Who Craig Albernaz isn’t

When it was announced that the Orioles had hired Craig Albernaz as their new manager the first thing I felt was relief. Did I feel this relief because from the moment the Orioles fired Brandon Hyde I was hoping that they would eventually hire Craig Albernaz? No. 

Albernaz was a name I was familiar with from working on my 41 Candidates to be the Next Manager of the Baltimore Orioles blog. When I did look into him I thought he seemed like a solid candidate but I ranked him below Ryan Flaherty and George Lombard as candidates and I was not pounding my chest all season for the Orioles to hire Craig Albernaz. 

So why relief? If candidates I liked more were still available, why did hiring Craig Albernaz feel like a victory? Because for every good candidate on the market there are many more not good candidates. After watching the Orioles play sloppy baseball all season and seeing that contrasted with the kind of baseball being played in the postseason the importance of this managerial hire seemed to grow exponentially. 

Since the hire of Craig Alberanz many of the outlets that cover the Orioles have come out with articles describing who he is and what Orioles fans can expect from their new manager. Reading those articles and seeing quotes about how detail oriented he is and how energetic he is and how his players love him has only reinforced my initial feeling that this is a good hire. 

He had his introductory press conference today and said a lot of things that got fans like myself excited about the idea of a team playing carefree baseball with lots of energy. I especially liked his comments about having a diverse offense. 

Many of the reporters at the press conference have already written good articles about Albernaz and with a slew of quotes that he, Mike Elias and David Rubenstein gave out I’m sure more good stories are on the way. Since the topic of Who is Craig Albernaz feels adequately covered I want to use this blog to talk about who Craig Alberanz isn’t.

Craig Albernaz isn’t desperate

Craig Albernaz isn’t the kind of candidate whose only shot at becoming an MLB manager in the near term is by agreeing to be the front office’s puppet. 

I don’t think they ask a question along the lines of “Are you ok being the front office’s puppet?” but there is definitely a difference between the kind of candidate who has interviews lined up with every team that has an opening and someone who knows this is their only interview this year and there might not be any interviews next year. 

If you’re a candidate with options and the front office you’re interviewing with starts talking about how they’re going to pick your coaching staff and they’re going to be heavily involved in creating the lineup everyday and they’re going to let you know how to handle the bullpen you’re probably going to pass on that opportunity. Whereas if that’s your only shot at managing you’d probably respond saying “I think it’s really important for the entire organization to be in alignment” or something like that. 

There is an ideal balance somewhere. You want the manager to be in charge of what the manager should be in charge of. You want him to have a real voice and be allowed to make decisions without worrying about how he’s going to be able to explain himself to the front office the next day. 

You don’t want dysfunction though. I’m not advocating for the Orioles to bring in a bunch of old school coaches who are going to stuff the analytics nerds in a locker and start telling the hitters to swing down and try to chop balls through the infield. 

Based on Albernaz’s quotes about analytics and “wanting all the information” I do think that Elias and Albernaz will see eye to eye on a lot of things.

As Elias and Albernaz both said in the press conference the GM and the manager need to work closely together and I hope they really mean that. Elias as President of Baseball Operations outranks Albernaz so it’s not like he has to defer to him but I would hope that Albernaz’s opinion on the roster and who should play and how guys should be used will be taken seriously.

I think a GM/Manager relationship where there is a common goal and they go back and forth on how to get to that goal is more valuable than a GM/manager relationship where the GM tells the manager how it’s going to be and the manager says “sure thing boss”. 

You want some diversity of opinion across the organization. If everyone is on the exact same page, drinking orange Kool-Aid and high fiving in the hallways that’s how you miss out on things. Like for example having the best record in the league and not making any moves at the trade deadline because you’re at the very beginning of your window and then it turns out that might have been your best shot. 

I’m reminded of how AJ Hinch basically dragged the Justin Verlander trade across the finish line against the wishes of Elias and Sig because he knew the Astros needed more than what they had in 2017. 

Maybe that’s a bad example because Albernaz doesn’t have the same front office experience that Hinch had. At the press conference Albernaz said very clearly that telling Mike what the roster needs is not his job and that he’s ready to work with whatever Mike Elias cooks up. 

Anyway my point is that you want someone who can understand the front office’s vision for the team and work with them but will provide necessary pushback if they feel strongly about something. The front office doesn’t even have to listen to them all the time but the manager should be more than a yes man. 

What I’m saying in a rather long winded way is that Craig Albernaz had enough options/interviews that he wouldn’t have signed up to be the Orioles manager if the expectation was that he would be a yes man. 

Craig Albernaz isn’t Tony Mansolino 

I don’t want to spend too long on Tony Mansolino because he’s not a part of the Orioles organization anymore but thank goodness he’s not the Orioles manager. It’s not his fault that when Hyde was fired there wasn’t anyone better suited to step into the interim manager role but those shoes proved to be very large for Mansolino. 

He did some annoying things that were harmless like calling runs points. He did some annoying things that were harmful like telling the media that Ryan Mountcastle wasn’t going to play first base anymore before telling Ryan Mountcastle that he wasn’t going to play first base anymore. 

In his first press conference as interim manager he spoke profusely about how inexperienced he was and how much help he was going to need and that proved to be prescient analysis. 

He loved talking about players’ ethnicities and letting a struggling relief pitcher face a 4th batter just to make sure they were struggling. He will not be missed. 

Craig Albernaz isn’t Albert Pujols

Pujols’ name came up in connection to the Orioles job and I never thought it was a “good” idea but it was interesting if only because this front office has historically played it super safe with all their moves. So the idea that they would go ahead and hire a future hall of famer with minimal managerial experience and see what happens would have just been fun to see.

