End of Season Press Conference with Interim Manager Tony Mansolino | Baltimore Orioles

End of Season Press Conference with Interim Manager Tony Mansolino | Baltimore Orioles

What is this? Hey, Tony. What’s going on? Hey. Uh, first question. Have you been told anything yet about your status? No. Um, just under consideration, and Mike can probably talk about it more later. Um, I do feel strong that I’m in good standing here, you know, in one form or another. You know, that being said, I I also um you know, understand the business and know how things kind of go and understand that, you know, might have to wear a different uniform next year. So, hopeful to wear the the Orioles one. If that doesn’t work out, then obviously we’ll kind of have to look around and go from there. U you had said yesterday that you thought it was ve very likely that in a couple of days you’d have to start looking start looking for work. Are you are you gonna go pursue other o openings with other clubs right now or are you going to wait on the Orioles? Um I would love to be here. This is a great place. This is a historic franchise. Um it is a place that gave me my first full-time big league job. So ideally I get to stay here in a lot of ways. I’m very comfortable with the people here. I have a lot of respect for the people here. Maybe most importantly, I love a lot of these young players, guys that I’ve been here and um grown with myself and also kind of helped raise in a lot of ways here over the last five years. So, ideally, yeah, you get to stay, but also, you know, up close and personal view of this business, grown up in it, understanding that, you know, coaches might have the least job security in this business in a lot of ways, rightfully so, or not, and most likely not. Um, you do have to kind of hedge and make sure that you’re going to be able to pay your bills and take care of your wife and kids and do the whole deal. that is necessary as being a a normal human being and not just a coach. Uh Tony, as much as you you want to stay, if it’s not in the managerial role, um would you still have interest in staying with the organization? And uh as a follow-up to um your your last answer, just what has this meant for you in your professional development for your family to to have this opportunity this year? Yeah, I’ll start with the second part. Um just professional development massive, you know, in a lot of ways. He just managed a major league team for four and a half months under some of the most trying circumstances you can probably have in this position. You know, I think probably I was just joking. I think you probably go back 21 days. I’ve probably had an answer whether I’m going to have a job or not here consecutively. That’s not easy to do and I don’t think that’s normal in a lot of ways, but also kind of part of the situation that we’re in here and it’s fine. It’s part of it. Um so have grown immensely in a lot of ways. You know um obviously running a game a big piece and kind of learning how to do that here at the major league level and then just you know being a leader of a of a national brand essentially on a daily basis and you know having to sit up here and answer tough questions and be honest and tell the truth and you know support the organization you know to the best of my ability. Um, as the first part of the question, yeah, I I’d consider anything, again, there’s a lot of loyalty and there’s a lot of love from me to this organization. They pulled me out of the minor leagues essentially. I was a interim third base coach in Cleveland in 2020 and was likely going back to be the infield coordinator in 21, you know, and they gave me a shot. So, I’m a loyal person. Um, I love this place in a lot of ways. I’m very thankful to it. I’m open to all options, but obviously understand that it’s not just about me. there’s a family at home and um you know this is a business. Uh Tony, you you mentioned a couple times over the last week the need to get the young core, the hitters back on track. What can tangibly change to improve the fortunes really for the last year and a half this offense has not looked the way that many expected it to look. Um, well, I think we have to start and recognize that expectations for that group have been astronomical in a lot of ways and in some ways they set the expectations because a lot of them came out of the out of the gates right away and they came out really well. I think there are some guys here that have struggled in some ways that weren’t part of that initial group that set the bar so high. And I do think it it made it unrealistic for some of these guys to kind of follow. You know, I I talked to Sammy Bisio yesterday um and I told Sammy um to go look at Aaron Judge’s first 100 bats in the big leagues. And you know whose numbers it matches? Sammy Bisios, you know, so I think there’s a precedent for young players to have kind of tough stretches in the beginning of the parts of their career. Now, to answer your question, what needs to tangibly change? Um well, we need to get these guys back to kind of what they were. some of these guys that did set the bar high for themselves. And how we do that for me, I think it’s just um it’s getting together, it’s being honest, it’s getting all the the players in terms of staff, um analysts, everybody that has a voice. Um it’s getting um is soliciting outside opinions, is doing a lot of different things um to try to figure out how we get these guys back on track. and I do have a ton of faith in this organization um and their capacity to do just that. Tony, um much has been made the last couple weeks about the core, the offensive core. You’ve you’ve seen and observed the organization now for a while pitching wise, pitching development at the lower levels. Do you think it needs some