In modern baseball, there’s no shortage of stats. Simple stats like home runs and strikeouts remain incredibly important, but they’re now joined by more elaborate Statcast metrics like expected batting average.
Of course, there’s also plenty of stats that aren’t as simple as batting average but also don’t need the technology of Statcast.
Here’s a look at four stats you might not regularly see that still help explain the success of this year’s Baltimore Orioles.
Jordan Westburg: 1.369 OPS in high leverage
When the game is on the line, Jordan Westburg becomes one of the best hitters in the sport.
Westburg has had 48 plate appearances that are deemed as high leverage situations according to Baseball-Reference and in those PAs he’s provided 21 hits, 17 RBIs and three homers.
Westburg’s high-leverage OPS has certainly been helped by the fact that he’s delivered two walk-off wins this year, but his most important at-bat in high leverage this season actually wasn’t a walk-off and came on the road.
With two outs and two runners on in the top of the seventh inning, Westburg’s homer was worth 0.45 win probability added. That means that Baltimore’s chances of winning that game went from 33 percent to 78 percent according to Baseball-Reference’s model.
Westburg’s 1.369 high-leverage OPS is third among hitters with at least 40 PAs in those situation, with only Jurickson Profar and Jesse Winker being more productive when the game is on the line.
I’d assume Westburg’s OPS will decline in these situations with a larger sample size, but it’s still very impressive to see a player in just his second major league season regularly get hits in important moments.
Jorge Mateo: extra bases taken percentage of 71 percent
Extra bases taken percentage is admittedly a mouthful of a stat, but it has a pretty simple premise: how often does a baserunner advance more than one base on a single and how often do they score if they’re on first when there’s a double?
Unsurprisingly, Mateo leads all Orioles regulars with an XBT% of 71 percent, with Colton Cowser sitting in second place with an XBT% of 57 percent. The league average for XBT% is 42 percent, demonstrating that Mateo’s ability to pick up extra bases on other player’s hits is significantly above-average.
It’s hard to imagine any baserunning stat where Mateo wouldn’t be impressive, but XBT% isn’t exactly a mainstream stat that I figured would provide more context for Mateo’s excellent speed.
Danny Coulombe: 0 out of 13 inherited runners have scored
A key part of being a reliever is regularly having to clean up messes made by other pitchers. In Danny Coulombe’s case, he’s cleaned up those messes every single time.
There have been 13 runners on-base when Coulombe has entered a game this year and precisely zero of them have come around to score. Coulombe is one of 22 qualified relievers to not allow an inherited run to score this year, but the only one of those who have stranded more than 13 runners in the process is Alex Lange of the Detroit Tigers.
Coulombe’s most noteworthy occasion of stranding inherited runners came on April 10 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he inherited a bases loaded and no out jam in extra innings from Mike Baumann. The southpaw got a popout, a grounder to get the force at home and a strikeout to strand three runners in the toughest situation a reliever can inherit.
His ability to stop inherited runners from scoring can also be explained by his 0.615 WHIP, the best figure among all relievers with at least 20 innings pitched this year.
Corbin Burnes: quality start percentage of 79 percent
Corbin Burnes has taken the ball when it’s his turn in the rotation every time since Opening Day and has given the Orioles a quality start on 11 of those 14 occasions, a quality start percentage of 79 percent.
Burnes’ QS% is a noted improvement from his three years of starting as a Milwaukee Brewer, where he averaged a QS% of 62 across those three seasons. Even in 2021, when Burnes won the Cy Young, his QS% sat at 64 percent.
Unsurprisingly, Burnes’ QS% leads the Orioles by quite a bit. John Means had a quality start percentage of 50 percent in his four starts before being injured and Grayson Rodriguez has been 5-for-11 on quality starts, good for a QS% of 45 percent.
Burnes currently is second in the majors for QS%, trailing only Tanner Houck. The Boston Red Sox right-hander is 11-for-13 on quality starts, giving him a QS% of 85 percent.
With a 2.08 ERA and the ability to consistently to provide quality starts, Burnes has done just about everything you could ask for in an ace you’re potentially renting for just this season.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).