1 forgotten Orioles injury that completely changed the 2024 season

The Orioles suffered through a variety of injuries in 2024, at one point having 13 guys on the IL as they struggled to keep pace in the AL East. The most notable injuries were the three big arms that went down with Tommy John surgery, those being John Means, Kyle Bradish, and Tyler Wells.

The Orioles also missed Jordan Westburg for most of the second half thanks to a broken hand suffered just after the All Star break. But while losing Westburg was arguably the worst thing to happen to the offense in the second half, losing Jorge Mateo might have had a bigger impact on the team as a whole.

Mateo has been a valuable contributor since coming to Baltimore back in 2021. He's not the best hitter but he does have elite speed, plays standout defense at both middle infield spots, and can handle playing center field as well.

Losing Jorge Mateo was a massive blow to the 2024 Orioles

Prior to his injury this year, Mateo had hit .229/.267/.401 with 5 homers and 13 steals. He'd been a solid defender too, working mostly at second base alongside Gunnar Henderson up the middle. After the injury, Baltimore was in a bind. They'd already tried calling top prospect Jackson Holliday up earlier in the year and the results weren't there. However, they had few other options and Holliday had gone back to tearing up the minor leagues after his demotion.

GM Mike Elias decided to go back to the well with Holliday, to mixed results. While Holliday had some big moments in the majors, including a massive grand slam for his first major league home run, all told it was a bit of a disappointing debut season for him.

Holliday played just 60 games in Baltimore this year but even with the small sample, the advanced metrics don't love his defense. He was good for just 1 OAA, and FanGraphs had him at -2 DRS. His bat wasn't much better. His final line for the year came in at .189/.255/.311, including a 33.2% strikeout rate and just 11 extra base hits in 208 plate appearances.

Holliday was such a big question mark for Brandon Hyde down the stretch that he didn't even get a chance to bat in either of the Orioles' two playoff games. There's still plenty of reason to think that Holliday will eventually live up to expectations and become a star at the highest level. However, that doesn't change the fact that the O's offense suffered in the second half after his call up.

Had Mateo stayed healthy through the end of the year, who knows what would have played out. They still would have been in a tough spot without Westburg, but going from a veteran presence in Mateo to a rookie like Holliday has an impact on the clubhouse, for sure. We'll never know if the O's would have been better off with Mateo in Baltimore and letting Holliday get more time against Triple-A pitching, but unfortunately we do know that things didn't work out the way fans had hoped. We'll see if that changes in 2025.