assistance, some changes, uh, so that we start to develop a pipeline of pitchers? Sure, that’s a fair question. Um, I think they’re doing that and I think it’s been done. You know, I think probably, and you can talk to Mike about this, I think, you know, initially they came in and, you know, was kind of getting the the offensive side up to par and I think they have done that in spite of some of the recent performance. I do think that they have the right pieces and right players here. Um, talking to one of the recent hires here, Danny Hos, who was in New York with us, I asked him point blank, you know, what do we have in terms of pitching down below because he’s obviously with Washington taking stock of our organization than now with us. Um, and he was very um matterof fact that it’s going to be really good what’s coming right now. So, I think that they have changed the infrastructure on the pitching development. I don’t think that you push a button and they all just show up the very next year. I think it takes a couple years and I think you’re going to see some of these pitchers here show up in the coming years and hopefully next year. Tony, it’s been said that in 2022, I think Torino and Odor got a lot of credit. You your coaching staff would said they taught those guys how to win. Uh they have one now and then the step back. So, does it does the clubhouse need another leader like that or is that leadership already here? You know, we love veteran players and we love great leaders. Um, it’s hard to predict what’s going to be here and what isn’t. What we can predict is that Gunner and Westber and Bradish and um likely Dean and all these guys, Ally, they’re going to be here next year. Um, and those guys all have the makings to be great leaders. and those guys have all won here in the big leagues. So, do we invite more veteran players and and more veteran leadership? Without a a doubt. Do we think we also have some growing leaders and guys that can kind of um take that part or that necessity and move it forward for us? Absolutely. Tony, as you as you were managing with the interim tag, I mean, were you thinking about the future and the uncertainty at all? Were you able to successfully kind of block that out and just focus on winning and the player development side of things here? Sure. I mean, you guys ask me every day if I was, you know, going to be employed next year. So, yeah, I was thinking about it. And that’s okay. That’s kind of part of it. Um, you know, managing under the interim tag will be the hardest thing I do in my career in a lot of ways. You know, in a sense, um, it is your team, you know, especially after the trade deadline and, you know, kind of all the guys that came in. It did start to feel like my team at that point. Up until the trade deadline with the players that were here under um, you know, the previous leader, you know, it didn’t in a lot of ways. And I think that’s fair and I think people can understand that um it’s a challenge. There’s things that you’re going to do under the interim tag. You’re going to come in and make some um changes, turn the dials, and there’s things that you have to leave alone just because you know if you turn all the dials that you want to turn um it’s going to upset the room and it’s going to change the culture in a lot of ways um and maybe in some ways that you don’t want. So um huge challenge in a lot of ways. Thankful I got to do it. um would do it again in a heartbeat, especially here and especially with the support that you know Mike and his crew and his lieutenants gave me throughout. Uh Tony, uh you know, kind of speaking to that, it feels like there’s been a shift in you. Um you kind of take the job under obviously tough circumstances. You were not campaigning for the full-time job at that time. Um, you know, was it that trade deadline that made you shift confidence in your own abilities to be the full-time manager or was there a moment during the season where you kind of felt, okay, this is I could I could be in this job full-time? I got a lot of confidence in myself, Kyle. I I 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. So, at no point, even the day that Mike kind of handed the reigns to me, at no point did I feel overwhelmed or unccapable of executing this job. And I think over the last 4 and 1/2 months, I basically did a local and national interview on a daily basis that was incredibly invasive. And I do feel strong that I pass with flying colors in a lot of ways. Tony, uh, speaking to that, do you feel like you’ll have to go through another interview process? Have you been given a timetable on when they may reach a decision? Um, Mike will give you a timetable. That’s not for me to say if he chooses. Um, in terms of interview, I’ll do whatever they want me to do. Again, you know, I’ve been given advice by people around the league, uniform staff members that have managed in the big leagues. I’ve I’ve had some guys tell me if they offer to interview, take it. And I’ve had st some guys that says if they ask you to interview, don’t do it because you’ve interviewed for the last four and a half months. I tend to make up my own mind and try to do the right thing based on the people around me and how people treat you. This place has treated me incredibly good and I’ll be forever thankful whichever kind of path I go go down in the future. So if they want me to come in and interview and they feel like I’m worthy of it, um then I’ll do whatever they want. Tony, you mentioned a rising Hey Daniel, you mentioned the rising leaders. uh this would have been the year, especially the second half, if they were going to step up to kind of take that step and take control of this clubhouse. Did you see those guys start to do that? And also, the one name that you didn’t mention