Hyde turns O’s from laughingstock to power
There were nights he wanted to scream to the heavens, nights when he didn’t feel like leaving his office, nights when he wondered why in the world did he ever subject himself to this misery.
“There was pain, a lot of pain,” Brandon Hyde softly tells USA TODAY Sports. “There were a lot of nights I didn’t know how I could do it. I felt good about the way I was going about doing things, but when you lose so much, you take it personally.”
It was life as manager of the Baltimore Orioles before turning it into one of the most enviable jobs in all of baseball.
But for those first three years, managing the Orioles was like taking blows from Mike Tyson.
Night. After night. After every night. Hyde, 49, knew what he was getting into when he accepted the job after the 2018 season.
There was no amount of Clive Christian, Chanel or Baccarat colognes in the world to camouflage the stench of the job.
Six managerial openings had emerged in the winter of 2018, and this one was the worst.
The Orioles had just lost 115 games, finishing 61 games out of first place in the American League East Division, and no longer had superstar infielder Manny Machado.
They had just fired general manager Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter and stripped their player payroll to major league depths.
It was so bad that even when the Orioles called him to interview, after failing to land four other jobs during the winter, Hyde wondered whether he should even bother. Should he even pursue the job, or simply return to the Chicago Cubs where he was their bench coach?
“He wondered if he should even take the job,” said former manager Joe Maddon, who had Hyde on his Cubs coaching staff. “I told him, ‘Hell yeah, never turn that down. You got to take it.’
“I said, ‘Brother, it’s going to be crappy. It’s going to stink. You’re going to hate it. You’re going to wonder why.’
“But, it’s also the perfect spot. Just be patient. You’ll turn it around eventually. You’ll have a chance to implement your style, your methods. What do you want the narrative of this to be?”
The Orioles, just as expected, stink. They went 54-108 in Hyde’s year, finishing 49 games out of place.
Then came the COVID-19 2020 season and a 25-35 record.
The downward spiral continued in 2021, going 52-110, finishing 48 games out of first place.
“I leaned on Joe; I talked to Joe quite a bit,” Hyde said. “Joe was extremely supportive. He was a great sounding board for me through the tough times. He would always say, ‘Don’t forget who you are. Be yourself.’
“There were a lot of tough nights, and it’s easy to get away from who you are.”
Well, nearly five years after taking the job, look who has the best record in the AL and is sitting atop the East Division. The O’s have clinched a postseason berth, vying to go where no Orioles team has gone since 1983 – the World Series.
Say hello to your American League Manager of the Year winner.
“I couldn’t be happier for anyone in the world than him,” said Philadelphia Phillies executive Charley Kerfeld, who managed Hyde in 2001 for the independent league Chico Heat. “He got his ass kicked for three years but survived. He always stood up for his team and his players, where a lot of guys would lay down.
“Now, after all of the (expletive) sandwiches did first first he had to eat, I’m glad he’s eating lobster now.”
Hyde laughs and reminds you that he’s still a cheeseburger-and-fries type of guy.
“He’s a renaissance man,” says Tim Cossins, Orioles major league field coordinator and Hyde’s best friend from Santa Rosa, California. “He can adapt to anything. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s witty. He’s an outstanding communicator. He’s a fiery competitor. He has compassion for the game.
“And he is so honest. No fluff. No fake. He has this unique combination of things that connects him to people and makes him so successful.”
And, never, ever, is he satisfied.
‘This is just what we need’
Jason McLeod, the Arizona Diamondbacks special assistant, saw that determination, drive and desire a decade ago when he hired Hyde to be the Cubs minor league field coordinator in 2012.
“I remember interviewing him and thinking, ‘This guy is a lock. This is just what we need,’ ” McLeod said. “His first spring, he doesn’t know our staff, doesn’t know our players, but commanded the meetings. He’s such a presence in the room. He’s out on the field, getting in guys’ faces, saying, ‘This isn’t good enough. This isn’t what we’re about. Let’s get it together.’
“Then, the first month of the season, he’s down in Tennessee, he shuts the clubhouse door, he goes on a rant, and they get their ears blown back. I’m thinking, “Holy (smokes). Things are going to be different around here.’ ”
Hyde rose to become Cubs manager Rick Renteria’s bench coach, Maddon’s first-base coach, then his bench coach, and in the offseason of 2018 he interviewed for four vacancies: the Los Angeles Angels (which went to Brad Ausmus), Texas Rangers (Chris Woodward), Toronto Blue Jays (Charlie Montoyo) and Minnesota Twins (Rocco Baldelli) and came up empty. The Cincinnati Reds also had an opening, filled by David Bell.
The Orioles, meanwhile, hired Mike Elias to be their GM on Nov. 16, after all the managerial vacancies were already filled. Elias telephoned all of the clubs that just filled their vacancies, trying to gain as much intelligence and as quickly as possible.
“I talked to five teams, and Brandon was kind of a finalist in all of them,” Elias said. “His name was very favorable.”
The Orioles brought in six candidates, including three former major league managers in Mike Redmond, Manny Acta and Chip Hale, and picked Hyde. They admired his expansive background, including four years as a minor league player, and loved how his baseball mind worked.
They knew they were in the beginnings of a massive rebuild but believed Hyde would develop a powerful clubhouse culture, play strong fundamental baseball, and when the time was right, they would win.
“We weren’t judging performance of him or the major league coaching staff by wins and losses,” said Elias, who was the Astros assistant GM during their rebuild that turned into a dynasty, “and always retained perspective on what we were doing and how to get there. And Brandon never talked publicly about a rebuild, or the fact we were in that mode, but just about getting to where we wanted to go. The emphasis was on the big picture.”
Now they’re building a superpower that could dominate the AL East for years. They also have best farm system in baseball and they’re winning with the game’s third-lowest player payroll.
“Having gone through the experience of it with the Astros, I’ve seen some of the strain that can take place between the front office and the dugout,” Elias said. “We were careful to avoid that strain, and I’m so proud of the way Brandon and this coaching staff handled everything.”