It’s a cynical thought, and yet even the slimmest of chances is enough that it’s worth thinking out loud.
Say the Orioles, even with their lineup reinforcements on the way, fall into the second wild card spot and begin their October exploits on the road. The nature of baseball means they could not play at home again after this weekend, and that means pending free agent Anthony Santander may be in his last home stand in an Orioles uniform.
He marked it with a walk-off home run Thursday, the importance of which for a flagging Orioles team is impossible to overstate. He’s turned into a man of big moments, and if the Orioles end up returning home beyond this weekend for playoff baseball, it will mean they have turned things around in the last nine games of the season. How fitting it would be that a Santander blast would be the start of that.
So, yes, the Orioles could end up hosting playoff games. They could also keep Santander around, be it with the qualifying offer or with a lucrative free agent deal. I could not, however, let the possibility that one of the rarest and most enjoyable stories in recent Orioles history potentially have its final moments at Camden Yards without acknowledging just how special his rise has been.
From a Rule 5 pick who, let’s be honest, wasn’t exactly welcomed at the time to an indispensable bat in Brandon Hyde’s lineup from the moment he returned to the majors in 2019 through the present, Santander has earned everything he’s enjoyed in his major league career. That includes the free agent riches that await him, here or elsewhere, and even though it’s awkward to think about, that includes some kind of recognition this weekend.
We know the beats by heart. Dan Duquette plucked Santander off of Cleveland’s High-A roster in the 2016 Rule 5 draft knowing he’d need shoulder surgery, and the Orioles had to have the inexperienced young outfielder on their active roster for 90 days over the 2017 and 2018 seasons to keep him in the organization. Buck Showalter wasn’t super shy about the roster burden that caused, and the day the Orioles could send him to the minors, they did.
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Santander began 2019, the first year with Hyde in the dugout and Mike Elias running the Orioles, in the minors as well. He had just 11 games at Triple-A to that point and had 209 more plate appearances that spring at Norfolk before joining the Orioles for good.
He ended up with 20 home runs and a .773 OPS in 93 major league games that year. He made 20 starts in center field because the Orioles didn’t have any alternatives, showing he was willing to do whatever it took for the team.
He was the Most Valuable Oriole in his injury-shortened 2020 season and grinded through injuries in 2021 before really coming into his own the last few years. Santander hit 33 home runs with a .773 OPS in 2022, 28 homers with a .797 OPS in 2023, and is on pace for the best full season of his career in 2024 — 42 home runs and an .813 OPS, earning his first All-Star appearance along the way.
Throughout, he’s been consistently above average at the plate by any measure. Of the 102 players with at least 2,000 plate appearances since the start of 2020, Santander’s .788 OPS and wRC+ of 118 through Wednesday’s game rank a respectable 43rd. George Springer, Christian Yelich, J.D. Martinez and Bo Bichette also were 18% above average by wRC+, where league average is 100, representing a strong set of company for Santander.
It’s hard to find analogs in the Orioles’ organization, considering many players who are this productive in their colors spend far more time in them. For his entire Orioles career, Santander has a .775 OPS. Jay Gibbons had a .768 career OPS for the Orioles in a similar amount of games, albeit with 121 home runs to Santander’s 152. Bobby Grich had a .777 OPS from 1970 to 1976, with 70 home runs but far better on-base skills. Chris Davis and Adam Jones ended their Orioles careers with identical .777 OPS, in 1,151 and 1,613 games, respectively.
We aren’t talking about the highest level of production the Orioles have ever seen, but every team and generation has these memorable figures whose impact is felt beyond what they do on the field. It will probably be a while before there’s a moment more associated with the Orioles’ City Connect jerseys than Santander’s July 28, 2023, walk-off home run. He’s gotten hot and hit home runs in bunches at every stage of his career. When he did so in August, it was vital to an Orioles offense that was showing early signs of scuffling. We are desperate in search of them at this point, but Thursday’s home run could be the moment that saves an Orioles team that was headed in the wrong direction.
It’s those broad offensive struggles that make it at least a possibility that the Orioles, who spent the first few months of this season as the best team in baseball, will not play at Camden Yards again after this week. It’s improbable that’s the case, but it creates an awkward circumstance in acknowledging what Santander has given the team this weekend. He should of course be cheered every time up, but that goes for every Oriole.
Farewells aren’t always clean, though the Orioles have enjoyed some recently in bidding adieu to Jones in the last home game of 2018 and cheering on Trey Mancini’s inside-the-park home run on Mo Gaba Day in 2022. Others are more awkward; Showalter had to almost remind the media that it was J.J. Hardy’s final home stand in 2017, and the praise came from there.
So I’ll say this with the expectation that there will be other occasions to, both over the last week-plus of the regular season and potentially deep into October: Santander has been a wonderful Oriole. A pleasure to see develop, a pleasure to get to know and a pleasure to watch hit. He’s never been cheated on a swing in his life.
And I still think he’ll be back at Camden Yards next month. I’d just rather the awkward scenario of having to say all this again than miss the chance to say it at all.