was Tyler O’Neal. Sure. Um do you see him as a leader of this clubhouse moving forward? Yeah, I’ll start with the the the names that I said. Um yeah, I do. There’s a lot of examples of things that they were doing behind the scenes. you guys unfortunately don’t get to see how wonderful these guys are. Um, and the unselfish things that they do for each other and especially in spite of a losing record and a losing season. I do feel like in a lot of ways once the trade deadline hit and some of the bigger personalities um were moved to different places, I feel like that core group of players started to kind of separate themselves and take the reign, so to speak. In terms of Tyler, Tyler’s got all the traits to do it. Um, and I’m very fond of Tyler and I think he’s um, unfortunately misunderstood because he wasn’t here enough because he was hurt. But I think Tyler is a huge piece to this thing in a lot of ways. Obviously, both on the field with his uh, immense potential and what he’s done here previously in his career and then also um, you know, just his natural way of kind of going about things. I’ll share a quick story. I was one of the young hitters was kind of frustrated in New York. I walked down um in the tunnel to I guess encourage might be one way to say it. Um maybe that might not be the best way, but Tyler kind of beat me to the punch and picked the kid up, you know, just kind of reminded him that he’s going to be all right. And those types of moments when you see Tyler do that gives you a good feeling and makes you feel like, yes, he’s going to be able to do that for us here um as soon as he can keep himself on the field. Tony, players have talked about how open you are in communication with them. What do you feel like is the tone and voice that resonated the most with this clubhouse? And do you feel like there’s some tough love that might be needed moving forward to get this team and get this group back to a competitive state? Um, I give a lot of tough love. So, that is the voice that kind of resonates. And you, you know, if you’re curious as to whether that’s true or not, go ask them. You know, I I do feel like I’m positive and I’m 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 be optimistic. It can’t be angry. I wasn’t a very good player. I said that day one here. There’s not one day where when a player makes a mistake, I get mad at them. It’s more of an understanding tone because this thing’s really hard to do. I think my my guess is when players struggle. There’s probably um 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, um it’s okay 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 or there’s probably no other technique to operate um in this job or any coach’s role. Hey Tony, I want to go back to the beginning of the season when things didn’t start well for the team. We have asked you a lot of questions about that, especially early on when you took over about what went wrong and on the field. Were there things going on behind the scenes that were wrong to that we weren’t privy to? No, I wouldn’t say things wrong behind the scenes. I think when you’re losing games and especially when you have massive expectations, I feel like um feels like the world’s falling apart around you. But no, in terms of um the players, the staff, uh our preparation, I I I would hard to say that there were things that were standing out as being blatantly wrong. Tony, I I don’t mean to give this the wrong tone, but are there things that you would de demand or ask for in terms of say so in personnel decisions for you to want to go forward with this job? Um, I think we got really good personnel here, you know. So, no, I I I I have all the faith and the trust in the leadership in the warehouse here, you know, to put the the right group together, whatever that may be. It’s a really smart group. They’ve done it. You know, you look back at these last two years, I don’t think people were complaining about the group that Mike put together. I think this year, there’s a lot of extenduating circumstances that are well documented. Um, as as for me, I’m probably not super qualified um, in terms of, you know, looking at projections and uh, I guess developing projections and putting the whole thing together, how modern front offices work. I do have a strong opinion on what a good team looks like and Mike is really good about asking us all our opinions on that and if asked and yeah I will absolutely give my opinion on on what a winning team looks like and how that goes as opposed to which players are available and who’s out there and who’s internal that’s bigger that’s more for a general manager and pres president to decide. Hey Tony, um back here I was just wondering um you guys experienced the largest drop in attendance in club history from from this year to last. Um for people who didn’t watch this team in kind of the back half and tuned out um after the trade deadline, what would your message be to those fans? Um and and how do you expect to kind of bring them back to Camden next year? Yeah, I understand we got to do better. You know, Baltimore Baltimore is a blueco collar city, you know, and they expect a lot out of their teams and they rightfully should. So, we just need to do better as a team. We need to win more games and we need to give them reason to want to come to the field um and watch our games. Now, with that being said, I do think it’s important to kind of reach out and thank the city um and let them know how much we do support the um or we do appreciate the support that they gave us in a lot of ways. And this was a tough year and there were big expectations. And um I do still feel like there were a lot of nights where this place was full and um in spite of a losing record and our players are thankful for that. I’m thankful for