Baltimore Orioles: Hold Our Hand Through The Darkness, Trey Mancini

The Baltimore Orioles need to hang onto Trey Mancini to simply be their face of the franchise.

An idea was brought up last Wednesday on Twitter by Baltimore Orioles fans and creators of Cespedes Family BBQ, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman on Twitter. Keep Trey Mancini to be the Orioles face of the franchise.

The argument didn’t include numbers or any advanced statistics. Just a need for something to love during the dark times that come with a rebuild.

BBQ tagged Mancini as a potential “hold your hand through the darkness guy,” HYHTTDG for short, and then asked for other examples of this type of player throughout MLB.

Mike Trout of the Angels and Starlin Castro on the Cubs were a couple of names that received a lot of attention, as well as Joey Votto in Cincinnati, Jose Abreu for the White Sox and even Carlos Gonzalez for Colorado.

All of these guys have been on a team that at one point was down in the dumps, but still provided a reason to go to the ballpark each day and gave fans a person to continue to cheer for.

It may only be Mancini’s third full season with the Orioles, but the city and O’s fans everywhere have attached themselves to the right-hander as he is practically the only familiar face left.

When it came All-Star selection time, it’s safe to assume most Orioles fans and people around the league figured Mancini would be Baltimore’s representative. When it turned out to be John Means instead, Orioles fans were happy for the rookie southpaw but furious to see Mancini snubbed.

The outfielder/first baseman is tied for ninth in the AL in home runs with 24 to go along with a 20th ranking in OPS at .873 and the ninth-best slugging percentage at .532.

Perhaps the best part is that it seems like Mancini enjoys the spotlight and wants to call Camden Yards his long-term home. Mancini is only 27-years-old. The feeling is that he is just starting to come into his prime and with the news of the Orioles farm system continuing to climb in the ranks of MLB, there is no reason the Orioles might not surround him soon with young talent.

Of course, the person in charge of making the final decision is Orioles general manager Mike Elias, who played a large role in scouting for a Houston Astros team bursting at the seams with young talent.

But Elias was still around to see the Astros who had their own HYHTTDG in Jose Altuve.

Watching a young talent in Altuve mature and grow into an MVP and World Series champion around oodles of young talent is something Orioles fans would love to see from Mancini and the organization as a whole potentially.

So Mike Elias, please, take the hand of Mancini and continue to tell us in Birdland that one day Chris Davis’ contract will be up, tell us Adley Rutschman is the next young star and tell us that we can get through this darkness together.