Royals fans bid Brohearn adieu

Sometimes, when a player leaves, it inspires great writing. This is not one of those times.

“Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will; the right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy; the season was exhausted. Nevertheless, there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future.”

-John Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu

When Ted Williams stepped away from Boston, and baseball, at the end of the 1960 season, it was a momentous occasion. Captured in the pages of the New Yorker, Updike’s legendary piece presented a ballplayer often at odds with the fans. Williams gave everything. The fans chose not to understand.

There are no parallels between Williams retiring from baseball and Ryan O’Hearn getting traded from the Royals to the Baltimore Orioles, other than baseball is a damn difficult game where appreciation can be difficult to find. (And they’re both left-handed hitters who were shifted. You take what you can get.)

And as a writer, whenever you can weave Updike and Williams into a narrative, you do it.

O’Hearn’s departure from Kansas City was much, much less dramatic. He was DFA’d last week by the Royals when they made the signing of pitcher Jordan Lyles official. I figured that since the Royals made the questionable decision to tender him a contract a couple of months ago and they reached an agreement for the 2023 season at $1.4 million, O’Hearn would pass through waivers and would accept an assignment to the minors. At least that would need to happen for O’Hearn to collect his salary for the upcoming season.

I didn’t anticipate that the Royals would find a trade partner.

On Tuesday, the Royals swung a deal, sending O’Hearn to Baltimore in exchange for the ever-popular “cash considerations.”

O’Hearn, as you are well aware, was the lightning rod for what has been to this point, an abysmal rebuild. He was the club’s eighth-round draft pick out of Sam Houston State in 2014 and made his debut in the majors in 2018. What a debut it was. He mashed 12 dingers in 170 plate appearances over the final two months of that season, hitting .262/.353/.597. It was production he would never come close to repeating.

Maybe that’s why he drew the ire of fans. Charge out of the gate like that and expectations only increase—even if the numbers point to an unsustainable output. Except trying to explain that away deflects from the fact that he not only didn’t come close to that production again, but his value also plummeted. Round up all the hitters in baseball with 600 plate appearances from 2019 to 2022, rank them by ascending fWAR and this is what you get:

O’Hearn definitely gets dinged for his defense, which is why I wanted to list the wRC+ number on the table as well. Overall, his production was 32 percent worse than league average over the last four seasons.

O’Hearn seems to know and embrace his role as a left-handed bench bat and occasional spot starter. If social media is anything to draw a conclusion from, seeing his now former teammates tweet their support and congratulations for moving on would say that he’s a good guy to have in the clubhouse. That counts for something.

Except for a role player there really has to be some sort of fit. And in Kansas City, even on a rebuilding team, it was always difficult to see how that worked. The roster is loaded with left-handed hitting first base /designated hitter types. It has always been difficult to see how O’Hearn fit on this roster as it was constructed. Maybe he still deserves a chance to show what he can do. Kansas City has long felt like it isn’t the correct place.

Now that O’Hearn is moving on from Kansas City, there are two things working in his favor. One, he’s going to Baltimore. He hasn’t hit especially well at Camden Yards (just three hits in 20 at bats, all for singles) but Statcast loves the potential for him there. According to Expected Home Runs by Ballpark on his player page, Camden profiles as the second-most dinger-friendly yard for the lefty. (Minute Maid Park in Houston is number one. O’Hearn has hit 38 home runs in his major league career, but Statcast says that number would be 44 if he played all of his games in Baltimore.

The second item potentially in his favor is, as I wrote back in November, is the elimination of the shift. The more O’Hearn was shifted, the worse his production. With two infielders mandated to be on either side of second base, it’s possible he will see a bump in his offensive numbers. He hits the ball hard enough (he’s a minor celebrity according to Statcast), but he needs to goose his launch angle to take full advantage.

Oh, and while the league has revamped the schedule so divisional opponents won’t play each other as much, O’Hearn will still get a few more whacks at the short right field porch in that joke of a ballpark in the Bronx.

That’s gotta count for something.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising the Royals were able to trade O’Hearn after all. The Orioles were reportedly in the market for a left-handed bat. It makes sense they would bring O’Hearn on board, despite the underwhelming track record of the last several seasons. A new ballpark, new rules and a contract that is more than affordable make it a worthwhile gamble for Baltimore.

Williams, Updike famously wrote, never tipped his cap to the Fenway faithful. O’Hearn, never heard such adulation but his achievements, those over 1,000 plate appearances, amount to a nice major league career. Yes, he lacked production, but he was there…in the game. O’Hearn isn’t going to the Hall of Fame, but he has been a major league ballplayer for parts of five season. He’s had some success and some failures. One may outweigh the other, but that’s how baseball goes.

Today, I’ll tip my cap to O’Hearn. The early promise may have gone unfulfilled, but a career of this duration, that looks like it will continue in Baltimore, deserves appreciation.