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OK, today really is starting to feel like the offseason for non-playoff teams.
The Orioles don’t have more games on their schedule. They haven’t arranged another press conference. The ballpark is quiet except for employees who still have 9-to-5 jobs and the construction crews. Work on the former press box site already was underway yesterday.
Tony Mansolino can return home and go an entire 24 hours without someone asking him about the experience of serving as interim manager and what it meant to him. Being on the road with the team provided more opportunities for media to pull some reflections out of him, but his audience grew significantly yesterday at Warehouse Bar & Restaurant – which used to be Dempsey’s and then the gambling place where you couldn’t place bets.
I’d bet my house that Mansolino is exhausted from fielding the same questions, but he’s such a good guy that he never shows it. And with his coaching background, he knows all about fielding.
“Just professional development, massive in a lot of ways,” he said about what he gained from his tenure as Brandon Hyde’s replacement. “You just managed a major league team for 4 ½ months under some of the most trying circumstances you can probably have in this position. I was just joking, I think you probably go back 21 days I’ve probably had to answer whether I’m gonna have a job here or not consecutively. That’s not easy to do and I don’t think that’s normal in a lot of ways, but also part of the situation that we’re in here, and that’s fine, that’s part of it.”
In a season when the Orioles celebrated the 30-year anniversary of The Streak, Mansolino crafted one of his own.
“So have grown immensely in a lot of ways,” he said. “Obviously running a game, a big piece of learning how to do that here at the major league level. And just being a leader of a national brand essentially on a daily basis, having to sit up here and answer tough questions and be honest and tell the truth and support the organization to the best of my ability.”
The truth? He’ll never make it in this business. But seriously, folks …
I can’t imagine anyone handling this situation better than Mansolino. He wants the job, of course. He’d look foolish if he pretended that it wasn’t important. But he’d risk the same if he hit the campaign trail – though anyone hitting after the trade deadline would be lauded.
Mansolino comes across as confident and modest at the same time. His chest puffed a little more yesterday, which was noticeable compared to those first few weeks on the job.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself,” he said. “In terms of being a full-time manager, yeah, I think I can do it anywhere. I think I can do it in a big market, I think I can do it in a small market, a rebuilding team, a win-now team. At no point, even the day that Mike kind of handled the reins to me, at no point did I feel overwhelmed or incapable of executing this job, and I think over the last 4 ½ months I basically did a local and national interview on a daily basis that was incredibly invasive and I do feel strong that I passed with flying colors in a lot of ways.”
And so it went, with Mansolino admitting that he didn’t have all the answers when promoted but expected to supply them each day.
“Huge learning curve,” he said when asked about in-game managing. “Probably the same learning curve that Buck Showalter had his first year managing the big leagues and Earl Weaver and Cal Sr. I think when you enter this job in the big leagues for the first time, there's going to be a learning curve. Now, I do feel like at probably about 10-to-15 games into this thing, my mind started catching up to the speed of the game in the dugout and I do think that, if I'm fortunate enough to do this 10 years from now, I'll probably be better at it 10 years from now than I am today. But I am very proud of how we ran the game.
“I think there's a lot of examples during the game where we managed this thing really well in a lot of ways and there's been a couple of recent games here against veteran managers that have been doing it a long time that we caught mistakes on, and we did very well in our dugout. So very proud of our group on how we ran these games in a lot of ways. Do I think that I'm a finished product as an in-game manager? I think that would be crazy to think that. Do I think that a guy that's done it for 10 years is a finished product? Absolutely not. I think we continue to get better.”
As I noted yesterday, president of baseball operations/general manager Mike Elias talked about the benefits of having an experienced manager, saying that “it will definitely carry a lot of weight.” Then he added that it is “not a requisite for managerial success and it's not necessary and nor does it guarantee success.”
Very true. But you walk out of the restaurant yesterday feeling hungry, because there was no food served, and also like the odds are stacked against Mansolino. Maybe not to the ceiling, but stacked.
At least he wasn’t eliminated from the discussion yesterday, so I’m saying there’s a chance. I wondered whether Elias would open his remarks by thanking Mansolino and saying that the club was moving in another direction. But Mansolino entered the room smiling, and he spoke first.
Mansolino didn’t necessarily come across as defensive, but he seemed to be defending himself when asked whether the clubhouse needed tough love to get back to winning. It implied that a man credited by players for being open to communication couldn’t lower the hammer.
He nailed it.
“I give a lot of tough love, so that is the voice that kind of resonates. If you’re curious as to whether that is true or not, go ask them,” he said.
“I do feel like I am positive and I am an optimist in a lot of ways. And I feel like that has to be the foundation of the tone for that group of players. It has to be positive, it has to optimistic. It can’t be angry. I wasn’t a very good player, I said that Day One here. There’s not one day that when a player makes a mistake, I get mad at them. There’s more of an understanding tone. Because this thing is really hard to do.
“My guess is that when players struggle, there’s probably frustration with them, both with fan bases, with media, with coaches, with everybody. But we can’t forget just how hard this game is. And that when their process is good and they’re doing everything right, it’s OK to make a mistake.
“Tough love? Yes. I think being tough, having high standards and loving them at the same time, there’s probably no other tone, there’s probably no other technique to operate in this job or any coach’s role.”
As someone who's known Mansolino since he arrived in 2021 and has observed him in his various roles and talked about him to players and coaches, I'm confident in saying that he's a major asset to this organization. If he isn't manager, and I'll understand the shift to a more proven commodity, he needs to be retained in a capacity that doesn't require a coat and tie.
You don't kick him upstairs, though it beats unemployment. He needs to teach, which he loves. It's really who he is. Sleeves rolled up, blue collar in home whites or road grays. Intelligent, thoughtful, caring, dedicated. The game is in his blood.
All the reasons why he's here are the same reasons why he should stay.
