The Tigers travel to Baltimore in the division winners section of the ALDS. The Orioles ran away with the AL East, while the Tigers went down to the wire to win the AL Central.

Here’s how the teams stack up offensively:

The Tigers bring a well-balanced, high-scoring offense to the series. They hit for average, get on base, and hit for power, especially doubles. While they have some slow, older players, they also steal often and well. They have the tools to score in a number of different ways.

The Orioles just crush the ball. They hit 34 more home runs than any other American League team. Given their low OBP, the Orioles did a good job of hitting home runs with men on base. Forty one percent of their homers were with men on, 11th in the majors, and they avreaged 1.56 runs per home run, 9th in the majors. Who would have thought that home runs would be a market inefficiency to be exploited?

The Tigers offense should be the tougher one to keep off the board, since they can come at you in so many ways. The Orioles can strike quickly with their power.

The following table shows the defensive side of the teams:

The Tigers appear to own the better pitching staff, but the Orioles finished with a much better ERA. Tigers pitchers recorded more strikeouts and allow fewer home runs while walking the same number of batters. You can see that FIP predicts the Tigers ERA to be much lower than that of the Orioles. Balls in play against the Orioles, however, tend to find gloves, while against the Tigers they find holes. UZR/150 ranks the Orioles best in the league, while the Tigers come in third from the bottom, so defense helps the Orioles pitchers look better than their three-true outcomes, and the Tigers look worse.

So this series pits a well balanced team, better on pitching and offense, against a low dimensional team, better at defense and dangerous with the long ball. During the regular season, the more balanced team won out, taking five of six games as Detroit outscored Baltimore 33-20 and out-homered them 9-3.

I give the Tigers an edge in the series, with a 55% chance of coming out on top. The Orioles play in such a way, however, that a little luck can easily tip the series their way.