Saturday Bird Droppings: Projections reveal Orioles obvious needs

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty ImagesGood morning, Birdland!

One of the more exciting days for the analytically-inclined amongst us arrived on Friday as FanGraphs published friend-of-the-site Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections for the 2023 Orioles.

Of course, projections are not guaranteed to come true, but they certainly are fun to read through. They also provide for a numbers-based look at the state of the current major league team, although the writer even admits where there are some outputs that don’t entirely jive with common thought.

An example of this is the Orioles bullpen, which is projected for a total of 3.5 zWAR. That accounts for some pretty serious negative regressions for the…