Baltimore Orioles Coaching News: Donnie Ecker, Buck Britton, Drew French

The Orioles continue to fill out Craig Albernaz’s coaching staff, hiring Donnie Ecker as the new bench coach. Tell you how he fits in with his organization coming up on this episode of the Locked On Orioles podcast. [Music] You are Locked On or your daily Baltimore Orioles podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Hey there Orioles fans. Today is Friday, November 14th, 2025 and welcome back in to the Locked on Orioles podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, I’m your host Connor Nukem. And coming up on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about another coach who the Orioles have added to this coaching staff. It is Donnie Ecker who the Orioles have reportedly hired to be their new bench coach under new manager Craig Alberz. We’ll talk about Eker’s past in baseball, both working as a bench coach and a hitting coach. And then we’ll talk about what he’s done well with some really good offenses in San Francisco and Texas and what he can bring to the Orioles offense in Baltimore. And then finally, we did get some further news about the rest of the Orioles coaching staff. It’s not fully set in stone just yet, but some familiar names, some well-liked names will be returning to Albernaz’s staff. And we’ll get to all of that and more coming up on this episode of the Locked on Orioles podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Now, the number one sports podcast network. And this episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Just download the FanDuel app today. So, another piece of coaching news coming out late on Wednesday. The Orioles have hired Donnie Ecker to be their new bench coach. It was um not a crazy surprising hire, I would say. I believe Jacob Calvin Meyer of the Baltimore Sun first had the report on Wednesday. But Eker is someone who, and I did that episode last week trying to predict who the Orioles new hitting coach would be because they let go of of all three of the members of the hitting staff. They eventually did hire Dustin Lind into that role. But I talked about how, hey, Donnie Eker could be a choice because he’s been a hitting coach. He has connections to Craig Albernaz. And my official prediction on that episode was actually that the Orioles would hire Donnie Ecker to be the hitting coach. Now, a couple days later, they ended up hiring Dustin Lind in that role instead. But I’ll give myself a half W for this one that they ended up hiring Eker anyway, just earned more of an elevated position to be the Orioles bench coach. Now, who is Donnie Ecker? He’s a 39-year-old coach who was most recently the offensive coordinator for the Texas Rangers. Now, you’re thinking, Connor, offensive coordinator. This is not football. Some teams do have different titles they give people essentially just to get more coaches on staff and have them in different titles. offensive coordinator was essentially the one who oversaw everything offensively. He essentially was the lead hitting coach in Texas, but he hasn’t worked for a little while. He was fired by the Rangers this season on May 5th. Up to that point, the team that had won the World Series less than two years prior was just 29th in runs scored and 25th in team WRC plus in the majors. The offense was a super big disappointment. The offense didn’t get that much better for the rest of the season and the Rangers did indeed miss the playoffs. Kind of similar to the Orioles firing Brandon Hyde in May and then getting a little better but not nearly enough to get back to the postseason. And so Ekker was out of a job. Now he’s back into one with Baltimore. Now Ekker was first hired by the Rangers for the 2022 season. So going to 25, it was his fourth season in Texas. And he was hired basically in two roles. He was hired to be the bench coach but also the offensive coordinator for the Rangers. Now, while he was bench coach for three years, he never really had the full bench coach responsibilities under Bruce Bochi, who was the Texas manager because they also had Will Venibal in there as associate manager to Bochi. Now, Venibal left last year. He was hired to be the manager of the Chicago White Socks. But at the end of of last season, excuse me, the beginning of last season, the Rangers also took the bench coach role away from Ecker. he was just the offensive coordinator instead of offensive coordinator and bench coach heading into 2025. He still did some of the responsibilities. He certainly has uh some of the experience, but didn’t have the exact bench coach role, just more of the title in Texas. Now, the Rangers offense not good this year before they they fired Ecker, but in his first three seasons as the offensive coordinator, the Rangers were seventh in the majors in runs scored over that span. And for the final two years, 2023 to 24, that’s when they also had Bruce Bochi in the mix and some of these better players on the roster. They were sixth in team WRC Plus for those two seasons. and they were the second best offense in baseball in 2023 when they famously went on to win the World Series with Eker as their bench coach and offensive coordinator. So, he’s had a lot of success there in Texas as well. Now, before he was