{"id":534730,"date":"2026-01-23T17:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534730\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:24:18","slug":"craig-albernaz-and-pete-alonso-are-the-new-faces-of-the-orioles-we-saw-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534730\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Albernaz and Pete Alonso are the new faces of the Orioles. We saw why."},"content":{"rendered":"

Toward the end of their Q&A session Thursday night, new Orioles manager Craig Albernaz and slugger Pete Alonso were asked who would be the team to beat this season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully us,\u201d they said together. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of what made Thursday\u2019s Meet the New O\u2019s Q&A session at the Senator Theatre fascinating \u2014 not the obvious answer but the men giving it. If their prediction proves true, these two are going to have a lot to do with it and, perhaps more to the point, will get a lot of the credit. <\/p>\n

The old faces aren\u2019t gone \u2014 and any winning season will be driven by what the returning core produces \u2014 but these are the new faces of the Orioles. I think that\u2019s the whole point of an event like Thursday\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a coincidence that the baseball-related kickoff of this calendar year for the Orioles featured these two. And, considering Alonso ended his free agent meeting with the Orioles last month in Orlando, Florida, by telling the club\u2019s brass they were signing \u201cthe best mic guy in the show,\u201d it\u2019s no surprise it went well.<\/p>\n

You could tell Albernaz was going to continue to be his authentic and unfiltered self when he said his minor league walk-up song was Eminem\u2019s \u201cGo to Sleep,\u201d<\/a> which is, well, not a lullaby. (And you could tell, when the mention of a new sound system at Camden Yards brought thunderous applause from the crowd, that they were speaking to die-hards.)<\/p>\n

They talked about what drew them to Baltimore \u2014 the top-down commitment, the talent and in Alonso\u2019s words the \u201cunmatched care\u201d that goes into making the Orioles a championship team. They revealed a mutual admiration for Mark McGwire. Both heartily looked forward to Albernaz\u2019s first ejection and outlined their expectations for the club. <\/p>\n

Alonso cracked his new skipper up at the recollection of the Florida game at South Carolina his freshman year in which he made three errors at third base because of all the \u201cscreaming rednecks\u201d in the stands, prompting him to become the first baseman he is today. Alonso himself chuckled every time Albernaz let slip a bad word, which was certainly more than once. Albernaz referred to \u201cthe boys\u201d only twice, which is low for him. <\/p>\n

If you wanted to know what both are about, you found out at the Senator. Albernaz said he expects the Orioles\u2019 players to be \u201cthe most prepared they\u2019ve ever been stepping on the field in the big leagues \u2026 and they\u2019re going to compete harder than they\u2019ve ever competed.\u201d Alonso outlined how he prepares to face a pitcher and how badly he wants to be a better version of himself than he has been to this point in his career<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Birdland Caravan, the spiritual successor to FanFest, exists to drum up enthusiasm for the coming season. This is one of those winters when, while the buzz has waned from the Orioles\u2019 active November and December, there\u2019s excitement already in place. <\/p>\n

Albernaz\u2019s hire is one source of that. He\u2019s a fresh voice with a frighteningly large task. He and his staff have to get the homegrown Orioles core back to its best and playing winning baseball, something that hasn\u2019t been the case since the middle of 2024. <\/p>\n

Alonso is a much larger source, to be fair. He is a needle mover on the field with his consistent production and game-changing slug in the middle of the lineup, and he represents the club\u2019s first massive free agency expenditure in the David Rubenstein era. He is an unquestioned star-level acquisition who has changed the perception of the Orioles locally and nationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To hear Alonso\u2019s agent, Scott Boras, tell it, Albernaz\u2019s presence made a difference as the Orioles pitched Alonso on their project at the winter meetings. Albernaz shared this week on \u201cThe Banner Baseball Show\u201d<\/a> that Alonso \u201cwas asking really great questions the whole time, so it was a great back-and-forth baseball conversation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Orioles manager Craig Albernaz, pictured in November, got to meet fans at a Q&A Thursday night. (Jerry Jackson\/The Banner)<\/p>\n

Their partnership was referenced throughout Thursday\u2019s event. Alonso said it was about \u201cthe vibe and the intent and sincerity around the conversations,\u201d with Albernaz and Mike Elias\u2019 answers to his questions not only containing the substance he was seeking but being delivered on a wavelength that matched his own personality.<\/p>\n

What felt evident Thursday was how much of those matching vibes are going to resonate with the group they\u2019re joining. Alonso and Albernaz respond to how difficult the big leagues are earnestly rather than portentously. <\/p>\n

They are relentlessly trying to get better and haven\u2019t lost sight of who they are \u2014 Albernaz very clearly scrappy and a little brash but thoughtful on matters of substance, and Alonso the kind of person who seems to truly believe the day-at-a-time-isms that help one survive a baseball season, with some perhaps intentionally corny humor mixed in.<\/p>\n

In a way, it reminded me of Adley Rutschman, one of many Orioles who, yes, needs to play better but also needs to recover his spirit. He and his teammates\u2019 success early on was almost defined by the joy they took in pursuing it. <\/p>\n

The two men onstage will have a lot to do with restoring both form and fun for these homegrown Orioles, and their comfort in doing so Thursday, out front for this new era, will allow the core to do so in an environment where the focus isn\u2019t on them. <\/p>\n

The spotlight is now on Albernaz and Alonso in a way it was only ever on Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday and many of their peers. <\/p>\n

So much of this group\u2019s roots are so deep in the rebuild soil that it\u2019s hard to separate them from how they arrived: the high draft picks and sole sources of hope through all those years of losing. They also drove the club\u2019s resurgence in the middle of this decade and, fair or unfair, are tarnished by the playoff sweeps and last year\u2019s collapse.<\/p>\n

Albernaz and Alonso are unburdened by that. They\u2019re only looking forward, and upward, and that\u2019s worth a lot when a team needs to improve in the ways the Orioles do. Whether they do or not, it will be fascinating to think back on this event in a few years when we know whether these two delivered on their promise. <\/p>\n

Championships are hard to come by. Many of the fans in there would settle for a brand of baseball similar to how Albernaz described the umpire ejections in his future: fun and electric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toward the end of their Q&A session Thursday night, new Orioles manager Craig Albernaz and slugger Pete Alonso…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,2538,5,4,125,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-534730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimoreorioles","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-orioles","14":"tag-pete-alonso"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115945581937319297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}