It's Almost 'O'pening Day

Since 2012, the Orioles have confounded baseball pundits and number-crunching SABREmetricians.  From upside down run differentials to preposterous starters' Earned Run Averages, Buck Showalter's Baltimore teams win despite what conventional wisdom predicts will happen.  Playoff appearances in 2012,2014, and 2016 were fueled by bargain free agent pickups, a talented bullpen, and a little Orioles Magic.  To make the playoffs in 2017 it will take more of the same.  This team, on paper, looks like it will be lucky to crack .500.  Fans hope Buck and the boys have a few tricks up their sleeves.  Trying to predict what the summer, and hopefully fall, holds requires a spirited debate between the head and the heart, between evidence and wishful thinking, between what we know and what we think we know:

Fact: With brash talk and clutch play, Adam Jones led Team USA to victory in the World Baseball Classic.
Opinion: Winning is contagious.  Captain America and the O's get off to a hot April start.

Fact: Manny Machado finished fifth in American League MVP voting last season.
Opinion: Manny will ride 50 doubles and his first 200 hit season to a second-place MVP finish.

Fact: Matt Wieters left via free agency.
Opinion: Thanks to Wellington Castillo and Caleb Joseph, Wieters will not be missed.  Castillo will prove to be one of the baseball's sleeper signings of the offseason.

Fact: Last season, Mark Trumbo was the latest of Dan Duquette's successful scrap heap pickups.
Opinion:  Trumbo will not come close to replicating last year's numbers, further complicating a crowded DH/1B/OF situation.

Fact: The 2017 starting rotation will make no one forget 1971's four twenty game winners.
Opinion:  "Kevin and Dylan and pass the penicillin" may be the new "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain."

Fact: Two teams, the 1996 Yankees and 2001 Diamondbacks, won the World Series the year after dismissing Buck Showalter as manager.
Opinion: Leave my Buck alone.

Fact: The Orioles blasted 253 home runs in 2016.
Opinion:  With this starting rotation they may need to hit 300 in 2017.

Fact: Baltimore did little to improve their corner outfield positions.
Opinion:  The disparity between the quality of the O's infield defense and outfield defense is the widest in baseball.

Fact: Kevin Gausman is scheduled to make his first Opening Day start on Monday.
Opinion:  Gausman will take an Adam Jones post-game pie to the face after a strong Game 1 performance.

Fact: During Showalter's tenure, the Orioles have missed the playoffs in the odd years ('11,'13,'15).
Opinion: This season they "Buck" that trend by defying expectations and sneaking into the second wild card.

Fact: I've been wrong before.