hired by the Rangers, he was also the co-hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants alongside Justin V for two seasons in 2020 and 2021. And that is where the connection to this Orio staff comes from. Because if you remember, for four years from 2020 to 2023, Craig Albernaz was the bullpen coach for those same San Francisco Giants. Him and Eker over overlapped for two years in San Francisco, including that magical 2021 season when the Giants won seven games and beat out the Dodgers for the NL West title. And in that time, the Giants over that two-year span, now to be fair, you know, 2020 was a shortened 60game COVID season. So, I’m I’m kind of just wrapping 2020 and 21 all into one mega season. The Giants, if you combine those two years, they were fifth in team WRC plus and seventh in runs scored in Major League Baseball, especially in a ballpark that is really made for pitchers. To be able to do that was pretty impressive. And and you know, you look at some Giants fans and Giants writers, they’re looking for a new hitting coach this off seasonason after hiring Tony Vatel from Tennessee to be their new manager. You see a lot of those people that cover the team kind of asking for the Giants to bring back Donnie Eker. He was definitely well-liked in San Francisco, which kind of allowed him to get that job in Texas. Before that, he did have one other big league job. It was in 2019. He was hired to be the assistant hitting coach for the Cincinnati Reds. Now, to be fair, the Reds ended up being a bottom 10 offense in baseball in 2019. Eker was just the assistant. That was not his kind of full role. It was also his first year in the big leagues because before that he was in the minor leagues. The Reds had hired him away from the Angels. He spent one season there as the AAA hitting coach for the Angels for the Salt Lake Bes. Before that it was three seasons as a hitting coach in the Cardinals se uh system from 2015 to 2017. Two years in low A and then one year in and high A as a hitting coach. And he actually started his coaching career at the high school level. went back to his alma mater, Los Altos High School in California, was an assistant coach there for two seasons, then was the head coach there for the next two seasons, and then briefly left in 2014 to be a coach at Bakersfield College and was going to be at Bakersfield College until he um got called by the Cardinals and before he could even coach a season there, they said, “Hey, do you want to come join us in professional baseball?” and that is what Ecker did. So, he’s definitely got the coaching experience and background that the Orioles would be looking for. Now, he does have a playing background as well. Donnie Eker was actually drafted by the Rangers in the 22nd round of the 2007 MLB draft. He was a utility player, played all around the diamond, who had played at Lewis Clark State College, which is an NIA school in Idaho. It’s actually a level that’s outside of the NCAA for college athletics. Now, you think Lewis Clark State College. There’s no way they’re producing anything. It’s actually a really, really good NIA baseball program that has produced 13 big leaguers in its past, which is pretty impressive for a school that small. It also produced former Orioles prospect Tyler Burch, who was in the system for a couple of years as a reliever until last year, I think. So, Eker came as a pro player. He played for two seasons in the low minor leagues with Texas. Couldn’t really hit it. was kind of wondering why he couldn’t hit at the professional level. Then was released, played two more seasons of independent ball before hanging it up after 2010 and then hired by his old high school to be an assistant coach. But he was seemingly, you know, from some of the stories and reporting around Donnie Eker, always just intrigued like, hey, I had been such a successful college player, albeit at a low level. I was drafted. Why did I get released after two seasons? Why couldn’t I hit even in the low minor leagues? And that led him to do a lot of research, a lot of training, thinking about coaching hitting, which got him pretty much directly into the coaching field and eventually led him to be really a hitting coach for multiple teams, Giants, Rangers. And although hitting coach and offensive coordinator at least at this point, won’t be his title with the Orioles, it’ll just simply be bench coach under Craig Albernaz, you know, he’s going to be working with the hitters besides kind of the main bench coach responsibilities. I mean, you have to think he’s going to bring that expertise to Baltimore. So, I talked about how he had some good offenses in San Francisco and Texas. What specifically were those offenses good at and what can he bring from those skills to make the Orioles better and rebound in 2026? We’ll talk about that coming up next. But first, this episode of the Locked Orioles podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA is back and there is no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. And it keeps every game exciting, especially when your team is making that late push. And right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. So we’re talking about Donnie Eckers. It was reported on Wednesday the Orioles have