These are the days for fans of the Baltimore Orioles, ardently rooting for a team in prime position to repeat as AL East champions for the first time since 1974 and currently holding onto the best farm system in baseball per multiple media outlets.
Maryland sports betting apps certainly don’t see the Orioles as a fluke, with lines that put them in the hunt to repeat.
Baltimore is +200 to win the AL East, slightly behind the New York Yankees (+140), but significantly ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays (+450), Tampa Bay Rays (+700) and Boston Red Sox (+1500) at Caesars Sportsbook Maryland.
Much of the O’s on-field success of late can be attributed to the exploits of franchise cornerstone catcher Adley Rutschman, who has accumulated a career Wins Above Replacement (WAR) total of 9.6 in 267 MLB games, with 264 hits, 33 home runs, 122 RBI and 154 runs during his young MLB career.
The 2022 AL Rookie of the Year runner-up and 2023 Silver Slugger winner enters 2024 with outsized expectations of his own. FanDuel Maryland lists Rutschman alongside teammate Gunnar Henderson for seventh place in the AL MVP odds race, at +2000. You will want a FanDuel Maryland promo code if those odds grab you.
The team at Baseball-Reference.com projects Rutschman to finish the year with 18 home runs, 67 RBI and 79 runs scored, all of which would rank somewhere between where the 26-year-old Oregon native finished in 2022 and 2023.
To get a sense of where Rutschman ranks against a handful of other Baltimore greats over the years, BetMaryland.com – your source for Maryland sports betting - stacked up the third-year catcher’s WAR total through two seasons and compared that number against where the rest of the field was at a similar point in their MLB careers.
How Rutschman Stacks Up to Orioles Legends
Wins Above Replacement is a metric that is highly valued in MLB these days. It measures a player’s all-around value by determining how many more wins he is worth compared to an average replacement. Rutschman has a career WAR of 9.6. Here is how that stacks up against other Orioles greats with the same amount of MLB service.
- Cal Ripken Jr.: 12.9 WAR
- Adley Rutschman: 9.6 WAR
- Manny Machado: 7.5 WAR
- Mike Mussina: 7.3 WAR
- Eddie Murray: 3.7 WAR
- Jim Palmer: 1.6 WAR
Can Rutschman Snap O’s MVP Skid?
While the O’s have had four players win the AL MVP award between 1964 and 1991, no Baltimore player has done so since Ripken 33 years ago, leaving Rutschman and Henderson to try to break through in 2024.
Henderson already has shattered a glass ceiling of sorts last season by winning the club’s first AL Rookie of the Year honor since Gregg Olson in 1989. That illustrates how much attention the young stars have received from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, which votes on a host of MLB awards, including the AL and NL MVP.
For Rutschman, his 9.6 WAR total through two seasons ranks second among the five franchise cornerstones that BetMaryland.com used for our survey. He is behind Ripken’s 12.9 WAR total and ahead of Manny Machado (7.5), Mike Mussina (7.3), Eddie Murray (3.7) and Jim Palmer (1.6).
However, it’s safe to assume that Rutschman is more focused on snapping Baltimore’s 31-year championship drought than on securing any sort of individual honor. It all starts for Baltimore on March 28 with the Los Angeles Angels visit for the season opener.
