J.J. Hardy to be extended by Orioles, but timing could be bad

Multiple reports on Thursday afternoon had the Baltimore Orioles and shortstop J.J. Hardy close to reaching a three-year, $40 million contract extension with a fourth-year option that could keep the infielder in Camden Yards through his age-35 season.

Hardy was due to become a free agent at season’s end, is a strong defender and a good hitter by shortstop standards, if inconsistent. After hitting 77 home runs in his first three seasons with the Orioles, in part by taking firm advantage of Camden Yards (.270/.320/.464 at home versus .242/.278/.406 on the road) he hit just nine long-balls this year, five of them in Baltimore. With Hardy beloved of manager Buck Showalter, it’s not at all surprising that the Orioles would want to retain him regardless of the risk of further offensive regression.

Nonetheless, the timing of the news, coming on an off-day before the start of the American League Championship Series, is odd given the club’s likely desire to keep the player focused on the task at hand. It brings to mind the infamous 1925 postseason of Washington Senators shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh. Peckinpaugh won the AL Most Valuable Player Award that year. This was announced before the World Series. Peckinpaugh, supposedly anxious to live up to the award, committed a Series-record eight errors, including one that put the eventual Series-winning run on base in the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 7.

Peckinpaugh wept in the clubhouse after that last loss, knowing that 90 years later folks like me would still be writing about his Moment of Goat, but on come levels the story is bollocks: He had done this before. He had been the Yankees’ shortstop in the 1921 World Series. His booted grounder in the first inning of Game 8 (the Series was a best-of-nine in those days) scored the Series-winning run for the Giants. That was why the Senators had Peckinpaugh in the first place. The Yankees sent him to the Red Sox in a fit of pique (picking up two good starting pitchers and a shortstop in the process -- thank you, Harry Frazee ) and the Sox subsequently dealt him to the Senators. Peckinpaugh later said that he was traded because Babe Ruth had pushed him forward as a replacement for manager Miller Huggins. Other sources cite the error. The Yankees have always been the Yankees, so either or both could be true. At this late date it’s impossible to know for sure.

Peckinpaugh had homered earlier in Game 8, so it may have been some small consolation that the Senators wouldn’t have had a lead for him to blow if not for him. Perhaps not. In any case, Peckinpaugh made 30 to 50 errors a year. That’s what shortstops did then. Groundskeeping was also far from the art it is now, so he undoubtedly had help from pebbles, rocks, mesas, buttes. Hardy makes about a dozen errors a year, and while he might throw one or two away in the ALCS, it probably won’t be due to his new contract.

Then again, as with Peckinpaugh, we won’t really know, will we? Anxiety is an elusive thing, and cognitive studies have shown that sometimes we’re thinking of something even when (stay with me here) we don’t think we’re thinking about it. Sigmund Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes an error is just an error, sometimes it’s mental. Who is to say which is which? Not even the man who made the mistake.

Addendum, via Jerry Crasnick of ESPN: