Despite his own uncertainty, Orioles should take Tony Mansolino's interim tag off

Too soon?

Eric Cole

New York Mets v Baltimore Orioles - Game One / G Fiume/GettyImages

When the Baltimore Orioles decided to fire manager Brandon Hyde, it caught almost everyone by surprise. Hyde was on the hot seat, but most thought he wouldn't be fired until after the season. Instead, he was relieved of duty smack dab in the middle of the O's 2025 season. But one reason the Orioles could've thought that making a sudden change might work was the strong replacement who was waiting in the wings.

Tony Mansolino may not be a household name, but he's been around the sport of baseball forever and comes from a baseball family. Mansolino is a well-known commodity due to his time as a minor-league coach and manager, and has been considered a managerial candidate for quite a while now.

While Mansolino feels like he's still figuring things out and didn't ask to be put in this situation so quickly, the Orioles have thrived under him and he's done enough for the organization to take the interim tag off.

The Orioles should name Tony Mansolino as the team's permanent manager

Whenever there's a seismic change in an organization, it's easy for a season to spiral out of control. It wasn't as if the Orioles were playing well to begin with. Mansolino, however, stepped in immediately and got the team back on track. Though 28-24 isn't an overwhelming success, it's a far cry from what Baltimore was doing.

Given how the team has played under Mansolino, giving him a permanent gig seems like the only reasonable play. In a world where you have such a strong coach already in the organization, how do you think he and the rest of the team would take it if the front office brought in an outsider and demoted him?

In all likelihood, the Orioles front office will wait before making any sort of long-term decision on the future of their manager. Seeing how the entire season plays out isn't completely unreasonable and will give cover for whatever Baltimore's front office decides to do. But there's certainly merit in the idea of removing the interim tag and declaring that Mansolino is the leader we're riding with into the future.

More Orioles News from Birds Watcher

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.