With the recent firing of Ravens’ coach John Harbaugh, Orioles manager Craig Albernaz is now the most tenured steward of either of Baltimore’s professional franchises. The same Albernaz who’s been on the job
a grand total of 78 days and is yet to coach the Orioles in an actual game.
With another 71 days until the 2026 Major League season begins, we will have to patiently wait to see what the Albernaz Era will bring to Camden Yards and Birdland at large. We’ve already seen Alby have a tangible effect on the Orioles efforts to improve their roster. The new Oriole skipper reportedly played a big role in convincing Pete Alonso to make the move from Queens to Baltimore, with Alonso saying Albernaz is going to make all the Orioles “want to run through a wall for each other.”
And yet, expectations of the Orioles’ 44th official manager will be much higher than when his predecessor, Brandon Hyde, first arrived in Baltimore. Hyde inherited a last-place team, coming off a 115-loss season and in the earliest stages of a rebuild. Albernaz also inherits a last-place squad, but one with much different expectations than seven years ago. Fairly or unfairly, many will judge Alby the way all good managers are judged: Did you make the playoffs? Did you win any playoff series? Did you win the World Series?
However, the evaluation of Albernaz will hopefully be a little more nuanced than that. While playoffs should be the goal given the Orioles very active offseason, the 43-year-old’s first season in charge shouldn’t only be judge on whether or not the O’s are playing October baseball. With that in mind, here are three keys that should be used in judging Albernaz’s first campaign as the Orioles skipper.
Makes his mark on this Orioles team
Througouht Brandon Hyde’s tenure, his lasting legacy became that of a manager who was overally reliant on lefty-righty splits and perhaps didn’t provide enough leadership for his young, inexperienced roster. Toward the end especially, it felt more like Hyde left a stain on this team rather than a positive mark.
Albernaz’s challenge is leave an immediate tangible, positive impact on this club as it looks for leaders in this new era. Based on Alonso’s description of his new manager, we might expect a more aggressive, hard-charging Orioles team. In an interview last month, Albernaz said he wanted his team to “attack the fundamentals” in Spring Training and that all Oriole players expressed a desire play a cleaner, less-error-prone brand of baseball.
Given Albernaz’s background, two areas I’d expect to see marked improvement is in the bullpen and defense behind the dish. Alby got his start in the majors as the bullpen and catching coach for the Giants from 2020-2023. During his first full season 2021, the Giants led all of baseball with a 2.99 bullpen ERA despite not having an established closer. The Guardians repeated that feat in 2024 (Albernaz’s first year as their associate manager), leading MLB with a 2.57 bullpen ERA. Cleveland once again sported an excellent bullpen last season, finishing third in all of baseball with a 3.44 ERA.
With the current Orioles group of relievers, the O’s could use the Albernaz bump. New closer Ryan Helsley is a former All-Star, but is coming off a nightmarish second half of 2025 where he struggled with pitch-tipping issues. Behind Helsley are veteranofs Andrew Kittredge, Keegan Akin and Yennier Cano, plus a group of more unproven relievers led by Rico Garcia, Deitrich Enns and Kade Strowd. If Alby can put his shine on this group, and elevate the Orioles from the 25th-ranked bullpen in 2025, it’d go a long way in drastically improving Baltimore’s win total.
The new skipper should also help the duo of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo become better defensively. The Guardians finished top 10 in Defensive Runs Save by catchers each of the last two season with Albernaz on the coaching staff. In Rutschman and Basallo, Alby has two backstops with above-average pop time and arms strength. So don’t be surprised if the former minor league catcher and catching coach makes it a pet project of his to turn his catchers into upper echelon defenders.
Makes a difference with his hitting coaches hires
In assembling his staff for his debut managerial season, Albernaz only kept two holdovers from Brandon Hyde’s cohort of coaches: third base coach Buck Britton and pitching coach Drew French.
The most welcome change for most of Birdland is the dismissal of hitting coaches Cody Asche, Sherman Johnson and Tommy Joseph. Under the tutelage of the former hitting coaches, the Orioles dropped from fourth in OPS in 2024 to 21st in 2025 while seeing an alarming jump in strikeout rate.
Tasked with turning around the Baltimore bats is former Phillies assistant hitting coach Dustin Lind and former Rays assistant hitting coach Brady North. During Lind’s stay in Philadelphia the last two seasons, the Phillies finished top 10 in runs while sporting noticably higher walk rates and lower strikeout rates.
The hope will be that Lind and North can make the Orioles a more decisive group at the plate. The O’s saw a lot of pitches last year (8th in MLB at 3.92 pitchers/PA), but often failed to attack good pitches early in at-bats while swinging wildly late in counts. If the current group of hitting coaches can help this group of young hitters make better swing decisions, it will reflect well on the manager and the staff he’s built.
Gets a first-time manager bump, not dip
Over the last five season, there have been nine first-time managers, with wildly divergant results. We’ve seen four of the nine make the playoffs in their first season and a different four lose 100+ games. Managers Will Venable, Clayton McCollough, Carlos Mendoza and Stephen Vogt all increased their teams’ win totals by 10+ games in their first seasons. The flip side is Pedro Grifol and Mark Kotsay, who each saw their teams win totals drop by 20+ games their first seasons.
Context obviously matters when evaluating a first-time manager. A majority of those nine inherited teams with bottom of the barrell rosters and at various stages of a full rebuild. That’s not the situation Albernaz is walking into. Instead, he’s inheriting a similar situation to the on his friend and former boss, Stephen Vogt, walked into two years ago in Cleveland.
Like the 2024 Guardians, the 2026 Orioles are a talented team coming off a year where they drastically under-performed. Vogt was able to guide that Cleveland team to a 16-win improvement and an appearance in the ALCS. After an aggresive offseason by Mike Elias & Co., this Orioles roster is arguably more talented than that Guardians group. And so, if we get the significant swing that usually comes in a first-time manager’s first season, we have to hope it’s a bump in wins instead of a dip further in the AL East basement.
