In a batting cage away from the public eye, Craig Albernaz yelled instructions to catcher Joey Bart with his thick Massachusetts accent. It was 2022, and during spring training in Arizona, the then-San Francisco Giants bullpen and catching instructor showed his hands-on approach in front of a camera.
The scene captured by the Giants and shared by KNBR, the radio station that carries the team’s games, displays the joking nature with which Albernaz carried the conversation, even as he applied corrective tips to Bart’s glove positioning.
“Could you dunk?” Albernaz suddenly asked Bart, the 6-foot-3 backstop.
“Yeah, I was good for like two out of 10,” Bart jested. “Same with you?”
“Yeah, same with me,” Albernaz riffed. “I feel tall today, too. I feel like I’m 5-8, but there’s no chance. All right …”
And back to work.
Those little scenes, captured over the course of Albernaz’s coaching career, give the first hint at the personality of the manager who is set to take over in Baltimore. The Orioles are hiring Albernaz to right the ship after a 75-87 season, taking him away from an associate manager position with the Cleveland Guardians.
What Albernaz lacks in dunking ability, he appears to make up for with affability.
That is a key trait in a manager. Albernaz will be charged with uniting a clubhouse that dealt with severe disappointment, underperformance and an early-season managerial firing — which, for many of the players, came as the first in their baseball careers.
Albernaz will inherit a young core that thrives on a mix of goofiness and competitiveness, with LEGO conversations intermingling with hitting meetings. Albernaz, from the outside, appears to understand how to walk that line. For instance, as Cleveland’s associate manager, Albernaz playfully tossed sunflower seeds at manager Stephen Vogt, with whom Albernaz is close friends, during a losing streak.
That stems from Vogt and Albernaz working through the minor leagues together as players in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Vogt’s career flourished before he switched to management. Albernaz’s career stagnated in the minors, but he, too, has now joined the exclusive ranks of Major League Baseball managers.
The dynamic between them, even before coaching together with the Guardians, centered on pushing each others’ buttons.
“It’s how we always interact,” Albernaz told The Athletic in 2024. “We’re talking s— to each other. We just get in the zone where it’s just us, like there’s no one around.”
Albernaz, who turns 43 on Thursday, must work to create those relationships in Baltimore. In Cleveland, they came surprisingly quickly.
Last winter, the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox were interested in Albernaz for their manager jobs, but he ultimately remained in Cleveland and got an upgraded title. Upon Albernaz’s return, Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com that Albernaz had “endeared himself to so many people in such a short time.”
Going back to his days in San Francisco, his joking nature was clear with every push of the pitch-communication system between pitcher and catcher. As displayed during the video with Bart, the Massachusetts accent is thick. It’s not a slider, it’s a slydah.
The Giants, then, programmed Albernaz’s voice onto the PitchCom system, at least for spring training.
“I was talking to a buddy of mine, a pitcher with another organization, and he said they just have like, not Siri, but very standard voice recognition stuff,” right-hander Tristan Beck told MLB.com two years ago. “I’m like, ‘Oh no, we’ve got our big Boston, big personality guy in there.’ Right in your ear. It’s way better.”
“He’s the most fun accent to play with,” then-manager Gabe Kapler told the website. “He’s an incredible sport, so it doesn’t feel like really making fun of him. It’s more like we get to enjoy his accent.”
When Joc Pederson listened to Albernaz’s voice through the technology, he said he couldn’t understand the coach. Albernaz assured the outfielder that “you’ll get used to it.” That incited laughs.
But beyond the ability to connect on a personal level, Albernaz has been a part of organizations that emphasize player development and maximizing moves on the margins. The Rays emphasize analytics and doing more with lower payroll. The Guardians, too, aren’t a big-market team, yet are often in the postseason mix.
Baltimore could fit in that mold. The Orioles, under a new ownership group led by billionaire David Rubenstein, elevated payroll in 2025. But they still aren’t expected to reach the upper echelon of the sport in spending.
Instead, finding ways to succeed with homegrown talent and prudent pickups appears to be the path forward, and the Guardians found success in that. Cleveland finished with a 3.70 ERA, the fourth best in the majors. The offense, however, needed the pitching staff to be that strong. The Guardians finished with the second-worst batting average (.226) and with the third-fewest runs (643).
Albernaz’s focus as associate manager, however, remained more on the pitching and defensive side of the game. He was involved with Vogt in lineup construction considerations, too. What’s more, his relationship-building with young players could serve as a leg up.
In a late-September interview ahead of a Guardians game, Albernaz said fundamental baseball, particularly on defense, is key. Albernaz said despite the changing elements of the game, “clean, fundamental baseball” remains the same.
“It’s just a mindset we have: Win today,” Albernaz said, “and figure out tomorrow, tomorrow.”
In the 2024 Athletic story, Vogt described Albernaz as the “Energizer Bunny” because of the way his friend stays up “all hours of the night diving into one small thing if it can help one of our players get just a tick better.”
Albernaz is soon to lead a room in which Gunnar Henderson, at 24, is considered a veteran. Many within the room were former top prospects who shot through the minor league ranks.
Albernaz, meanwhile, was a career minor leaguer who topped out in Triple-A. It’s not dissimilar from the grinding playing career experienced by Tony Mansolino and Brandon Hyde. In some ways, Albernaz is reminiscent of the Hyde hiring.
When he takes over, Albernaz will be two years younger than Hyde was in 2019. They both joined Baltimore as first-time managers coming from respected organizations where they served as a manager’s right-hand man. Hyde’s job was to see a team through the dark days of a rebuild, however. Albernaz will be in charge of turning a dip in form back toward the bright lights of postseason action.
