One Of These Three Proven Managers Should Be The Orioles Next Skipper

Bringing Craig Albernaz back to manage the Orioles at a time when young skippers around MLB are exceeding expectations while Baltimore succumbs to individual and collective rot, should be a nonstarter.

The dynamic of a stubborn, failed egomaniacal head of baseball operations Mike Elias with a complete novice pushover running the dugout for him has much to do with all the once-hyped prosects regressing massively and the same defensive, base running and fundamental errors marring this baseball product and costing wins. Add in the constant repeated failures with lineups and adjustments and how Albernaz has no feel how to connect to the these players as humans – his gleeful shaming of overproducing Samuel Basallo, 21, while running cover for Adley Rutschman’s constant boo-boos is just one example – and he has to go.

Albernaz can’t even handle mundane interactions with a ridiculously forgiving media without sounding and looking like a simpleton every week (15-year MLB marketing exec Marty Conway explained the damage Albernaz has done on “The Daily Flock Show,”from admonishing fans to about their support to insulting their intelligence about this sport in series after series.

If you are inclined to believe owner David Rubenstein’s surface-level flagellation about his product when he spoke at a panel at American University at the trade deadline – and I’m not, by the way, for this is part of the act and central to the ongoing grift – then at the very least hire a manager who costs real money with a staff that costs real money who won’t suck up to Elias at every turn and revel in his subjugation to the charlatans in the front office.

As always, we have a plan.

These are the three guys we’d focus on (Jarrett Siedler of Baseball Prospectus added a fourth, Carlos Beltran, who has strong ties to Elias from their days with the cheatin’ Astros, and he has an interesting resume and commands respect and nearly managed the Mets, but for this time in this moment, the next skipper, for me, has to already have won on the job in a significant way in MLB. No more newbies, even if they have accomplished all Beltran has.)

Former Rays skipper Joe Madden is interesting, too, but he’s kind of become the face of the anti-Moneyball stuff and I am not sure how that would work but I would probably be willing to endure something pretty painful if it meant he took over for Albernaz and was willing to publicly shame Elias when he goofs up all the time. And I am taking Bruce Bochy at his word that he is retired).

Buck Showalter

He is a winner. Period. He takes no BS.

He is not against analytic despite what scared cowards like Elias and his ilk across MLB front offices would tell you. Minority owner Cal Ripken Jr. would likely be very on board with this. Buck is watching everything the Orioles do closely. I hear he is in close contact to various people in the org. He cares, deeply, about The Oriole Way.

I strongly believe he would seriously consider this, and Showalter said himself: “The game hasn’t changed that much, you never say never,” when I asked him about coming back to Baltimore to manage or oversee the front office. There has to be a role for him here.

He gets this town in a very real way, and he gets the fans and he gets players. Elias has zero personality and I have story after story of him running the other way when former Orioles are around. Buck embraces that, and the players of the past love Buck. Buck isn’t going anywhere to be a pawn or a puppet. Bill Ripken and Mike Bordick and Jim Duquette have sung his praised on “The Daily Flock.”

He built the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks from the ground up, and understands every facet of the game. This could be a compromised 2027 season depending on how long the lockout goes. Ramp up to the season could be quite short. You need someone who has done it all and seen it all and he would be a perfect band-aid to cure the rot here at the MLB level and start to fix the minors too.

Say Buck manages for two years, he has a young guy on the staff who he kinda already knows is the next guy up and he retires or transitions to an oversight role by 2029. Or if this a juggernaut, he gets whatever he wants.

Alex Cora

He’s a part of that Astros monster like Elias. He understands Elias and he can handle Elias and you pay him the kind of money it will take to land him, I got news for you, the billionaires are going to listen to him and give him final say when he really needs it. Because his paycheck and his resume is going to demand it.

That's how it works. Dude was making $7.25M; you land him there is a new sheriff in town and some immediate guardrails on Elias and his clowns down the hall.

Yeah, it didn’t end well in Boston and that team went bonkers eventually after firing him, but this is more than worth a shot. He is not going to put up with and endorse the Little League stuff plaguing the product with the contact play and constant outs at third base and home plate and benching hot hitters and putting players in positions they can’t field.

This guy managed to stick eight years in the managerial tempest that is Boston and win over 53% of his games and the dude has a pennant and a World Series title on his resume. Let’s go.

Joe Girardi

I have reservations about how his abrasive nature might play here and I don’t know that he’s a master tactician. But he is more than gruff enough to put Elias in his place and he isn’t working cheap and he’s proven over the past few offseasons that he isn’t desperate to take any job he can get.

But he would be a wake-up call to this overly coddled and entitled clubhouse. He understands the division and managing in this ballparks. Pressure will not crack him. He was below .500 in Philly and has been out of the mix since 2022, which gives me some pause. That’s as long as Maddon has been out, I just like Maddon has been scared by the way things went down with the Angels and it gives me pause.

Girardi has some unique insight on the Yankees - players, coaches, the front office every part of their operations - from his time as a broadcaster there. That can't hurt, either. He knows their warts and analyzes a ton of AL East baseball.

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