Manny Machado will be traded, and maybe the Orioles won’t screw this up

Just close your eyes and think about the 1998 Mariners. They had Ken Griffey, Jr. They had Alex Rodriguez. They had Randy Johnson. All three players defined the franchise. With a lot of money, all three of them could have defined the franchise deep into the new millennium. Griffey was just 28; Rodriguez was 22; Johnson was about to win four straight Cy Youngs.

All three players were gone within three seasons. Poof. Identity erased. Everything you think you know about the Mariners is over. Their icons were just passing through, and it was back to the pre-Griffey morass of irrelevance, forever and ever.

The 2001 Mariners won 116 games and introduced America to Ichiro.

They were fine.

So whenever I wince at a stray Manny Machado trade rumor, feeling bad for the Orioles and their fans, I’ll take a deep breath and remember the 1998 Mariners became the 2001 Mariners, and baseball tinkled on all of the preconceived notions I had about what the Mariners really were. The franchise was stronger than the combined powers of three inner-circle Hall of Famers*, and it thrived after they were all gone.

* technically not true yet, but you know what I mean

If those Mariners could lose three Manny Machados, for lack of a better description, the Orioles can lose one.

It’s also not wise to start labeling teams the saddest in the land. When I descended the rocky peaks of Mt. Take and declared the Twins to be the saddest, they made the postseason the next year. When I did the same for the Pirates last season, it turns out they weren’t that sad. Still thrifty. Still feeling like they missed a window. But they aren’t that far away from being an interesting team again. There are sadder teams.

It’s with all of this context that we have to consider the latest Machado trade rumors. No team has to sign their young star indefinitely. The Mariners turned Johnson into three players who would combine for more than 30 wins above replacement for them. They turned Griffey into four excellent seasons from Mike Cameron. This isn’t like turning one red paperclip into a house; Machado is at least a condo already. It has high ceilings, you’d like it.

In three years the Orioles could be a powerhouse. It seems like that’s something that needs to be followed up with a punchline, but it’s an entirely serious comment. From the ‘03 Tigers to the ‘13 Astros, baseball is fond of reminding you that seeds can germinate a lot faster than you expect.

Here’s where the analogy breaks down, though. One of the reasons the Mariners were OK is that Ichiro existed.

PETER ANGELOS [leaning out of office]: Hey, if there’s an Ichiro that we can get after this season ... get him.

DAN DUQUETTE: Got it.

An even more important reason is the Mariners absolutely nailed their trades, getting short- and long-term pieces.

It doesn’t always work like that. The Marlins borked their franchise-altering trade of Miguel Cabrera, and it took an entirely new generation of unrelated young players to make them watchable again. And if you’re looking for other Machado comps ... well, they don’t really exist. The list of players 25 or younger who have been as good as Machado and been dealt is almost non-existent. Just pointing to a team from nearly 20 years ago and announcing that it worked for them isn’t enough. The Orioles will have to turn a generational superstar with Hall of Fame talent into something more sustainable.

This Orioles front office will have to make the right moves, in other words.

Like, the people currently in charge.

You can see where this is going.

If I’m not going to declare teams to be the saddest anymore, I can most certainly declare them to be the weirdest, and the Orioles were certainly that. After being dreadful for more than a decade, they had a window. Machado was the frame of that window. And instead of reinforcements, they would screw around every offseason and add minor-league free agents. Every other year, they would wait until February or March and sign a mid-tier pitcher for a lot of money, then dust off their hands and consider their work finished.

While this was going on, they were actively repulsed by the thought of spending money on international players. And they were signing their own dinger-monsters on the wrong side of the defensive spectrum to long-term deals, which is directly affecting their ability to keep their 25-year-old shortstop on a Hall of Fame path. None of it really made sense while it was going on, and the inevitability of a Machado trade makes all of those decisions seem stranger in retrospect than they already were, and they were already plenty strange at the time.

This is the group that needs to get the most out of a Machado trade.

Let’s see, they could get some highly regarded pitching prospects back for Machado. All they would need to do is develop them. Doesn’t seem too hard. There’s probably an instruction manual around here somewhere. It only took them several long, arduous years to turn Dylan Bundy from the best pitching prospect in baseball into an above-average pitcher, which means there’s still hope for Kevin Gausman to make that same transition.

Or they could get a young position player, which seems more predictable. With any luck — cross your fingers — they can get someone who’s three years younger than Machado and has a chance of being half as good. Then they can add him to the roster and, uh, wait for better times.

And yet this is all too glib when you remember the 1998 Mariners. Maybe Machado does turn into a latter-day Mike Cameron, who ends up being around at the perfect time. Maybe he turns into two starting pitchers. Maybe three. Or maybe he’s traded for a gaggle of players, similar to what the Phillies got for Cole Hamels, where they don’t turn into All-Stars right away, but the team turns itself around anyway. There are all sorts of permutations that end well for the Orioles.

Without a crystal ball, though, here’s what we know:

Right now, the Orioles have one of the best players of the last decade. He’s 25 and plays a brilliant defensive shortstop.

They’re going to trade him for players with an unknown future.

The people in charge of which players to get are the same people in charge of the 2018 Orioles.

The people in charge of how these players develop are the same people in charge of the 2018 Orioles.

It might work out! But consider a scenario in which the Orioles pay Machado $400 million for the next 12 years, just to give their fans something lasting, while they figure out how to build the rest of the team on a shoestring budget. It’s not exactly smart roster construction, but it doesn’t seem that distasteful of an idea?

Or, to put it another way, it would have been very, very easy to trade Cal Ripken, Jr. during the miserable 1988 season. There were rumors, especially after Cal Ripken, Sr. was fired. Instead, the Orioles hung on to their star, and he never played for another team. There probably aren’t a lot of regrets about that one. If the Orioles’ current choice is to take the superstar in the hand and not go rummaging through the bush, isn’t there a template for how that’s worked out in the past? A way that doesn’t involve a deus ex ichiro saving them? Can’t they just keep this extremely rare talent?

It’s not going to happen, though, which is why Manny Machado rumors are just the saddest shit. Any faith in this working out well for the Orioles is either faith in the current front office or faith that the bouncing pachinko ball of baseball will careen in an unexpectedly fortuitous direction.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather just watch Machado play for as long as possible, even if he makes so much money that it makes it impossible for the Orioles to sign the next Ubaldo Jimenez or Alex Cobb.