In some ways, Nick Markakis epitomized the only winning era of Orioles baseball this century.
Surprising upon arrival and probably underappreciated by those yearning for more.
The 37-year-old has retired from baseball after 15 major league seasons, the first nine spent in Baltimore before he signed with Atlanta before the 2015 campaign. And while his steady play didn’t produce many highlights, his body of work puts him among the best in Orioles history with Markakis ranking in the top 15 in hits, doubles, home runs, runs batted in, total bases, walks, runs scored, games played, and position player wins above replacement.
Able to count their successful first-round picks on one hand with fingers to spare over the previous decade-plus, the Orioles selected Markakis as an outfielder with the seventh pick of the 2003 amateur draft despite other teams viewing him as a hard-throwing lefty pitcher. He’d make his major league debut less than three years later as he unexpectedly skipped the Triple-A level to open 2006 in Baltimore. It didn’t take Markakis long to establish himself as one of the Orioles’ best players as he batted .291 with 16 homers and finished sixth in American League Rookie of the Year voting.
His best seasons came the following two years when he batted a combined .303 with 43 homers, 91 doubles, 199 RBIs, a .384 on-base percentage, and .488 slugging percentage and was worth 11.6 wins above replacement over 318 games. Such production in his early 20s prompted many to wonder if Markakis might be the Orioles’ best player since the days of Hall of Famers Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken, which prompted the club to sign him to a six-year, $66.1 million contract just months after his 25th birthday. But that two-year period instead proved to be the peak of a long career that would be consistent but unspectacular as Markakis never again batted .300 or hit 20 homers in a season.
That led to the three-time Gold Glove winner being underappreciated by those unable to let go of the more lucrative expectations set early in his career. Markakis posted at least a .276 average and a .342 OBP in five of his final six seasons with the Orioles, but critics often lamented his diminishing power and high salary. Meanwhile, the stoic Markakis became a clubhouse leader for a young group that carried promise but wasn’t yet reaching its potential on the field. He wasn’t afraid to speak up either, publicly questioning a last-place club and the direction of the organization in the midst of a disastrous 2010 season that ended moving in a better direction under new manager Buck Showalter.
Morphing from a middle-of-the-order run producer into a leadoff hitter for Showalter and the finally contending 2012 club, Markakis was having his best campaign in several years before a fastball from New York Yankees lefty CC Sabathia broke his thumb in early September and left him to only watch the Orioles make the postseason for the first time in 15 years. Two years later, Markakis would finally experience the first postseason action of his career as Baltimore clinched its first AL East championship since 1997 that September with the veteran memorably celebrating with his young sons on the field and taking a celebratory pie from longtime outfield mate Adam Jones. It was one of the few times we saw the even-keeled Markakis smile over the years.
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Markakis batted .258 with a homer and three RBIs in a 2014 postseason that ended with the Orioles being swept by Kansas City in the AL Championship Series. That proved to be Baltimore’s last best chance of making the World Series and Markakis’ swansong with the only major league home he’d known.
The Orioles would soon learn that a durable right fielder — Markakis played fewer than 155 games just once in his final eight seasons with the club — worth roughly 2.0 WAR annually shouldn’t be taken for granted. Concerned about his need to undergo neck surgery to repair a herniated disc, the Orioles backed out of contract talks that offseason, prompting the Woodstock, Georgia native to sign with the hometown Braves. The 31-year-old returned from the surgery to have a solid 2015 in which he played 156 games while right field became an abyss for the Orioles, who failed miserably in replacing him and missed the playoffs. Nearly as consistent in his six years with Atlanta as he was as an Oriole, Markakis finally made his first All-Star Game in 2018 and had a last shot at a World Series last season before the Braves fell in seven games to the eventual world champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
Right field remained a revolving door for the Orioles, who played in only one more postseason game after Markakis’ departure and have now endured four straight losing seasons in the midst of a painful rebuild. The Orioles didn’t realize how good they had it until he was gone with a fleeting but fun era of winning soon to follow.
No, Markakis never became the star he looked like he might be at the beginning of his career, but 2,388 hits over a 15-year career speaks to his dependability, a trait Baltimore can appreciate more than any other baseball city. And for a franchise not having been to a World Series since 1983, Markakis is one of the few to proudly celebrate on and off the field over the last two decades.
