{"id":253760,"date":"2025-10-27T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T02:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253760\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T02:33:07","slug":"orioles-close-to-hiring-craig-albernaz-as-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253760\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Close To Hiring Craig Albernaz As Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles are in the final stages of negotiations with Craig Albernaz about a deal to become the team\u2019s next manager, according to ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a>.\u00a0 Moments before Passan\u2019s report, Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a> wrote that Albernaz was the \u201cfrontrunner\u201d in the Orioles\u2019 search.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite an early birthday present for Albernaz, who turns 43 later this week.\u00a0 Albernaz worked as the Guardians\u2019 associate manager after working as the team\u2019s bench coach in 2024, and four seasons on the Giants\u2019 coaching staff as a bullpen and catching coach.\u00a0 Prior to his work on big league staffs, Albernaz spent four years in the Rays\u2019 farm system, including managerial stints at the high-A and low-A levels.\u00a0 Albernaz is a former player, suiting up primarily as a catcher in the Rays\u2019 and Tigers\u2019 farm systems from 2006-14.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Albernaz\u2019s job with the Guardians developed after Cleveland interviewed him about their last managerial vacancy, and Stephen Vogt<\/a> then hired Albernaz to his own coaching staff.\u00a0 Albernaz was a finalist for both the White Sox and Marlins in their managerial searches last offseason, and he was linked to the Giants\u2019 vacancy this year and also interviewed with the Nationals.\u00a0 There hadn\u2019t been any public indication that Albernaz was in the running for Baltimore\u2019s job, but it isn\u2019t surprising that the O\u2019s were eyeing someone who has been such a popular candidate in recent years.<\/p>\n

Like previous Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, Albernaz is becoming a full-time MLB manager for the first time, and is coming to the job at a relatively young age (Hyde was 45 when hired in December 2018.)\u00a0 The circumstances of this hiring for O\u2019s president of baseball operations Mike Elias are much different this time around \u2014 Hyde was hired to oversee an Orioles team embarking on a rebuild, while Albernaz will be tasked with getting a contender back on track.<\/p>\n

It seemed like Baltimore\u2019s rebuild had paid off when the team had a winning season in 2022, and when the O\u2019s then reached the playoffs in both 2023 and 2024.\u00a0 However, a bunch of pitching injuries and a near team-wide set of offensive struggles essentially sunk this year\u2019s Orioles right out of the gate, as Hyde was fired in May when the team had a 15-28 record.<\/p>\n

Tony Mansolino<\/a> posted a winning 60-59 record after being promoted from third base coach to interim manager, which made Mansolino a candidate for the full-time position this offseason.\u00a0 The Orioles were also linked to former Mariners manager Scott Servais, former Mets manager Luis Rojas<\/a>, and superstar Albert Pujols<\/a> in their managerial search, plus Cubs bench coach and ex-O\u2019s player Ryan Flaherty<\/a> was reportedly under consideration.<\/p>\n

Albernaz doesn\u2019t have the experience or the name value as the other candidates, yet he\u2019ll become the latest in a long line of skippers with past ties to the Guardians and\/or Rays organizations.\u00a0 Those two teams have made a habit of staying in contention while focusing on player development, which is key for an O\u2019s team that will need several of its young building blocks to rebound from underwhelming 2025 seasons.\u00a0 How the Orioles will augment their young core with offseason additions is now the next goal for Elias with the managerial search concluded.<\/p>\n

This has been a busy offseason for managerial hirings and firings, and we\u2019re still not even halfway through the list of teams looking for new skippers in 2026.\u00a0 The Orioles join the Angels (Kurt Suzuki<\/a>), Giants (Tony Vitello), and Rangers (Skip Schumaker<\/a>) as teams who have hired new managers, while the Nationals, Padres, Twins, Braves, and Rockies remain searching.<\/p>\n

Inset photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale \u2014 Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles are in the final stages of negotiations with Craig Albernaz about a deal to become the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[137858,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-253760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-craig-albernaz","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}