You don’t see a lot of all-time great players become managers. Superstars sometimes struggle at coaching because they’re so talented they don’t understand how normal players don’t just play better. You see Barry Bonds in interviews talking about turning his bat into a glove and catching pitches and you say “Yeah I can see why your career as a hitting coach didn’t work out.” 

However, Albert seems keen to manage. He already manages a team in the Dominican Winter League and they won a championship in his first season as manager so maybe he’d be great at it. 

With the season the Orioles just had I don’t think it’s the best time to try out an experimental manager so I’m fine passing on Pujols this hiring cycle. If he wants to be a hitting coach I’d welcome that but I don’t know if that conflicts with the weird agreement he has with the Angels. 

Craig Albernaz isn’t Bruce Bochy 

Bochy was an interesting candidate. With his 4 World Series Rings I don’t think there is a managerial candidate with a more impressive resume alive unless Joe Torre wants to get back in the ring. When Bochy and the Rangers parted ways I saw fans from all of the teams with manager vacancies and some fans from teams that don’t have a manager vacancy clamoring for his services. 

If the Orioles had hired Bruce Bochy it would have been exciting. Having a manager who can bang 4 World Series Rings on the table is undeniably powerful. However I never felt that Bochy was necessarily the guy that this team needed.

A big reason for that is that Bruce Bochy is very old. He will turn 71 next season and he’s a guy who already had a big retirement tour. It’s not that being old means he can’t manage, we saw Bochy win the World Series not long ago and Dusty Baker recently won it all as well, but it does mean that it would likely be a very short term arrangement even if things go well. 

When I was imagining the ideal next Orioles manager I was leaning towards someone a little younger who could foreseeable be with the team for an extended run so when it wasn’t Bochy that the Orioles hired I was ok with it. 

To be extra clear, if the Orioles had hired Bruce Bochy I would have written a blog about how it was a great thing and that it meant they were serious about winning and yada yada and I would have meant it but I think it’s fine that the Orioles didn’t go that route. Please don’t put it in the newspaper that I didn’t want to sign Bruce Bochy.

Craig Albernaz is not Scott Servais (or any of the other recently fired managers)

One of the things that Mike Elias said would be important when considering the Orioles next manager would be experience. Besides Bruce Bochy there were several experienced managers floating around that the Orioles could have hired. Scott Servais and David Ross were both mentioned as candidates by different outlets. I don’t know if Rocco Baldelli was mentioned as a candidate but he’s currently available as well. 

If you had asked me a week ago who the Orioles would hire as their manager I might have guessed Servais. This front office famously plays things very safe and Servais would have been as safe as it gets. He has lots of experience and he worked with a similar front office in Seattle. 

If the Orioles had hired Servais or someone else with managerial experience I would have felt a similar relief to what I felt when Albernaz was announced because someone with experience brings a pretty high floor in regards to what can happen. You look at their resume and you think this guy was a manager with X team for 5 years and it was mostly fine so when he’s the Orioles manager it’ll be mostly fine. 

As “fine” as I would have been to have hired an experienced manager I’m glad they went with a first timer. Sure Albernaz doesn’t have the experience and the high floor that someone like Servais would bring but with a first time manager comes with some upside that someone who has made the rounds probably doesn’t have. 

It’s kind of like moving on from a solid veteran player for a prospect. With the veteran you know what you’re getting and maybe what you’re getting is pretty good but the prospect could be a star and I like that the Orioles are rolling the dice on someone who could be a star rather than playing it safe. 

Albernaz will have to do some learning on the job. He worked really closely with Steven Vogt in Cleveland so I don’t think it’ll be a total crash course for him but there will be moments where he makes a rookie manager mistake and that’s just something the O’s will have to live with in the beginning. 

Everything you hear about Albernaz is that he’s incredibly hard working and prepared so I don’t think those rookie mistakes will persist. Continuing my prospect analogy; if Albernaz is a managing “prospect” then he’s a can’t miss prospect like Jackson Holliday (wait what, no nevermind). 

Craig Albernaz is not Skip Schumaker 

Schumaker is really the only person that I had a strong preference over everyone else. He’s young and he’s got managerial experience. Unlike most former managers he did not get fired by the team he left. They started tanking a month into a season after they made the playoffs and he and the team agreed to part ways. Usually if you see that a team and coach parted ways it’s just calling them fired very nicely but in this specific instance it did seem like the two sides agreed that they wanted to part ways. 

It does seem like Schumaker taking over for Bochy in Texas was worked out a while ago so I might have just been wasting time yearning for someone secretly in a very committed relationship. 

Criag Albernaz isn’t Ryan Flaherty (or any other hot shot first time manager candidate) 

Am I exposing myself as a casual if I say that a big part of why I wanted Ryan Flaherty to be the manager was because I’m a bit nostalgic for the era of Orioles baseball when he was on the team. Perhaps. 

That’s not the whole reason though. When I was looking at potential managers one of the places I started looking into was the bench coaches under managers I respect. So Flaherty under Council, Lombard under Hinch, Rickie Weeks under Murphy and that’s also how I first stumbled across the name Craig Albernaz. 

I would have felt very similarly had the Orioles hired any of these guys but looking at the manager landscape there’s not many jobs left and it doesn’t seem like those other guys are quite as sought after as Albernaz was so it seems like they got the hot ticket item from the first time manager group. Although Flaherty is a contender for the Padres job and those other guys might just be biding their time similar to Albernaz last year. 

In Albernaz’s introductory press conference David Rubenstein referenced Earl Weaver. Bringing up Earl Weaver in Baltimore is setting the bar very high but similar to David Rubenstein I am optimistic that this has the potential to be a great hire. 

I believe he will mix well with the guys currently on the team from a personality standpoint. He’s going to have the freedom to shape a coaching staff to really push and develop these young guys who have been scuffling.

By Nathan Skidmore