Orioles introduce new manager Brandon Hyde: live blog

The new and hopefully improved era of Orioles baseball continues on Monday afternoon with the introduction of new manager Brandon Hyde, chosen by new GM Mike Elias from a pool of six candidates to be the 20th manager in club history.

At the conference introducing Hyde will be the new manager himself and the man who hired him, Elias. As this is an uncommon bit of offseason Orioles news, the noon Eastern press conference will be carried on MASN and on 105.7 in Baltimore.

For those stuck at work, you may also be able to get away with following live on the Orioles website, on Facebook, and on YouTube, depending on how chill or unaware your immediate supervisor is of those times where you make no pretense towards productivity.

It’s going to be interesting to hear what kind of things Hyde has to say, even if it doesn’t mean very much in the grand scheme of things. Saying the right things is a good start, but we’ve seen plenty of people say the right things and then prove to be unable to do them.

A certain level of diplomacy is to be expected as well. One question that I would be interested to know the answer to is, “What are you going to do about Chris Davis if he sucks again?” Supposing a reporter asks a more polite version of that question, Hyde will surely repeat the line of his new boss that they’re going to do everything they can to have a productive Davis in the lineup.

It is the truth, if not the whole truth, and that’s fair enough. Hyde has been officially the manager for just a few days. Maybe he’s called a few players, but he’s likely had no interaction whatsoever with the majority of the players. It wouldn’t do to offend them all before he ever gets to say hello in Sarasota in February. Today is not the day to expect completely candid answers on all topics.

What we will hopefully hear about are some more specific commitments about the integration of analytics information from the front office to the field level. A variety of post-mortem reporting has suggested this was one of the larger problems of the end of the Dan Duquette/Buck Showalter era.

We’ll see what Hyde has to say. I’ll be doing my best to transcribe he and Elias in the comments below.

Hyde’s experience, as included by the team in the press release announcing his hire:

Hyde, 45, begins his first Major League managerial role following 16 professional seasons in the coaching ranks and four professional seasons as a player. Hyde most recently served as the Chicago Cubs bench coach in 2018, his second season in this role (also in 2014). He also spent three seasons as the Cubs first base coach from 2015-17, and previously served as Chicago’s director of player development from August 2012 through the 2013 season, after joining the Cubs in December of 2011 as their minor league field coordinator. The Cubs qualified for the postseason four times during his tenure, including winning the franchise’s first World Series title in 108 years during the 2016 season.

Prior to joining the Cubs, Hyde spent nine seasons in the Miami Marlins organization. He served as the Marlins bench coach from June of 2010 through the end of the 2011 season, and served as Miami’s interim manager on June 19, 2011 against Tampa Bay, following the resignation of manager Edwin Rodriguez. Hyde began the 2010 season as the Marlins minor league infield coordinator, his first year in that role. The previous five seasons, from 2005-09, he managed across three different levels of the Marlins minor league system. He was Double-A Jacksonville’s manager during the 2009 campaign, leading the Suns to the Southern League Championship. Following the season, he also managed the Mesa Solar Sox in the Arizona Fall League. In 2008, Hyde was the manager at Class-A Advanced Jupiter, and in 2007 he served as the manager at Double-A Carolina. He managed Class-A Greensboro from 2005-06, the team that he received his professional coaching start with in 2003, serving as Greensboro’s hitting coach for the second half of the 2003 season and all of 2004 before being promoted to manager.

We’ll see how it works out, but much like I’m glad that the team tried to find the next great new GM rather than a retread, I’m glad they’ve gone for new blood in a manager in their choice of Hyde.

Here’s a couple of pictures of Hyde in his new uniform, from the Orioles Twitter account: