One of the more unsung Baltimore Orioles this off season has been Trey Mancini. And quite frankly I think most players would prefer that. Like most of the 2018 Orioles, Mancini had a down year last year. However he’s still young enough to where he can rebound and recapture some of his 2017 season in which he hit .293.
Mancini however is in a bit of an odd position of still perhaps being considered a young player, but also being a veteran. At Orioles’ FanFest he mentioned that he had some of the younger pups asking him how to handle aspects of professional life, such as 401K. Mancini joked that last year it was him asking those types of questions.
Mancini of course came up first in 2016 – for five games. He then made the team out of spring training in 2017, and over the course of the season hit 24 homers and 78 RBI. Most people forget this, however he had a great spring training last season as well. However in the first week of the season he injured his leg crashing into the wall chasing a foul ball at Camden Yards. While he only hit .242, he still managed to smack the same amount of homers (24), but his strikeouts were up.
So this shapes up to hopefully be a bounce back year for Mancini. However it’s more than just his on the field production that will be scrutinized. As I said above, Mancini’s going to need to be though of as a leader in this year’s clubhouse. While he’s still young himself, he has a plethora of experience as opposed to some of the other guys who’ll find themselves on the roster. And it’ll be part of his job to help all of those guys along this year.
Birdland Crush 