If you have been a Camden Chat regular over the years, you are probably familiar with our annual contest. Each year in March, we post a series of questions to get you thinking about the season ahead. This past March, we had 282 of Camden Chat’s finest submit their answers to 30 questions, and we had a pretty large group of first place finishers.
With 19 answers correct, congratulations go out to Melvinmora, J(O’s)elskil, OldOsFan, DJDrP, and PaulFolk! You five have proven your brilliance and may commence
gloating immediately. One of these winners is my husband! I’ll let you guess who.
Eight entrants had 18 correct answers, including our boss Mark Brown, AKA Eat More Esskay. Fun fact, the worse the Orioles do in a season, the higher Mark scores in this contest.* As for me, I finished in 63rd place with 15 correct.
*I did not check my work on this over multiple seasons, but you have to admit it sounds right.
To see the full results and find your score, click over to the results spreadsheet. It is sorted by number correct, so the easiest way is to CTRL+F your name. Check it out and let us know how you did in the comments!
The full questions and answers are below. This year was tough, as so many answers brought back all the troubles the team had. But on the bright side, next year our expectations will be so low that it’ll be easier to be pleased with the results.
Which will be higher?
- Innings pitched by Shane Baz or Grayson Rodriguez? Baz – 179.2; Grayson – 98.2 – Baz was a vast improvement over Rodriguez. No only did he pitch 81 more innings, but his ERA was 1.91 runs lower. (97.5% answered correctly)
- Games played by guys named Tyler or guys named Jackson? Jackson – 200 (Hollday – 98, Jeremiah – 102), Tyler – 128 (O’Neill – 85, Wells – 43). This race was actually tied about halfway through the season before Team Jackson pulled away. (72% answered correctly)
- Saves by Ryan Helsley or starts by Zach Eflin? Helsley – 8, Eflin – 1. Both of these answers make me sad. (84% answered correctly)
- OPS+ for Pete Alonso or Kyle Schwarber? Alonso – 149, Schwarber – 128. We love you, Pete! (51.4%)
- Colton Cowser K% or Cedric Mullins stolen bases? Cowser – 30.9%, Mullins – 21. Cowser struck out at the rate we pretty much expected. Mullins had a poor year on the basepaths. He stole 21 bases and was caught 10 times. (81.2%)
- Taylor Ward bWAR or Trevor Rogers ERA? Rogers – 4.03, Ward – 2.7. Rogers’s number was higher than I expected and Ward’s was about what I expected. (47.2%)
- Chris Bassitt HR allowed or Coby Mayo HR hit? Mayo – 24, Bassitt – 10. Next year we’ll probably do an O/U on Mayo homers. (65.6%)
- Dean Kremer BB or Blaze Alexander GS? Alexander – 74, Kremer – 11. This one was lopsided by both Blaze’s unexpectedly good play and Dean’s unexpected trade. (73%)
- OBP by Dylan Beavers or Ramón Laureano? Beavers – .307, Laureano – .286. Beavers essentially replaced Laureano in the lineup, and proved a better hitter this year. It was a low bar to cross; Laureano was not only bad at the plate, but he missed about 2/3 of the season with injury. (60.6%)
- Playoff games at Camden Yards or Orioles with 30+ HR? 30+ homers – 1 (Pete!); Playoff games – 0. This one is a bummer (61%)
Over/Under
This section is pretty depressing.
- Gunnar Henderson SLG: .4995 – Under – .404 (21.6%)
- Orioles wins: 85 ½ – Under – 79 (12.8%)
- Number of starting pitchers used: 12 ½ – Under – 10 (79.8%)
- Jackson Holliday OPS: .7245 – Under – .640 (42.6%)
- Kyle Bradish ERA: 2.755 – Over – 4.12 (74.5%)
Yes/No
This section stumped people as a whole. Look at those low percentages of right answers!
- Will Jordan Westburg play a Major League game in 2026? No (27.7%)
- Will Samuel Basallo make >50 starts at catcher? Yes (69.1%)
- Will Adley Rutschman finish with at least 2 bWAR? No – 1.9 (6%)
- Will the team ERA be under 4.00? No – 4.08 (41.1%)
- Will Ryan Mountcastle be in the organization on Sept 27th? Yes (19.5%)
Multiple Choice(71/3%)
- Who will make the second-most starts at first base? Alonso – 142, Mayo – 13, Basallo – 4, Mountcastle – 2 (17.7%)
- Which pitcher listed will make the most starts? Brandon Young – 28, Trey Gibson – 8, Cade Povich – 7, Albert Suarez – 0. Young will no longer be lumped in with this tier of pitcher. (8.2%)
- Which of the following prospects will have the most stolen bases in the minors? Enrique Bradfield – 44, Aron Estrada – 8, Vance Honeycutt – 38, Nate George – 15. Estrada’s steals went down as his power went up. George only played 20 games and still had 15 steals. (71.3%)
- Against which AL East team will the Orioles have the most wins? Rays 8, Jays – 7, Red Sox – 4, Yankees – 3. The Orioles had a winning record against the team with the most wins in the AL. Baseball is funny. (59.6%)
- Which relief pitcher will have the most losses? Helsley – 4, Wells – 2, Akin – , Cano – 3, Somebody else (Wolfram) – 4 (33.7%). If you chose Helsley or Wolfram, you got the points. Considering he missed so much time with injury, how did Helsley end up leading this category?
For the first time in contest history, we included questions about yearly awards, which are not announced until after the postseason. This was a mistake on our part, because the Orioles are not getting any awards. The questions are on the spreadsheet linked at the top of the page but have no scores. IF someone ends up winning (lol!) I’ll come back and issue an addendum.
Thank you to everyone who played this year! I hope you had fun and we’ll see you in the spring for the 2027 contest.