hired him to be their new bench coach. That position was open under Craig Abernaz because it was reported a couple of weeks ago that Robinson Torinos, who was hired to be the Orioles first year bench coach under Brandon Hyde and then under interim manager Tony Manelino for most of the season in 2025 was seeking other opportunities coaching in the majors. It was not that Torinos was fired. My guess is that, you know, he was kind of hides bench coach. If the O’s wanted to keep him, they were probably going to reassign him to a different position or maybe hire someone as like associate manager that was going to be kind of above Torino and he would lose some responsibilities. And with that and a new staff coming in, it seems likely that he just was like, “Okay, you know, there were other teams that wanted me last offseason. Let me talk with them.” And, you know, obviously Torinos was an awesome addition. Orioles love him. I love Robinson Trinos. I hope he finds another job in a big league dugout for next season, but seemingly he is going to be off the oral staff, leaving the opening at bench coach. And that’s where Donnie Eker comes in. But as I just talked about, you know, most of Eker’s coaching experience is on the hitting side. He’s been one of the most well- reggarded hitting coaches in the major leagues for the past couple of years. If anyone, you know, I do, I know I do a lot, but reads what, you know, Saras writes or listens to him on the Rates and Barrel podcast over at the Athletic, who Yeah. You know, is like a a fantasy baseball writer at heart, but does a really good job of breaking down the game. He’s talked a lot to Donnie Eker, especially when Eker was in San Francisco and always has a lot of great things to say about him as a hitting coach. So, very, very exciting to get him to Baltimore. But what can you help this Orioles team with? Because clearly this was a very much underperforming offense in 2025. one of the big reasons why the Orioles won only 75 games and missed the postseason, but it’s still a young and talented core of hitters on this team that should have the talent to get back to the playoffs in 2026. So, along with Dustin Lynn being hired as hitting coach, what can Eker bring to the hitting side while he sits in that bench coach role? Well, here’s kind of where his teams have ranked in WRC plus in the major leagues. 2020, San Francisco was sixth. 2021, they were fourth. Then he went to Texas. They were 20th in 2022. They were second in 2023. And then they were 21st in 2024. So it’s really like three good seasons out of five in there when he has fully taken over the hitting operation for a major league team. So first I want to combine 2020 and 21 into one season, right? Like 2020 as I mentioned it was 60 games. there were just not a just a lot of things in and outside of baseball that made that not feel like a real year. So, let’s just combine that with 2021 to make it a you know 222 game season and sample and look at all those things. So really the only difference in the Giants lineup is that Buster Posey decided to sit out the 2020 season that he came back in 2021 and was awesome, but otherwise it was really the same group of hitters that took a giant step forward in 21 and turned the Giants into one of the best offenses in baseball and won 107 games. Now they were ninth in walk rate and 15th in strikeout rate in the big leagues in that time. That’s not amazing, but it’s a solid mix. But they were sixth in batting average, fifth in on base percentage, and fifth in slugging. That’s a really great combo to be kind of good at all three of those things and not have one like hanging down or one hanging way up means I could beat you in a lot of different ways offensively. They’re also fourth in home runs despite the ballpark they were playing in which is not conducive to home runs. Like Willie Adamus just hit 30 plus homers for the Giants this year. He was their first 30 home run hitter since Barry Bonds. The ballpark doesn’t play to homers but they hit some. They also had the second lowest ground ball rate in Major League Baseball to go along with the fourth highest line drive rate. That is showing they are making really good contact. And although they were only 13th in hard hit percentage, they were seventh in barrel rate. You add that to the line drive and the ground ball tells you, hey, they aren’t the biggest, strongest, most, you know, exit velocity darling kind of hitters. But they have guys who hit the ball hard, can pick out their pitch, and are making the most of the contact they are making. No matter their kind of base level strength or exit velocity or skill set, they were making the most of what they had. And also, they didn’t chase. Fourth lowest chase rate. They had the eighth highest contact rate, so they’re not swinging, and they’re definitely not swinging and missing, especially on pitches outside the zone. And you had guys like Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Lamont Way Jr., Darren Ruff, Tyro Estrada, all have these career years in 2021 under Donnie Ecker. Now, the Rangers hired him to try and do the same thing and it didn’t work in 2022 and then the Rangers bring in Bruce Bochi and they add to their team a little bit. All of a sudden, the