that. Um they made this as good as it could have been for us. Hey Tony, um you said if Michael asks you what a winning club looks like, you would tell them. Would you tell us what you think a winning club looks like? I think he’s got a lot of the pieces here right now. So I I’ll just say that and I think that’s fair to say. Um, I think he’s got a lot of the pieces and I think it’s probably going to look similar to the couple the teams that he built the last couple years. Tony, you mentioned your final conversation. Hi, sorry. Um, you mentioned your final conversation with Bisio. Um, in your final conversations with players, what was kind of your general sense of their mentality going into the offseason? Hungry, motivated, you know, in every which way. I don’t think that out of all the guys I talked to, I don’t think that there was one guy that seemed satisfied by any means. Um, a lot of frustration, some senses of embarrassment, all the things after a season like this you would want the players to feel and portray, they were wonderful and it was genuine. Um, so I feel really good about these guys here, you know, in the next couple weeks getting themselves kind of restarted and getting themselves in a spot to help the Orioles in 2026 kind of get back to where we’ve been the last couple years. Tony, as you talk about especially the circumstances before you took over, I a lot of things had to happen for the season to go the way that it did. Do you keep any space in your mind that you know some of it was just luck, misfortune, or do having been in the trenches, do you feel like some of it was more in control of the team and the organization than than maybe on the outside it looked like? Yeah, I listen, I’m an accountable guy. I I constantly look at, you know, what we could have done better in the building. You know, the luck and the misfortune. No doubt injuries are part of this whole thing. And um other teams had them as well. Maybe not to the level that we did. um and maybe some more so, but I don’t think about that. I think about um our players and how they perform and what we can do to help those guys. Um so, as a coach, your first thought should be, you know, to point the finger at yourself and try to figure out what you can do and not point it to to bad luck. But I also have to um recognize and understand that yeah, you know, some of the luck with injuries this year was very unfortunate. Tony, also, you know, you were part of those 2023 teams or the 2023 team where you had all those one run wins, come from behind wins, walk-off wins. This year, obviously, you know, as a part of the overall dip in success, you guys really struggled, especially in some of those close games. And then come August, you have some walk-offs, you have some very competitive, tight games at the finish. Was there um something deficient in that area to start the season? and and did guys start to develop a feel for competing late in some of those games that you won? Sure. And I think the the part of the season that you’re probably referencing is that first month and a half when we stunk, you know, in a lot of ways. And I that’s okay. That’s real. I mean, it feels like we were losing five and six to nothing every night by the fifth and sixth inning, you know. So, it is hard to play one games in that scenario. Um, and I do think as the season kind of went on, we stayed in games more and um, mostly exemplified by the last couple months and especially here at Camden with, you know, the games that we played and how we won some of those games. But um I can’t quite put my finger on him other than the fact that um when Kyle Bradis showed up, when Tyler Wells showed up and they’re going into the sixth and seventh inning most of these nights and the bullpin’s getting rested and we’re able to use them in a certain way, it just felt like at that time this whole thing kind of took off. So um you know, pitching is the name of the game in a lot of ways. you know, teams that suffer a lot of a lot of injuries with their pitching. It’s really hard over the course of the year, um, you know, to have the depth necessary to compete. I think as our depth showed up here at the end of the year with our pitching, we played those games and we won a lot of them. Hey Tony, I feel like throughout the course of the season, you’ve mentioned a number of times kind of the importance of playing small ball or getting back to the traditional aspect of baseball and not necessarily paying too much attention to underlying metrics. How would you kind of evaluate that push across the season for how it’s worked? Um, you know what, I’ll be honest with you on this one. Um, I think our our young players, we need to get better at that in a lot of ways. And and to me, that’s a spring training thing. I think these guys got to be pushed in spring training, turn back the clock a little bit and have the ability to play more of a early 90s style version of the game. It’s a really hard thing to do during the season um to put that type of stuff in place when you got, you know, some players that go through a minor league system or a college career and they don’t bundle a whole lot. It’s hard to ask them to do off a guy throwing a hundred in the ninth inning, do it for the first time. So, that version of the game, that is an area um where I think the staff here in place next year can make that better. And your time to do it is spring training. You you’ve spoken very highly of this coaching staff. I want to ask specifically about the hitting coaches just given how much the offense and particularly the young hitters have struggled over the past year and a half. How would you kind of assess the performance of of your hitting coaches? Sure. Um I think the process that they have is second to none. Now I’ll say this