Recency bias should not apply to Buck Showalter.
If it did, Showalter would be remembered as the manager who was responsible for one of the most putrid seasons in baseball history, a campaign in which the Orioles lost a franchise-record 7,149 games (give or take). If it did, he’d be remembered as the guy who botched the 2016 wild-card game by opting to use Ubaldo Jimenez instead of Zach Britton — the same Zach Britton who had just finished what was arguably the most dominant season by a reliever in major league history — when it counted most.
But recency bias should not apply, and here’s why.
When Showalter was named Baltimore’s manager in July 2010, the franchise was in shambles. The O’s already had 12 straight losing seasons to their credit and were well on their way to making it a baker’s dozen. Somehow, Showalter took a club that was utterly non-competitive during the first two-thirds of the year (.305 winning percentage) and turned it around over the final third (.586). After another last-place finish in 2011, the Birds shocked everyone in 2012, when they won 93 games during the regular season, then beat the Rangers in the wild-card game before falling in five games to the Yankees in the division series. It was the first of three postseason appearances in five years under Showalter, a run of success Baltimore hadn’t seen since the early 1970s under the legendary Earl Weaver.
Although Weaver was and still is the greatest manager in Orioles history, a Hall of Famer whose .583 winning percentage ranks 11th all time, it’s worth noting that when he took over during the summer of 1968, he inherited a team that had won the World Series just two years earlier. The following season, in his first full year as skipper, his roster featured a pair of Robinsons (Frank and Brooks) and a ridiculous rotation that was anchored by Jim Palmer and included Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally. Later on, he would inherit Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken — perhaps you’ve heard of them.
That’s no knock on Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, or J.J. Hardy and Nelson Cruz, or Chris Davis and Manny Machado. It’s not to say that Chris Tillman and Wei-Yin Chen didn’t have their mound moments. Point is, the cost-conscious tools with which Showalter rebuilt the Orioles’ empire were different — different than what Weaver had back in the day, and different than what deep-pocketed foes like the Yankees and Red Sox have had and continue to have, year after year after year.
And therein lies the greatness of what Showalter was able to achieve. During his eight and a half years in Charm City, he was routinely able to extract so much from what seemed like so little. He was able to take guys like Steve Pearce and Nate McLouth, guys like Miguel Gonzalez and Joe Saunders, and get the most out of them. He was able to mask the shortcomings of a deeply flawed rotation by leaning on a Frankenstein bullpen that, along with fundamentally sound defense and a knack for demolishing baseballs, became the Birds’ calling card.
But what speaks most to how the Showalter Era should be viewed is this: When he arrived in Baltimore, having previously managed the Yankees, Diamondbacks and Rangers, Showalter carried with him a reputation for wearing out his welcome quickly. For being a brilliant-but-demanding baseball mind whose hyper-focused attention to detail was good for turning around teams that needed turning around, but wasn’t necessarily the stuff that long-term relationships were made of. As a result, he never lasted more than four seasons with any club. Not until he came to Baltimore.
Eight and a half years later, his time with the Orioles has come to an end. That’s more than twice as long as he spent in New York or Arizona or Texas, a fact that shows just how much Showalter meant to the O’s, and just how much the club valued him. During that time, he racked up 669 wins, second most of any manager in franchise history behind Weaver.
Sure, if you look at Showalter’s overall record with the Birds, you see more losses than wins. But that’s only because of this one last year. This one final godforsaken season.
That’s not to say 2018 should be stricken from the record. Or that the 2016 wild-card game never happened. But they should both be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps an entire shaker full.
Because when it comes Buck Showalter’s time in black and orange, it isn’t just about what he’s done lately.