The 2022 Baltimore Orioles are baseball’s best story this year, and it isn’t close. What was supposed to be a team that would be lucky to win 60 games is now in serious playoff contention.
Expectations are raised when a team goes through this transformation from a rebuilding team to a competitive team. These expectations are not only raised for the players, but they are also raised for the coaches and front office members as well.
I still think Mike Elias has done a good job with this organization; he has a young team with top prospects making their way onto the field while still maintaining the best farm in baseball. With his “liftoff” comments, he has made his plans clear: he wants to build a much more competitive team in 2023. How he does this is still to be seen, but Elias has raised his expectations for the next five years, which is good.
As these expectations rise, the spotlight is focused on this team and the decisions made by manager Brandon Hyde. He has survived the rebuild, being with the team since 2019. Finding ways to critique Hyde before this year was like complaining about a sailor for abandoning a sinking ship. Should that sailor abandon the ship? Probably not, but the situation was so bad you didn’t blame him. Hyde has shown that he is a great motivator and communicator to the clubhouse, which is probably why he has stuck around. Usually, when rebuilding ends and competition begins, teams have replaced their manager with someone like Joe Maddon or A.J. Hinch.
That hasn’t been the case with Hyde. While that could be partially due to the team being ahead of schedule with their rebuild, I think much is due to how he handled the team and himself. Hyde even earned an extension that lasts until next year, which he does need to be congratulated for.
Hyde isn’t flawless, though, and he has made some decisions down the stretch that have ticked off some fans, and they have no issue telling the people online how they feel. This discourse about Hyde has gotten my gears turning in my head, and I want to look at and see if the skipper deserves the blame he is getting.
Before we begin, it is essential to state that often a manager is not responsible for every decision. I don’t even mean when a player fails; sometimes, a manager’s job is to listen and do as the front office says, especially these days. Analytics have taken over baseball, and when you have an organization that believes in them, the analytics department ends up giving the manager what amount to marching orders in many situations.
While this make it challenging to see what is Hyde’s fault and isn’t, I will do my best.
So let’s take a peek at Hyde as a manager and see if the complaints about him these last couple of months hold water.
Not on Him: The B Lineup
This category is the most out of Hyde’s control. Many complain about the “B-Lineup” and Hyde’s overuse of it. A “B-Lineup” is when a manager removes core pieces of a lineup and replaces them with sub-par replacements due to days off or matchups. Hyde has done this all season long. The most glaring has become Adley Rutschman. Hyde has given Adley does off of catching far too often in the eyes of some, and you saw it in Wednesday’s night game. The Orioles had an off day on Monday, yet Hyde feels the need to give Adley a day off from catching on Wednesday.
Why is this? It hurts the entire team when Adley isn’t catching, as Robinson Chirinos can’t hit and is bad defensively, and Adley takes the DH spot away from someone like Kyle Stowers or Terrin Vavra. Luckily for the Hyde defenders, this isn’t on him. It seems clear that the Orioles are valuing Adley’s legs over getting every start out of him at catcher.
The issue is that Chirinos is so bad… but this isn’t a Hyde problem.
The other reason is that Hyde likes to play matchups and seems to value right vs. left matchups more than anything else. We saw this against Boston when he sat the majority of his lefties against Michael Wacha because of the pitcher’s reverse splits.
Again, this is probably the front office and analytics department telling him to do this. Hyde is mostly blameless thus far.
The Orioles are valuing Adley’s health for the next ten years, and playing the matchups is what teams just do nowadays. It stinks for fans, but we need Adley, and every team plays matchups.
On Him: Not Walking Batters
What Hye isn’t blameless for, however, is not walking guys like Aaron Judge or Randy Arozarena when within reason. These two players have killed the Orioles. Yet, in big spots, with first base open, Hyde won’t walk them and move on to the next guy.
This infuriates many fans, and I admit that it bugs me as well. There just isn’t a good excuse for it. If your reason for not walking them is to challenging your pitcher make a better pitch, sorry, that doesn’t work for me.
Absolutely On Him: Pitching & Bullpen Management
This is where Hyde needs to improve. Let’s start with his starting pitching management. I feel Hyde sometimes has too short of a leash with the starters. On Sunday, Dean Kremer pitched well but was pulled after 5.1 innings. I understand Kremer has bad numbers the third time through the lineup, but Hyde needs to learn to balance managing with feeling with managing from a numbers basis.
Analytics are essential, but sometimes it is OK to let a pitcher go an extra batter to get a feel for if he is done.
Now, Hyde let Austin Voth pitch deep into the game on Tuesday against the White Sox, which was good, but he needs to do it consistently. I understand the starters aren’t the best, but when you are in a playoff chase, you have to learn to let your pitcher off the leash a bit because it can tax a bullpen when you don’t.
Hyde needs let his pitchers pitch and not baby them.
That leads to my main complaint with Hyde: his weird bullpen usage.
This was a strength early in the year, but after the Jorge Lopez trade, it has all fallen apart for Hyde. His once near foolproof way of using his relievers has vanished, and I don’t know why. It’s easy to blame the trade, but Hyde seems to have the exact opposite problem he does with his starters: he pushes the relievers too much.
Joey Krehbiel has been bad as of late, yet Hyde just leaves him on the mound instead of replacing him. This bit Hyde in the rear hard against the Cubs last Thursday. Krehbiel gave up back-to-back home runs, and he should have been taken out after the first, but instead, Hyde chose to push him.
The thing about taxing your bullpen is that it has a snowball effect. It gets worse before it gets better.
Next example: Dillon Tate pitched clean sixth and seventh innings on Sunday, but despite having Cionel Perez waiting, Hyde pushed him. In the eighth, Tate served up a home run.
Just…why? There is no excuse for decisions like that, and Hyde was getting way too cute. Because he stretched Tate out on Sunday, the righty could only go one inning on Tuesday against Chicago, which nearly cost the Birds. Hyde ended up having to put Perez and Krehbiel both out there, they both struggled, and it almost cost the Orioles a game. It only didn’t because Felix Bautista successfully converted a five-out save. There’s the snowball effect again: the closer would not have been available on Wednesday, had he been needed.
Yes, Perez and Krehbiel have to do better, but Hyde has to put these guys in better situations and use his relievers correctly.
Hyde’s use of relievers is frustrating, and I wish I understood it more.
In conclusion, I think that things like the lineup are mostly out of his control, but Hyde not walking a couple of batters when he should and his baffling use of the bullpen as of late is very frustrating and he needs to improve in both areas. If Elias is going to go into next year with a much more competitive roster, then Hyde needs to be more flexible with the rotation and stop pushing his bullpen pieces like every game is the World Series.
I understand players need to produce, but Hyde needs to help his team out a little. If the Orioles make the playoffs, Hyde is a lock to win the Manager of the Year award, but that still doesn’t mean we can’t criticize him.
If the team feels Hyde is the manager when this team is good, then they need to spend the offseason helping him improve his decision making.
I think Hyde is a great person and clubhouse presence, but he is not Joe Torre, and he shouldn’t be above criticism. I hope he can improve down the line this year and going forward because if he keeps making these mistakes, I don’t think he will last past next season.