and I think we I think we have to recognize this and understand the landscape of this industry. I think people tend to point fingers at the hitting coaches all the time. I want to say maybe it was last year, the year before, I think 10 hitting coaches across the league were relieved to their duties. And I’m not so sure in every one of those scenarios, the grass was greener on the other side in a lot of ways. I think as a coach, when you sign up to be a coach in the big leagues, you are signing up to give all the credit and take all the blame. And that’s just part of this job and that’s how it’s always going to be. Um, and that’s why there tends to be way more turnover than there should be in a lot of ways. I think our guys do a wonderful job. I’m proud of them for enduring the season. Um, just like the rest of the staff, our other fundamental coaches, same deal. Um, proud of all these guys. It’s been a very stressful year. I think we all understand the problem and the task at hand, and I think we all understand that it’s got to get fixed. Um, and I think those guys are certainly up to the challenge. Tony, how much of a learning curve was there for you as an in-game manager, managing bullpen lineups and pitching changes, all that kind of stuff, and where do you feel like you were challenged the most, maybe improved the most throughout the season? Sure. Um, huge learning curve. Probably the same learning curve that Buck Sho Walter had his first year managing the big leagues and Earl Weaver and Cal Senior. You know, 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 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 of where we managed this thing really well um in a lot of ways and there’s been a couple recent games here against veteran managers that have been doing it a long time that we caught mistakes on and we did very well on in our dugout. So very proud of our group on how we ran these games in a lot of ways. Um do I think that I’m a finished product as a in-game manager? I think that would be crazy to think that. Do I think that um a guy that’s done for 10 years is a finished project uh product? Absolutely not. I think we continue to get better. Tony, one of the biggest names in Orio history is back with the team. Cal Ripken Jr. Where do you see him fitting in in helping a manager? Cal’s wonderful. Uh Cal I, you know, I got to spend some time with Cal in spring training. Um, I was walking through the equipment room one day and he was in there and he stopped me and he wanted to talk about gun um, you know, and the style of shortstop that we were trying to trying to fix at the time that he played with. Um, and I feel like we hit it off in a lot of ways. And he has been a incredible asset to me um, you know, both pre-managing the team and also during, uh, while I’ve managed the team. So, um, Cal’s an incredible resource. It’s a guy that is as knowledgeable as anybody, partly from his playing career and obviously, you know, everything that came with that, but also partly from his dad, you know, and I do feel like a lot of the lessons that he’s passed on to me, um, probably have come from his old man in a lot of ways. So, Cal’s a huge piece of this. If I’m here in the future, um, I would really love if he continued to kind of do what he’s done for me over the course of this season. Tony, uh, it’s no secret the struggles of Adley Rutman the last season and a half. What do you make of that in terms of, you know, the performance after being a two-time all-star, you know, almost immediately and and also this year with the durability creeping in? I mean, where is Adley and and what’s the key for getting him back on track to where he was? Sure. Um, I’m maybe a little bit of a dinosaur here, but I think catchers should be good catchers. And I think people have forgotten that about Adley, and it’s frustrating for me. This guy’s become one of the better defensive catchers in the game. So, while everybody’s kind of pointing at his offense, please let’s not forget that this is the type of catcher that you need to have behind the plate to win a World Series. So, we’ll start there. In terms of his offense, yeah, it’s been a tough, you know, year and a half for him in a lot of ways. I think some of it is tied to the injuries. Um, and I think some of it he’s going to kind of have to dig deep and and solve some of his issues at the plate. Um, and I do think that he’s in the right mind to do it. So, um, if you, um, wrote out a list of players that I trust, um, in that clubhouse and guys that I trust to look themselves in the mirror and be accountable and solve, um, the issues that they have, at least at the very top for me. So, I got a lot of faith in the kid. Um, I think he’s going to solve his offensive wos. I think the injuries were just part of the deal. I think it happens for some guys. Um, unfortunately, he had an oblique on each side. Um, I’m sure one affected the other would be my guess. I’m not a medical person, but use common sense here. Um, but let’s not forget how good of a catcher this guy has become. That’s a very important part of his story here in 2025. Any questions? Thank you guys. Yeah, man. Thank you. See you guys down the road. Thank you guys. Okay. Thank you. Stay true. Thank you, Stan. Yep. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. See you guys down the road. Good luck.

Interim Manager Tony Mansolino addresses the media at the conclusion of the 2025 MLB season.

Subscribe to the Baltimore Orioles YT Channel: https://bit.ly/2SYEQEV

#MoStrong #BaltimoreOrioles #Birdland #MLB #Orioles

For more O’s action: https://www.orioles.com
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Orioles/
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orioles/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Orioles