same thing happens to the Rangers in 2023 with that amazing season where of course they came in and swept the Orioles in the ALDS and went on to win the World Series with Eker leading the offense. They were again fifth in walk rate and had an average strikeout rate. So pretty similar to San Francisco except walking more, second in batting average, third in on base, third in slugging. Same thing, right? They were beating you in a lot of different ways well instead of just doing only one thing right. And once again, second lowest ground ball rate. That is a big thing for these Donnie Aker teams. They’re not hitting the ball on the ground. They were eighth in line drive rate. So not fourth, but still really, really good. And both teams had really low like infield popup rates, which can be just as bad as strikeouts for teams. The Orioles did that a lot the past couple of seasons. They wouldn’t do that. And they had a little more juice. They were third in hard hit, sixth in barrel rate, second in average exit velocity, fifth lowest chase rate, seventh in contact rate. They were doing all the same things. The Giants did well. They had players like Mitch Garver and Jonah and Evan Carter and Robbie Gman. And really the defining season for Adelise Garcia all happened in 2023. all kind of breakout seasons under Donnie Eker, which is pretty impressive that he, you know, he had some there were a couple of bad seasons in there in Texas and obviously led to his dismissal in May of this year, but he was able to get a group of, you know, he did have Cory Seager and Marcus Semi in Texas and he had Buster Posey in in San Francisco, but outside of that, not lineups full of superstars and in two different seasons for two different organizations was able to create a top five offense that did a lot of the same things. Well, and those are things that I think with even maybe more talent right now sitting on the Baltimore roster before they even add in in free agency that he could get done for the Orioles as well. So, I’m definitely on board with this Echer hiring. And we got some news about the rest of the coaching staff as well. Some important names are staying. We’ll get to that coming up after this. To finish things off today, just wanted to also talk about the rest of the Orioles coaching staff because after hiring Craig Albernaz to be the new manager, we know that some coaches are leaving, some might be staying, some were up in the air that were still open positions. And some of that is still true even after today, but this staff is getting closer and closer to being full for the Orioles. So, where we sit right now is, we know Craig Alberz hired from the Guardians. He will be the Orioles first year manager. We now know that Donnie Eker will be the bench coach for Alberaz. Dustin Lind will be the Orioles new hitting coach. I talked about that back on Monday’s episode. Had a cool guest on that show as well. So, make sure to go back and check that one out. Uh, the Orioles did have two assistant hitting coaches last year in Sherman Johnson and Tommy Joseph. Both are gone. You’d think they’ll hire at least one assistant hitting coach to work with both Lind and Eker. The fact that Eker is the bench coach with kind of a hitting mind makes me think that it may only be one assistant instead of two, but that’s at least one opening that still exists. Jason Bushwah was hired earlier this week to be the first base coach. Had an episode on that uh earlier this week, so make sure and check that one out as well coming over from the White Socks. Third base coach is still TBD at the moment, but Andy Kuska of the Baltimore Banner did report on Wednesday that Buck Britain will be back on the Orioles major league coaching staff in 2026. Now, we know Buck has been to the organization for a long time, both as a minor league player and a coach. was the AAA manager for a while, worked with a lot of these current Orioles, and then at the beginning of last year was promoted to the big league staff to be just kind of a major league coach, right? He he didn’t have a specific role, was more of another coach on the roster. But when Hyde was fired in May, Tony Manscelino was named interim manager. Manelino could no longer be the third base coach. So, Buck Britain stepped in as the Orioles third base coach. Now, the fact that he did that role for four months, and he is being retained on staff tells me there’s a good chance that Britain just sticks as the third base coach for next season, but it’s not guaranteed. He could go back to more of just the general major league coach position and the Orioles could hire from the outside for third base coach. But I am very happy that Albert and the Orioles came to an agreement to retain Buck Britain, keep him on this staff. He’s probably got maybe the best, you know, group of relationships with all these current players. He has kind of all the knowledge of not just the, you know, Hyde staff, but even the pre- Elias time and the Orioles organization as well. I think he he brings a lot of institutional knowledge to this job despite him not being really that old either. I think he’s just a really good piece on this staff. Who knows if he’s still a guy you can tout as like a future Orioles manager, but I think it’s