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Peter Schmuck: With Nick Markakis gone, Orioles' Travis Snider says, 'I'm here now'

weams

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weams Hangout Grand Counsel

weams

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-schmuck-orioles-column-0224-20150223-column.html

"I have all the respect in the world for Nick and what he was able to do here and guys who get a chance to play for an organization as long as he did," Snider said. "Having played against him in Toronto for a number of years, again, I respect everything he's done here, but he's not here anymore. I'm here now.

"I'm not here to replace Nick Markakis, but to be another man on this roster and to come out here every single day with the goal of getting better, and when Buck puts my name in the lineup, I'll be ready to go."

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tntoriole Hangout Grand Counsel

tntoriole

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"I have all the respect in the world for Nick and what he was able to do here and guys who get a chance to play for an organization as long as he did," Snider said. "Having played against him in Toronto for a number of years, again, I respect everything he's done here, but he's not here anymore. I'm here now.

"I'm not here to replace Nick Markakis, but to be another man on this roster and to come out here every single day with the goal of getting better, and when Buck puts my name in the lineup, I'll be ready to go."

He should have just put a period after the "I respect everything he's done here." And then gone to the next sentence. The bolded part is what always gets guys in trouble and is not part of the approved, Crash Davis, trite phrase book. In fact, he also could then have added "I'm not here to replace Nick Markakis, because I know few players were as beloved by Orioles fans, but I hope to give the fans my best by coming out here, blah, blah, blah.

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Frobby Hangout Grand Counsel

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I'm as big a fan of Nick Markakis of anyone on this board -- maybe the biggest. And I am not even slightly offended by the way Snider worded this statement.

Now, with that said, let's address facts. It is extremely unlikely that Travis Snider is going to be asked to play the same role that Nick did. Snider has never had more than 359 plate appearances in a season, dating back to 2008. Nick Markakis never had a season under 470 PA, and had more than 700 in six separate seasons. Simply put, for the last 9 seasons, you went to the ballpark expecting to see Nick in RF, and being surprised when he wasn't. Snider's not going to play that role. He'll probably get the most starts in RF of any of our players, but that may not be a majority of the games, and certainly it won't be the 150+ games that Nick routinely started out there. He'll probably see some time at DH, and there will be days where he doesn't play.

The idea here is that several players can combine to handle RF about as well as Nick did, not that Snider will do it by himself. And I will tell you, I am expecting that there will be some rough moments out there defensively in RF, not because these guys aren't decent defenders, but because of having less day-to-day continuity and because it will take each of the guys who plays out there some time to learn how to play the wall and how to communicate with Adam Jones. As I mentioned once last season, how many times did you see Adam and Nick miscommunicate with each other? Honestly, I don't remember it ever happening. So, I think we'll see a few more misplays in the OF this year than we are used to. Hopefully, some increase in range will make up for it, though I'm skeptical.

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