2026 Team Previews: Baltimore Orioles
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 Baltimore Orioles
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Podcast
Intro
The Orioles have been one of the bigger disappointments in baseball over the last few years. They’ve had more young talent than anybody, but have not been able to turn it into wins at the Major League level. I would not have thought that I would be reviewing them this early on in the process. They’re coming off a 75-87 season and a last-place finish in the AL East.
They’re so gone that they’re not even going to hire a General Manager.
Keep the money on the field, you know! Save that headcount and have the President of Baseball Operations pull double-duty. What can go wrong?
I don’t even know. Maybe that’s a good idea. They’d know better than me. I’m not sure what the difference between a President of Baseball Operations and a General Manager is.
There are plenty of fantasy-relevant names to hit on, so let’s get moving.
Hitters
Gunnar Henderson
Age: 24
Pos: SS
After a 37-homer season in 2024, Henderson disappointed in 2025. Just 17 homers in 154 games. That was a surprise. There was an injury at the beginning of the season, and maybe he just wasn’t fully healthy all year to facilitate some of that power drop-off.
Losing 20 homers is concerning, though. He still played 154 games. He made up for some of it with more steals (30), and still put up a good batting average. But he did not return value relative to what he cost in drafts last year.
Looking at the trend data, it does look like a lot of his bad season was front-loaded.
In April-May:
→ .254./315/.433, 7 HR, 27% K%, 8% BB%
After June 1st:
→ .285/.366/.439, 10 HR, 18% K%, 10% BB%
You can see the hot stretch from June-August here:
He was very good in the middle of the year. But he didn’t finish well with just one homer and a .317 xwOBA in September.
From June 1st on, Gunnar was the #15 hitter in standard roto, going for ten homers, 24 steals, and a .280 batting average.
This is a tough one! He’s still a top-25 fantasy pick in 2026, so we don’t have to spend too much time figuring out where to rank him. The ceiling is great, and I do think he’ll easily have a bounce-back season next year.
Let’s look at the skills:
A 107 EV90 is more than fine. His bat speed was 3mph above average. You can get to 30 homers with that stuff. The bigger issue for Gunnar was the launch angle stuff. His sweet spot rate fell to 29.9% after a 34.5% mark in 2024.
I don’t want to get too granular, trying to make guesses at stats like sweet spot rate. But I do see that his mark was in the 9th percentile. That means there are eight percentiles for him to go down to, and 90 of them for him to go up to. Basic math suggests he’ll do better in this stat in 2026, and more homers will come.
I’m not breaking any news saying that Gunnar will hit more than 17 homers next year, though.
The fScores:
Strong across the board. I’d like that fPower score to be a bit higher, but you can see that he’s a clear five-tool player. His ceiling is outrageous. I don’t think he can rival the skills and output of Ohtani and Judge, but I do think he has #3 overall upside if things get right.
One slight hesitation on his roto value for me would be that he stole 10 of his 30 bags in September. It seems to me like some players start chasing steals milestones late in the year. He was a 3-4 steal per month guy before September (an 18-24 steal pace), but then he turned into the road runner late with a 35% attempt rate. His career attempt rate in the Majors is 14%. He finished in 2025 at 20%. I’d expect something like 16% next year.
I do like Gunnar as a second-round pick. That’s pretty enticing to me. The floor is solid. He’s a locked-in, everyday player in the top third of the lineup, and he’s so skilled that I can’t see him ever having a truly bad season. It was also good to see him shake off the slow start and cut that high K% emphatically after the first couple of months. Getting him in the second round feels pretty great to me, and who knows, maybe he even drops down to the early third in a few leagues.
Projection
620 PA, 91 R, 28 HR, 90 RBI, 17 SB, .279/.355/.493
Ranking
This wasn’t hard to do at all! My #1 hitter prior to this was James Wood, and Gunnar is easily above him. So we have a new top dog.
Pete Alonso
Age: 31
Pos: 1B
Late addition here after Alonso landed in Baltimore after this originally published.
We don’t really have to get too deep into Alonso. We know who the guy is. Consistent home run and RBI production. He has at least 34 bombs every season of his big league career (sans 2020).
He’s the only player with more than 700 RBI since 2019. His worst effort is a .456 SLG with 34 bombs.
The park shift would have been scary prior to last year, but they changed that park, moving the left field wall in - and that made a huge difference. It graded out as a slightly hitter-friendly park last year. I’d expect it to be about league average in that stuff moving forward, so there aren’t any concerns on that front.