good that he’s going to go ahead and stay on this staff. Pitching coach looks like it would continue to be Drew French. Andy Kuska also reporting Wednesday that Drew French will be back on the Orioles staff. He spent the last two seasons as the O’s pitching coach. Now Andy did report that French’s role is not confirmed, but you got to think if he’s been the lead pitching coach for two years and he’s being retained on the staff, he’s probably going to stay as the lead pitching coach, right? I wouldn’t think he’d be getting some other role. And Andy also reported that Ryan Cleick will also be back on the major league staff next year. Clem has been the pitching strategy coach at the major league level for the Orioles for the past four seasons since 2022. He’s also been working in the organization since 2017. Actually, pretty surprisingly. He was an intern under the Dan Duket era all the way back then. And Elias kind of, I guess somewhat retained, but more so promoted him to a full-time role in 2019 when he got there. Clem just kind of climbed his way through the minor league system on pitching strategy and got to the majors. He does a lot with like working with pitchers and catchers and game planning and and in-game adjustments. He’s a super important part of this coaching staff. Um I’m really happy that Clem’s going to be back in more than likely a similar role. And then keeping it on the pitching and going to bullpen coach, I guess. So bullpen coach is currently TBD. Tim Cousins was in that role like the longtime friend of Brandon Hyde. He was also fired along with Hyde back in May. He was the only other member of the coaching staff that was let go alongside Brandon Hyde. So Mitch Plasm who was the assistant pitching coach stepped in as the interim bullpen coach for the Orioles as well. But Andy, despite reporting that, hey, the other two members of the pitching coaching staff, Drew French and Ryan Clem, would be back, did not have any word on whether Plasmier will be back. So we will see. He’s been with the Orioles for a couple of years now. He could slide back into assistant pitching coach role. He could take over full-time the bullpen coach role that he did for the last four months last year. If he slides back, maybe the bullpen coach role is open and the Orioles are able to to hire someone else. Remember Craig Albernaz was a bullpen coach for the Giants for four years. It’s where he really kind of cemented himself as a big league coach. So, I’m sure he knows some people he would like in that role as well. Maybe someone with some more catching expertise. Although that was kind of Albert as his expertise now that he’s in the manager chair. Maybe he feels like he needs someone else who can handle more of that day-to-day catching stuff with Adie Rutman and specifically Samuel Bisayo when look you look at the defensive side. So we’ll see what happens there with Plasm. He’s probably the biggest name that’s kind of up in the air at the moment. Uh and then there’s just the other MLB coaches. Rakabakaco of Massen did report on Wednesday that Grant Anders will not return to the Orioles major league staff. Anders has been in the organization with the O since 2020. He’s been on the MLB staff as a major league development coach for the past two seasons. Wasn’t super clear that he’s definitely going to be out of the organization. I guess it’s possible he could be like reassigned to a minor league role, but he won’t be on the big league staff. So, that could be an opening. And then there’s also the case of John Mabbury, you know, veteran MOB coach who was a former hitting coach and other in the big leagues was hired in May after Brandon Hyde was fired to kind of bring in a veteran coaching presence to help out Tony Manelino and as the interim was his first managerial job at the big league level and players seem to like and get along with John Mabry. He did a lot of work with Kobe Mayo defensively at first base, helped some guys offensively as well. I wouldn’t think Mabberry since he was hired in the middle of the season was on a multi-year contract. I would figure he was hired on a contract that would expire at the end of 2025. So, they probably do have to make a serious contractual decision on John Mabberry. There is an opening, right? There is at least a couple of openings on the staff. He could be the assistant hitting coach. He could be, you know, take that kind of major league coach role that Grant Anders isn’t in anymore. Like, they they would clearly have the space to keep Mabry on the staff. might be just about, you know, how much Craig Albernaz wants to keep John Mabry or whether he wants to put someone else on that staff, but we will see. But I would think there’s probably two more outside hires coming. Now, by outside hires, it could be a minor league coach who gets promoted to the major league. The Orioles probably do it usually at least one of those every year. So, you know, somebody from TripleA Norfol could be coming up as well. I’ll count that as an outside hire like outside the current state of the big league coaching staff. So, I’d say John Mabry and Mitch Plasm are still up in the air. And then, you know, between filling bullpen coach and a major league coach and an assistant hitting