Source: Brandon Hyde will return as Orioles manager in 2022; agreed previously to extension

Manager Brandon Hyde will be back for a fourth season in charge of the Baltimore Orioles, The Athletic has learned.

According to an industry source, Hyde’s original contract was amended and extended this past offseason to include a guarantee for 2022.

Although initial terms were never disclosed when Hyde was hired before the 2019 season, sources previously said the manager signed a conventional, three-year deal with a club option for 2022. Meaning Hyde, technically, was a lame-duck manager this year with hopes of having the option exercised.

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The sense throughout 2021 was that Hyde would be brought back for another season, but the front office and ownership have remained mum about his contractual status.

This past offseason, however, Hyde’s original contract was amended to guarantee 2022, the source said. It is unclear how much longer the deal is guaranteed, if at all, beyond next season.

Orioles general manager Mike Elias, who was hired in November 2018, roughly a month before he named Hyde as his first manager, does not talk about contract specifics as part of club policy. But Elias has reiterated several times during this season that he does not believe Hyde should be judged by wins and losses in the middle of the organization’s deep rebuild.

Elias, contacted Wednesday night about Hyde’s extension, again declined to comment.

Hyde also has continually sidestepped the question of his future with the Orioles, repeatedly saying that it’s a question for management and ownership. But he has also mentioned multiple times that he believes he and Elias have been on the same page since they joined the organization, and he hopes to be able to see the team reap the benefits of the rebuild.

He was asked after Wednesday’s 4-3 loss in Philadelphia about the report and said, “I can’t comment on my contract status, but I am very excited to come back.”

Hyde, who turns 48 on the final day of this season, is in his first stint as a full-time manager, although he did manage one game, a loss, for the then-Florida Marlins as an interim skipper in 2011.

A former minor-league catcher and manager, Hyde made his ascent as a big-league managerial candidate in the late 2010s as part of the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs. Hyde’s last job before he joined the Orioles was serving as the bench coach for venerable former Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

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After Wednesday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Hyde’s record with the Orioles is 127-247. His .340 winning percentage is the worst among all modern-day Orioles managers — dating back to 1954 — who have had at least one full season on the job. (Interim manager Juan Samuel had a .333 winning percentage in 51 games in 2010.)

Hyde, however, inherited a team that finished at the bottom of the major leagues with a franchise-worst 115 losses in 2018. His Orioles were 54-108 in his first year managing in 2019 and were 25-35 in last year’s truncated season. The Orioles’ 48-104 record this season is tied for the worst in the majors. They have had separate losing streaks of 14 and 19 games this season.

Still, the likable yet occasionally intense Hyde has received high marks from Elias, the Orioles players and other big-league managers for the way he has remained positive and steady throughout a tumultuous tenure that has included continual losing and navigating through a pandemic.

His honesty with inexperienced players, mixed with his penchant to defend his team — witnessed earlier this month when microphones picked up a profanity-laced outburst targeted at rival Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Robbie Ray — has seemingly overshadowed the club’s dismal record this season.

And he’ll get at least one more year at the helm in Baltimore.

There has been no indication, however, as to the status of Hyde’s coaching staff for 2022. Elias typically makes those decisions at the beginning of each offseason.

(Photo: Scott Taetsch / USA Today)