Good morning, Camden Chatters.
The first major move of the MLB hot stove season dropped yesterday, with the Mariners re-signing first baseman Josh Naylor to a five-year, $92.5 million deal. That news doesn’t
particularly affect the Orioles, who had no need for Naylor with first basemen Ryan Mountcastle, Coby Mayo, and (sort of) Samuel Basallo already occupying the roster, though I suppose it takes the M’s out of the running for a potential Mountcastle trade.
In other news, the 2026 ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame was revealed yesterday, and among the 12 newcomers is one who is very familiar to Orioles fans: longtime right fielder Nick Markakis, the O’s-drafted and developed star who spent nine years in Baltimore and six in Atlanta. (Yesterday was Markakis’s 42nd birthday, so that announcement was quite the birthday present.)
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: Markakis will not be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He might not get a single vote. He had one great season — 2008, when he posted an AL-best 7.4 WAR and an outstanding .306/.406/.491 slash line — but otherwise fell more into the reliably-good-but-not-excellent category during his 15-year career.
But that’s fine! It’s still an honor to be included on a Hall of Fame ballot at all, and is the hallmark of a pretty distinguished career. And Markakis brought plenty of fond memories to Orioles fans over the years. He became an instant favorite in Baltimore in 2006, when he put on such a show in spring training that he earned his way onto the Opening Day roster as a 22-year-old rookie, skipping Triple-A entirely. Over the next near-decade, Markakis emerged as a consistent, steady presence in the Orioles’ lineup — where he was an above-average hitter by OPS+ in all but one season — and in right field, where he earned two Gold Gloves and made an array of game-saving catches. I remember one in Tampa Bay in 2011 in the second game of the season, where he robbed Ben Zobrist of a would-be walkoff three-run homer with a leaping catch at the wall to end the game.
Along the way, Markakis earned a ton of respect from his teammates and fans for his soft-spoken professionalism, even while his team endured some rough years. It was a cruel twist of fate in 2012 when the O’s were finally headed to the playoffs for the first time in Nick’s career, only for a CC Sabathia fastball to break his hand in September and rob Markakis of his opportunity to make his postseason debut. Still, that made it all the sweeter two years later when the 2014 Orioles steamrolled to an AL East title and Markakis was able to participate in the playoffs at long last.
That turned out to be his final season in an O’s uniform, as then-GM Dan Duquette was reportedly spooked by a herniated disk in Markakis’ neck and opted not to re-sign him in free agency. Markakis went to his hometown Braves for the final six years of his career — which included his only career All-Star appearance in 2018 — while the Orioles found out the hard way that it wasn’t nearly as easy to replace his production as they’d expected. Always underappreciated, Nick was. After his retirement, the O’s inducted Markakis into the Orioles Hall of Fame in 2024.
What are some of your favorite memories of Markakis, Camden Chatters? You can let us know here in the comments or in The Feed.
Links
Pondering what’s more important among Orioles’ needs, and other topics – School of Roch
Roch Kubatko writes that the Orioles’ starting pitching will be the key to their 2026 success, and I get that line of reasoning. But I’d argue that what’s even more important is to get the lineup back on track. If guys like Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser, and the rest don’t improve, the O’s are going nowhere.
Buck Britton Will Return As Orioles’ Third Base Coach – MLBTradeRumors.com
This seems reasonable enough. To my untrained eye, Britton did a pretty good job as third base coach last season, and he certainly has a rapport with the Orioles’ young players after managing most of them in the minors.
Why hasn’t former Orioles manager Brandon Hyde gotten another job? | MAILBAG – BaltimoreBaseball.com
Rich Dubroff answers a mailbag question sent in by, I assume, Brandon Hyde.
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! And happy birthday to former Orioles lefty Jamie Moyer. If I told you that his MLB career ended in 2012, how old would you guess he is? The answer, of course, is…63?! He pitched his last game at the age of 49, his 25th (!!) major league season. Moyer pitched for the Orioles from 1993-95, from ages 30-32, and at that point he was only about a third of the way through his career.
One other former Oriole has a Nov. 18 birthday: right-hander Steve Bechler, who tragically died at O’s spring training in 2003, would have turned 46 today.
On this date in 1964, Hall of Fame Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson won his first and only Most Valuable Player Award, following a sensational season in which he posted a career best .317 average, .889 OPS, and 118 RBIs, and earned his fifth of 16 consecutive Gold Gloves.