coach, uh, there probably be at least two more hires. And of course, we will have all those hires and all those coaching moves covered right here on the Lockdown Orioles podcast as we continue five episodes per week, five days a week, at least through the mid winter meetings, which are December 7th through the 10th in Orlando. So, we still almost got another month of five days per week talking Orioles here in the offseason. That will do it for today’s episode. That will do it for this week. Uh, we did get kind of some like late breaking, I don’t know if you want to call it Orioles news. I guess I can touch on one thing was Mike Elias did speak. The GM meetings just wrapped up this week in Las Vegas. There was a couple Orioles reporters, Andy Kuska and then Jake R of lb.com were there. Mike Elias kind of talked about, you know, not having financial restraints. Same kind of things David Rubenstein has been saying. Gave out a little bit of like a wish list for the off season, which was not surprising, right? High leverage reliever, closer, topline starting pitching, and a big bat. Like, this is the things we’ve been talking about on this show. It was nice to hear Elias confirm it, but I’ve been hosting this podcast for almost six years, and Mike Elias has been in charge the entire time. And something I say time and time again, take everything Molias says with a giant grain of salt and don’t um expect what he says to come true basically at any time. You’ll you’ll be happier that way as an Orioles fan, but it’s at least nice to hear him talk a little more openly about being aggressive in free agency. There was a line uh in the latest Ken Rosenthal uh piece on Thursday just kind of talking about, you know, rumors he’s hearing from the GM meetings about free agency and trades. and he apparently talked to one National League front office member who said a quote that was something like the Orioles seem to be the only team willing to open up the checkbook at this point. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be the only team to spend, but since the Orioles, you know, already took on the $9 million in the trade for Andrew Kitridge and already signed Leo Tveris to a major league deal, like they’re really the only team that’s kind of done stuff already here about two weeks into the offseason, even before the GM meetings begun. So maybe that means the aggressiveness is going to continue for the Orioles. Uh which would certainly be nice. And then the O’s did lose a couple of players on waiverss. We talked about them earlier in the week. Both uh two pitchers, right-hander Carson Ragsdale and left-hander Josh Walker were both DFA earlier in the week uh to make room on the Orioles 40man roster. Looks like the Atlanta Braves have claimed both of those pitchers. They are no longer with the Orioles or however. Good chance those guys probably go back onto waiverss at some point this off season. It wouldn’t be surprised if the Orioles tried to reclaim one of them. They’ve already claimed Ragsdale twice before, Walker once. It it it could happen again this off season. Uh but we will certainly see. Neither guy was really projected to make the Orioles opening day roster. They were kind of seen as more pitching depth for this team. They’ll certainly be adding more depth as this off season goes on. But again, that ends the show and the week on the podcast. Of course, I’ll be back on Monday. But until then, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the Locked on Orioles YouTube channel. Uh, if you are a listener, appreciate you so so much. Make sure to subscribe, hit the follow button on Apple Podcast or Spotify, if you can leave a fivestar rating and a review, that really really helps out the show as well. And if you want to talk some ball, have Orioles questions, mailbag questions, you want to give some feedback on the show, always email me [email protected]. I will be back on Monday. It seems like this kind of episode continuously is getting pushed back because you know we need to have a new coaching staff. There’s a lot of Orioles news coming up. But the plan is for Monday to do my first free agent wish list episode. Remember kind of did the auditing of last year’s on Thursday’s episode. So make sure to check that one out. But we’re going to take a look at closers because there has been reporting and it has come out of Michaelas’s mouth this week. I think the Orioles are going to pay for a closer in free agency and there are a lot of really good closers available this offseason with the O’s probably not having Felix Bautista in 2026. So, is it Edwin Diaz? Is it Devon Williams? Is it Pete Fairbanks? Is it someone else? I’ll go through my closer free agent wish list coming up on Monday’s episode. But until then, I’m Connor Nukem and this has been the Locked Orioles podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Baltimore Orioles have reportedly hired their new bench coach, bringing in former Texas Rangers Bench Coach Donnie Ecker. Host Connor Newcomb recaps Ecker’s life in baseball and discusses how he might help the Orioles offense.

Then, Connor talks about the reported returns of Drew French, Buck Britton, and Ryan Klimek to the coaching staff.

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