2 Orioles players who will be better in 2025, 2 who won't

Spring camp is fully underway for the Baltimore Orioles, the social media timelines are full of live batting practice and bullpen videos to over-analyze, and the excitement of a brand new season is growing by the hour.

Despite the upcoming fresh start, it's been difficult to wipe the memories of the Orioles offense going stagnant for the second half of the season and through another abysmal playoff performance, but preseason projections believe the Baltimore Orioles could have one of the top, if not the top, offenses in baseball. For that to come to fruition, the Orioles will need to see improvements from a few of their key contributors in 2025.

It's easy to grab the low hanging fruit and say Jackson Holliday will have a better 2025 season, given the fact that he was the top overall pick in the 2022 draft and was the consensus top prospect in baseball before making his MLB debut in 2024 and struggling to get off the ground. But there are a few key data points that point to Holliday having a better big league experience in 2025.

The Orioles should see big steps forward from these two critical players in 2025

Holliday hit a lowly .189 with a 63 wRC+ in his first 60-game big league sample as a 20-year-old. Expectations were through the roof after Holliday torched his way through the minors, but it's important to keep in mind just how young he is.

While the stat line wasn't that impressive, some of the underlying numbers were. Holliday's 45.1% hard-hit rate (balls hit at 95+ mph) was 9% above league-average and would have fallen among some of the best in the league if he had enough at-bats to qualify for league leaderboards. Over the final month of the season, Holliday also started lifting the ball more after struggling to keep the ball off the ground early in his first stint.

Holliday also possesses 95th percentile sprint speed, showcased how elite of a bat he has with a 142 wRC+ in Triple-A as a 19-year-old (more than six years younger than the average Triple-A player), and he showed immediate improvements at the plate in the big leagues after ditching his high leg kick and going to a toe-tap. Expect a much improved 2025 from Holliday.

Coming off a Rookie of the Year runner-up performance in 2024, there's still plenty of room for improvements for Colton Cowser as well. A 24 home run, 4 fWAR season, while proving some doubters wrong about his defense, was a quality start to his big league career, but Cowser still showed some holes in his game.

With a 90th percentile barrel rate and 80th percentile bat speed, Cowser posted some of the loudest exit velocities in the majors last season and hit fastballs well, but he struggled against breaking balls and offspeed pitches. He posted whiff rates north of 40% against both of those offerings and hit just .171 against offspeed pitches. If Cowser can improve against the changeup this season, he could unlock a bit more offensively. Strikeouts will always be a part of his game, but a lower mark in 2025 should be doable.

These next two Orioles players might not be so fortunate, as both have some collapse risk

But what about some possible regression candidates? There's lots of excitement about what Tyler O'Neil can bring to the lineup and what kind of improvements we could see from Ryan Mountcastle with the left field wall coming in a bit, but what about the pitching in Baltimore?

As far as back-end starters go, Dean Kremer has been solid in his role the last three years, averaging 1.5 fWAR per season. However, even with the left field wall pushed back the last few years, Kremer's 45 home runs allowed over the past two seasons ranks top 30 in baseball. For someone who gives up a lot of hard contact already, the new dimensions could become an issue for Kremer.

There also has to be concern about Cedric Mullins entering the 2025 season. Mullins posted a career-low max exit velocity last season of 106 mph (4 mph lower than 2023). He also had a barrel rate of just 4.9%, well below the league-average rate of 7%. Mullins did connect for 18 home runs last season, but that number was a bit lucky considering his high fly ball rate and lack of finding the barrel.

Mullins' value is going to continue to come from his speed and defense as it's much more likely we see a home run total in 12-15 range. He's also coming off a season in which he hit .196 with a 43 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. It could be an uphill battle for Mullins to secure regular playing time in 2025 with diminishing batted ball data, a dismal performance and more troubling projections against lefties, and plenty of top outfield prospects in the system working their way towards the majors.