Before the Orioles kick off their 2015 regular season this afternoon, I wanted to take a quick snapshot of who the prognosticators are picking to win the AL East.

There is quite a bit of orange in there and it is a tad . . . unsettling. 15 out of the 37 (40.5%) individuals listed above picked the Orioles to win the American League East. That's the most of any other team with the Red Sox (14 1st place predictions) finishing just behind. That means - that by this sample of data at least - the 2015 Orioles are the favorites to win the American League East. There is something that does not feel quite right about that.

Fear not, it has not been all positive. It is feast or famine for the ESPN predictions. Nobody that picked another team to win the AL East chose the O's as a Wild Card team. At FOX Sports, only Matt Trueblood picked the O's to make the Wild Card game, which means 10 out of the 12 guys at FOX see Baltimore missing the playoffs altogether. Mark Townsend at Yahoo! was downright gloomy with his prediction, picking the O's to finish 4th in the division with a 79-83 record. We can rest a little bit easier in the knowledge that not every writer is on the Oriole bandwagon.

Orioles Observer