Tillman can be just replacement level this year, that would add a full win above replacement to their ledger from last year.

Again, given the big drop after its top three starters, this is probably still one of the lesser rotations in MLB, but the starting staff seems like a good bet to be worth more than 5.5 fWAR. A big year from Machado would also good a long way toward helping Baltimore’s position players rank higher than 25th, even if he does play a chunk of the year elsewhere.