The concerns would be about years four and five of this contract he got. I’m not sure what Alonso will offer as a 35-year-old, but in his age-31 season, he should just do more of the same. The Orioles lineup looks pretty nice with him in there now, so really, nothing changes for the big man. He’s loaded up for another 30+ bombs and 90+ RBI (that’s probably close to the floor).
Batting average, though! He’s been all over the map on that front. It’s tough to know what you’ll get. The projection says .252, and that’s what we see for his career, so that’s a fair expectation.
Projection
640 PA, 90 R, 35 HR, 99 RBI, 4 SB, .252/.337/.497
Ranking
Jordan Westburg
Age: 27
Pos: 3B
Westburg has had trouble staying healthy in his career. And now he’s knocking on the door of 27! He’s played about 1.5 seasons’ worth of MLB games to this point and has done this:
→ .265/.313/.457, .770 OPS, 38 HR, 11 SB, 22.7% K%, 5.4% BB%
He’s shown plenty of power, especially in these last two seasons. The slugging percentage sits at .470 over these last 800 PAs. Good stuff. He also steals a base every once in a while, with seven steals in these last two seasons, although injuries slowed him down on the paths last year, as he landed just one steal.
Power indicators last year:
106.4 EV90
11.2% Brl%
.335 xwOBA
9.2% Air Pull%
He hits the ball hard. His bat speed is underwhelming, though, and his air pull rate was not very good. But he gets a lot of balls put in play with the low K%. He was playing at 30-homer pace last season. It was looking good.
We also see 89th-percentile sprint speed in his profile. That hasn’t resulted in a double-digit steals season for him to this point, but I do think that’s something he can do if he’s healthy. But it does require some will which I’m not sure he has. The highest attempt rate of his career was 15% back in 2021. It’s not a big part of his game.
You draft Westburg for the safe power and batting average. I’m not saying he’s a .280 hitter, but his career .265 batting average and the .256 xBA we saw last year (even between those injuries) show you that he’s not a guy who will be a draft on fantasy teams.
Third base gets weak in a hurry. Westburg is the #9 3B by early ADP, and I think that will have me getting several shares of the guy. I think he’s a really solid player with 30-homer, .275 batting average upside if he can stay healthy.
Projection
500 PA, 72 R, 21 HR, 67 RBI, 5 SB, .267/.316/.471
Ranking
Adley Rutschman
Age: 28
Pos: C
Rutschman has fallen a long way from being the unanimous #1 prospect in baseball. I can’t really speak to his defense, and I don’t want to, but he’s starting to look like a bust with the bat.
He had a breakout season in 2023. An .809 OPS with 20 homers. Great stuff for a catcher, especially as an everyday player. Since then:
→ 1000 PA, .240/.314/.382, 28 HR, 1 SB, 16% K%, 9.8% BB%
He was hurt last year. So there’s some forgiveness deserved on that front, but he still had just a .709 OPS in his full season back in 2024, falling short of 20 homers. Last year, the home run rate fell to a career-worst 2.5% and he did not steal a base.
So the scores are degrading:
Just a 98 grade now. But again, these don’t count defensive metrics.
More stuff from last year:
→ .253 xBA
→ .335 xwOBA
→ 7.5% Brl%
→ 91% Zone Contact%
→ 104.6 EV90
→ 15.7% Air Pull%
→ 43% GB%
→ .240 BABIP
There’s bounce-back potential. He had two oblique strains last season, one on each side! That makes hitting Major League pitching extra tough. But I’d be more forgiving of it if his 2024 season wasn’t so lackluster as well.
His best two months were June and July, and he was good in those two months with a .309 batting average before he suffered the injury. But there were only three homers in that time, so even at his best, he wasn’t hitting for power.
I’m always looking for a discount at catcher, so I could be interested in Rutschman. He’ll be cheap and does give you a bunch of counting stat upside as a guy who can play 150+ games. Maybe he’ll be capped around 140 regardless with Basallo in town now. I’m just trying to say that Rutschman after pick 150 is a whole lot more appealing than Rutschman inside the top 80 picks like we’ve usually seen.
He fits the “buy low” strategy, but I’m not jumping out of my way to get him on fantasy teams this year. The power and speed combo just doesn’t get me excited.
Projection
550 PA, 68 R, 16 HR, 61 RBI, 2 SB, .254/.333/.410
Ranking
I try to clump some catchers together in the rankings. Most times, the catcher pick is determined on what the rest of your league is doing at the position. I’ll put Rutschman right there ahead of Kyle Teel.
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