Leading Off

Bird’s Eye View joins you off-cycle to bring a lack of insight and baseless opinion to the Nick Markakis situation. For those of you living under a rock, the Orioles (former) longest tenured Oriole signed a four-year, $44 million deal with the Atlanta Braves. At one point, it was impossible to think of Markakis in another uniform, but reports this week showed the two sides growing farther and farther apart, until ultimately, his return was considered a long shot.

#TheNickMarkakisWatch

This effectively ends #TheNickMarkakisWatch, and leaves O’s fans divided on whether the club made the right call in letting Markakis escape in free agency. As with Nelson Cruz’s recent departure for gr$$ner pastures in Seattle, there is a mix of emotion from the fan base. Some applaud the move, others are infuriated. Here are BEV, we’re directly in the middle. From a baseball analytics perspective, this is a player the Braves overpaid for, and one that can be replaced. On an emotional level, we wanted Nick back in the orange and black, and will miss rooting for him.

Much debate has been made as to how good a player Nick Markakis actually is. The stat heads claim that he’s a middling offensive player, and sub-average defender. The “back of the baseball card” crowd praise his Gold Glove defense, steady dependability, and ability to hold down the leadoff spot in a potent offense. One source we trust, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS are not kind to Markakis:

And here’s Markakis ZiPS in ATL. Poor ZiPS can’t even imagine someone wanting to give Markakis 140 games in ’16. pic.twitter.com/KLlatpaKxh

— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) December 4, 2014

So the real concern is how much he’ll be on the field, what he’ll bring while he’s there, and whether that is worth the $11 million he’ll make each year.

The Orioles thought it wasn’t worth the investment. Good, bad, or ugly, that was their assessment. So they let him walk.

Fine, So Now What?

With the departure of Markakis and Cruz, the Orioles have holes in left field, right field, and DH. To replace Markakis, there are a couple of options left on the free agent market:

Nori Aoki
Michael Morse
Colby Rasmus

We talk through the options, and what rabbits the front office is most likely to pull from the free agency hat. The team also has a number of in-house options to fill the hole in right field, even on a platoon basis:

Steve Pearce
Alejandro De Aza
David Lough
Dark horse minor leaguers

The best of this group is probably a split between Pearce and Lough, where Pearce gets a lion’s share of the at-bats, hoping that he can follow up on his strong 2014 campaign. And really… David Lough can’t get any worse, right? Right?! Then there’s Door #3 – the trade market. Trades are a tough thing to project, particularly since we don’t have anything to go on, other than wild speculation. We’ll leave that to the Twitter Teen Squad, but here are a few rumors that have been bandied about. We don’t consider any of them likely:

Matt Kemp
Carlos Gonzalez
Justin Upton
Yoenis Cespedes
Bryce Harper

Closing Thoughts

First, don’t freak out. It’s OK to feel emotion. It’s OK to miss Nick Markakis. But let’s remember to give Dan Duquette and his front office the benefit of a little doubt. This is the regime that turned fourteen losing seasons into three consecutive winning seasons, complete with two playoff appearances. This is the team that turns magic beans like Miguel Gonzalez, Nate McLouth, and Steve Pearce into winning nuggets. This is the regime that finds and signs Wei-Yin Chen and trades for Bud Norris. This is the group that got Nelson Cruz on a steal for 2014. They’re not perfect *coughUbaldoJimenezcough* but they deserve a little breathing room. Put the torches and pitch forks down.

And from Markakis’ perspective, this is a puzzling move. We don’t know for sure how much money separated the Orioles’ three-year deal and the contract he ultimately signed, but he clearly took the money over all the other factors. Sure, Baltimore is close to his Monkton home. Sure it’s a winning team that is built to continue to contend. Sure, it’s the only place he’s ever known. But it’s also the organization with which he will always be associated. In his nine years with the club, Nick Markakis has risen up the leader boards in numerous franchise lists. Markakis will never be one of baseball’s all-time greats, but he had a real chance to be one of Baltimore’s all-time greats. Instead, he’s off to Atlanta to start the next chapter.

Let’s not pretend this is Markakis taking thirty pieces of silver and stabbing us in the back. This is business. A good player got paid a lot of money, and the Orioles didn’t want to get caught paying that much for that long. Markakis will be back at Camden Yards in July, wearing a different uniform, and making everyone feel pretty awkward. Do the right thing, Birdland: give him a standing O, and thank him one last time for the good old days.