As the Orioles prepare for Game 1 of the ALCS, which will take place (hopefully) Friday, here's an interesting nugget.
Per Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune, Orioles slugger Nelson Cruz nearly signed with the Mariners. In fact, it was reportedly agreed upon by the front office and Cruz himself.
The Mariners had a deal in place last winter with Cruz, then a free agent, for roughly $7.5 million in 2014 with a club option of about $9 million for 2015…before ownership backed away.
The primary concern, which all clubs shared, was how Cruz, then 33, would respond after being caught and suspended as part of the Biogenesis drug scandal.
Still, officials with several clubs say they stopped viewing Cruz as a potential target because they expected he would bridge any differences with the Mariners.
“I still don’t know what happened there,” an official with a rival club said. “We were told it was done. And it seemed such an obvious fit for both sides. There was risk, certainly, but…”
And we know how it goes from there. It's a chain reaction that, interestingly, eventually involves both ALCS teams.
The Orioles signed Cruz for one year and $8 million. He goes on to a monster year. The Royals beat the A's in the AL wild-card game, who made that game by just one game in the standings over the Mariners, who nearly landed Cruz.
Cruz, of course, was coming cheap thanks to the stigma attached to his 50-game suspension last season for his ties to the Biogenesis scandal. If not for that, the slugger would have made a lot more money. And yet, somehow, Mariners ownership thought they couldn't afford to shell out $7.5 million for his services this season?
The implications for both the Mariners and the Orioles here are huge. Cruz led the majors with 40 homers while driving home 108 runs. He was a major part of the reason the offense was so good despite having injuries hamper production of Manny Machado and end the season of Matt Wieters -- not to mention the underperformance of Chris Davis.
On the flip-side, the Mariners were 10th in the AL in home runs and 11th in runs. Cruz's right-handed power could have greatly helped balance a lineup with left-handers Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager and Dustin Ackley, among others.
If Mariners ownership had signed Cruz, would he have still had a big season? If so, wouldn't the Mariners have likely faced off against the Royals in the wild-card game -- maybe even in Seattle instead of Kansas City? Would the Orioles have still been able to win the AL East? If so, would they have still won the ALDS round against the Tigers, when Cruz starred?
All are fun hypotheticals that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. What's done is done but, again, it's kind of fun to imagine just how much a chain reaction Cruz signing with the Mariners instead of the Orioles would have caused.
