After seeing Trey Mancini visit Camden Yards as an opponent last weekend, I figured it’d be a good time to check in on some other former Baltimore Orioles.
Here’s the latest on a group of players ranging from All-Stars to someone you likely don’t even remember as an Oriole.
Manny Machado
The best former Oriole in the league is putting together another excellent season in what certainly looks like a Hall of Fame career.
Manny Machado has a .899 OPS, the third-best mark of his career and his second-highest figure during a 162-game season. He’s already hit 30 homers for the sixth time in 11 seasons and is currently one of just five players to have 30 homers and 100 RBIs this season.
WAR from both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs agree that Machado has been a top-ten position player, with B-R ranking him sixth with 6.3 WAR, while Fangraphs places him fourth with 7.0 WAR.
He’s also been perhaps the most stable part of a San Diego Padres roster that has had an eventful year between the suspension of Fernando Tatis Jr. and the deadline acquisition of Juan Soto. He’s appeared in 143 out of 154 games for San Diego this year, enjoying a clean bill of health.
If nothing goes wrong down the stretch for the Padres, this year will be Machado’s fifth career postseason. He played in the 2012 postseason as a rookie, started the ill-fated 2016 Wild Card Game and then made it in 2018 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and appeared in the 2020 pandemic postseason with San Diego.
Perhaps the success of Dean Kremer makes it easier to watch Machado in a different uniform this year but, I can understand if not. Either way, Machado remains one of the best players ever drafted by the Orioles.
Jonathan Schoop
You can’t talk about Manny Machado without mentioning his best friend.
However, Jonathan Schoop’s production hasn’t quite matched Machado’s this year. In fact, Schoop has very suddenly become one of the worst hitters in baseball. After posting a .769 OPS from 2019 to 2021, Schoop has provided the Detroit Tigers with a dreadful .562 OPS this year.
Part of the problem for Schoop is his plate discipline has been especially poor this year. His 3.5% walk rate is dead last among 134 qualified hitters.
Now, what makes Schoop’s season particularly fascinating is he is also the best defender in the whole sport according to Statcast’s outs above average. Schoop has 26 outs above average, while no one else in baseball has more than 20.
Schoop’s contrast between offense and defense has made him a unique player this season and it’s anyone’s guess how his career will progress from here.
Hanser Alberto
After spending two years being a lefty killer in Baltimore, Hanser Alberto spent 2021 with the Kansas City Royals. This year, he has gotten quite the upgrade: he’s a Los Angeles Dodger.
While I’d love to tell you Alberto has been an everyday regular for a 106-48 team, that’s not the case. Alberto has appeared in 69 games for LA while only starting during 37 of those occasions. He’s served as a utility man for the Dodgers with multiple starts at second base, shortstop and third base.
Alberto has remained on the roster for the whole year despite seeing a sharp decline in his ability against left-handed pitching. After producing a .942 OPS against LHPs as an Oriole, that figure dipped to .771 in KC and has fallen to .630 on the west coast.
While Alberto’s value as a platoon bat might be dipping, he has found new life as a reliever with the Dodgers.
That’s right.
The Dodgers have deployed Alberto as a garbage-time reliever to save their arms and he has been remarkably serviceable in the role, posting a 3.60 ERA across nine games and ten innings.
Just for fun with Alberto’s small sample size, his 3.60 ERA is better than established pitchers like Madison Bumgarner, Corey Kluber and Blake Snell.
Alberto is starting much less often than he did in Baltimore, but I’m not sure he minds.
Christian Walker
According to MLB.com’s prospect rankings, Christian Walker was Baltimore’s #3 prospect in 2015. And yet, he played in exactly 13 games for the Orioles between 2014 and 2015.
Walker’s lack of playing time across those two years was pretty easy to understand once you remember that first base was occupied by prime Chris Davis during those years. Walker eventually joined the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he also struggled for playing time because of Paul Goldschmidt.
However, after the D-Backs traded Paul Goldschmidt during the 2018-19 offseason, Walker earned his first chance to be a regular starter and enjoyed a productive 29-homer season in 2019.
Now, he’s showing even more power in 2022 and has 36 homers with this season. His 36 homers rank seventh in baseball, trailing only stars like Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso. According to WAR from Fangraphs, he’s been the third-most valuable first baseman in the sport, sitting only behind Goldschmidt and Freddie Freeman.
Walker is one of the many examples that the journey towards being a successful major leaguer isn’t always quick or easy, but it can still be very rewarding.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).