With all the trade talk, Machado seems to be saying his goodbyes
Manny Machado was in the Baltimore Orioles lineup, batting third and playing shortstop as he’s been all year, for the beginning of Monday’s doubleheader with the New York Yankees.
To hear him talk about the fans who voted him as the American League All-Star starting shortstop over the past month, and the teammates and organization he’ll be representing at next week’s all-star game in Washington, D.C., you’d think that weren’t the case at all.
In every city that boasts a contending baseball team that Machado and the 24-65 Orioles have visited this year, the local fans and media have taken their turn to engage in some fantasy forecasting about his future, be it a midseason trade or his pending free agency.
There was a new one Monday at Camden Yards — Machado spoke with such inevitability of a move, to a line of questioning so resigned to such a fate, that he ended up essentially saying goodbye before it’s time.
After all, what’s left for him to do?
“It is a little bittersweet of a situation where I get to go represent the team as an all-star, but at the same time, you think about all the bad stuff that’s been happening here,” Machado said.
“All the talks, just a lot of distractions that have been going on around here. You just try to put it aside and just try to go out there and try to represent the organization as best as I can,” Machado added.
This weekend, those distractions have come in the form of constant reporting, both locally and nationally, about possible trade destinations for the Orioles star. As of Saturday, the Los Angeles Dodgers were in the lead, with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs all in the mix as well.
At the plate this year, he’s been just that. His .313/.382/.560 average with 21 home runs, 19 doubles and 61
RBIs tower over anyone else who has worn an Orioles uniform. The defensive metrics have him as a well-belowaverage shortstop in his first season there, even if Machado says he’s “been playing really great, other than a couple errors here and there.”
Wrap all that up into one pending free agent and you have the most attractive pennant-chase rental in recent memory, with his pending trade such a foregone conclusion Machado seems to be already saying his goodbyes. “This organization has given me everything,” he said. “They brought me up, I got drafted here, this has been home for the last seven years. It’s been truly an amazing journey here that I’ve had, with everyone in here . ... This is now part of my family.”