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Baltimore Orioles: Searching for the next super-utility player

By Steve Rudden |
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Renato Nunez #39 of the Baltimore Orioles follows through on his sixth inning home run against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 23: Renato Nunez #39 of the Baltimore Orioles follows through on his sixth inning home run against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

The Baltimore Orioles are going into the 2019 season without a clear cut super-utility player – who fills that role for Brandon Hyde?

In the Buck Showalter era, the Baltimore Orioles had the luxury of having one player who was versatile enough that he could play anywhere to give the regulars a day off. From 2012 to 2017, that guy was Ryan Flaherty, but the Orioles decided not to offer him a contract before the 2018 season.

This year is going to be different, now that Brandon Hyde is the new manager for the Orioles. The entire roster is still a work in progress, with General Manager Mike Elias continuing to monitor the free agent market.

Looking at the current roster, there are two players that could potentially serve in a super-utility position in Baltimore.

Rule 5 pick Drew Jackson could be a contender for the role in 2019, assuming that he makes the roster out of Spring Training. If not, he’ll need to be sent back to the Philadelphia Phillies.

The other potential utility candidate for the Orioles in 2019 is Renato Nunez. We got to see a lot of him in 2018 after Manny Machado was traded.

Nunez has all the right tools, but he might be better with regular at-bats. But it doesn’t hurt to at least see what happens to begin the 2019 campaign.

With a little over a month left before Spring Training starts, there’s plenty of time for Mike Elias to bring in a free-agent to compete for the utility role in Baltimore – everything could change between now and Opening Day.

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But whoever the next utility player is, they need to be able to play any position within the infield, except catcher.

That’s why Ryan Flaherty was so valuable to Buck Showalter. He was able to fill in and play really good defense in the infield, and make some good plays in the outfield when needed.

Hopefully Brandon Hyde will be a stickler for sound defense like Showalter was because it was always nice going into games and seasons knowing that the defense was going to be great. If this Orioles defense isn’t good, they won’t be able to prevent other teams from capitalizing on errors.

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If your defense is sound, you have a better chance of preventing runs, thereby giving you a better chance to win baseball games. If it were me choosing the next utility player for the Orioles, I’d pick Renato Nunez. He played well and his defense was solid in his time with the Orioles in 2018.

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