{"id":5071,"date":"2025-08-06T09:31:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T05:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5071"},"modified":"2025-08-05T17:47:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T13:47:01","slug":"let-me-give-markakis-his-due","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5071","title":{"rendered":"Let me give Markakis his due"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before he was a <a href=\"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5060\">Banana Ball pinch-hitting star<\/a>, outfielder Nick Markakis suited up for the Baltimore Orioles for nine MLB seasons and the Atlanta Braves for six more. He&#8217;s got a career batting average of .288, 189 home runs, and more than a thousand runs and RBIs.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly he made only one All-Star team, as a 34-year-old playing for Atlanta, though he&#8217;s probably much better remembered for his time in Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>In 2008 actually\u00a0<em>led the American League<\/em>\u00a0in Wins Above Replacement with 7.4, according to Baseball-Reference. He didn&#8217;t make the All-Star team, and he didn&#8217;t even receive a single MVP vote. This was five years after Michael Lewis published\u00a0<em>Moneyball<\/em> and more than 35 years after the creation of SABR.<\/p>\n<p>But still three years before Brad Pitt and Hollywood got involved.<\/p>\n<p>At least you got your moment with the Bananas, Nick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before he was a Banana Ball pinch-hitting star, outfielder Nick Markakis suited up for the Baltimore Orioles for nine MLB seasons and the Atlanta Braves for six more. He&#8217;s got a career batting average of .288, 189 home runs, and &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5071\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5072,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions\/5072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}