The big news for the Guardians yesterday was that associate manager/bench coach Craig Albernaz has been hired to be manager of the Baltimore Orioles.
Albernaz and Stephen Vogt seemingly had a great relationship, and two seasons and two division titles speaks for itself for their record. It will be interesting to see how the team fills this role and the void left by Kai Correa’s earlier departure.
I can’t help but wish that it would turn out that Vogt and hitting coach Grant Fink have become close, moving Fink up to associate manager and allowing hopefully some smart person in the organization to push for making an outside the organization hire at the hitting coach position… something we have been desiring for about 13 months now. But, chances are that if that happened, the organization would promote from within, anyway.
Just to clarify, I have nothing against Fink. He may turn out to be a great hitting coach (a three-year sample is a better way of judging a coach’s abilities); I just want to see clear signs that Cleveland realizes they need new ideas from other successful organizations in the hitting departnment.
Another interesting possibility for one of these roles might be Alyssa Nakken, Assistant Director of Player Development, who I know is well-thought of in the organization and around baseball. If she were to take either the on-field coordinator role vacated by Correa or the associate manager/bench coach role left empty by Albernaz, it would be the most prominent role occupied by a female coach in MLB history (Nakken was a first-base coach for one game with San Francisco in 2022).
The Guardians’ Executive Vice-President and Assistant General Manager Matt Forman is apparently one of two finalist for the President of Baseball Operations for the Colorado Rockies. Godspeed to Forman if he gets that job.