Orioles assistant hitting coach Sherman Johnson is moving to the White Sox as a minor league hitting coordinator, reports Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner. Kostka also reports that Tommy Joseph, another assistant hitting coach, won’t be returning to the O’s next year. Those may not be the only changes for the Baltimore coaching staff, as Andy Martino of SNY reports that first base coach Anthony Sanders has been given permission to talk to other clubs.
The Orioles will have a new manager in 2026. Brandon Hyde was fired during the 2025 season. Third base coach Tony Mansolino took over as interim manager for the remainder of the campaign. It was announced yesterday that Craig Albernaz will now skipper the club. It’s common for managerial hirings to lead to coaching staff shake-ups, as the new bench boss will sometimes bring in his own guys or simply just have different ideas about the best way to move forward.
Johnson, 35, was just hired in November of last year. The 2025 season was his first on a big league staff. He had a brief playing career, with ten big league games for the Angels back in 2018. He played in the minors and independent ball through 2022 before transitioning into coaching. The O’s hired him to work as hitting coach for Double-A Bowie in 2023. He was a minor league hitting coordinator in 2024 before getting bumped up to the big leagues. He’ll now return to the minors in a role with the White Sox.
Joseph, 34, played for the Phillies in 2016 and 2017. He then transitioned to coaching, working in the minors with the Mets and Giants. He got a big league job with the Mariners in 2024, getting hired as an assistant hitting coach. He was hired away by the Orioles for the 2025 season but will be moving on after just one season in Baltimore.
Sanders, 51, played in the majors from 1999 to 2001. He later transitioned to coaching, working with the Rockies in the minor leagues. He worked his way up to the majors and then jumped to the Orioles as first base coach for the 2020 season. It’s not a foregone conclusion that he’ll be leaving the O’s but it seems he is at least exploring the possibility.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Hopefully they will add solid pieces to the roster to supplement that young core this offseason. I’ve been saying that for a few years now on other sites and I was told to shut up and I’m stupid they know what they are doing. How did the doing almost nothing approach work out?
Hopefully Elias has figured out that most of the time if you want quality players you’re going to have to pay a premium price either through free agency or trades. I was a debbie downer on the moves made last offseason as well. I would’ve loved to have been wrong about it but here we are.
@scruff they signed one free agent that cost them a few bucks but he wasn’t a game changer. The bottom line is they did nothing to improve last off-season. If they don’t change their business practice this off-season this entire thing is just not gonna work out for them. I know these guys are young but the window only stays open for so long.
They did a lot to improve last season. Just a lot of the WRONG moves. They added significant payroll, let’s not act like they didn’t.
The problem is not the FA approach. It’s the failed core.
Addition of payroll does not equal improvement, as we saw. Their best addition (Laureano) was almost the cheapest.
Morton (15M), Sugano (13M), Sanchez (8.5M), O’Neill (16.5M), Gibson (5M), Mateo (+2.5M). 55M+ in additional payroll for negative return.
Elias was Eugene Levy’s “Vacation” salesman character telling us Clark Griswold’s Orioles fans that the family truckster was a fine automobile, and that was the vehicle you wanted if you were taking the tribe across the country. Never mind that it kept running after you turned it off and the airbags deployed at random, you’re good for the playoffs.
If Elias didn’t do anything, how did he dupe everyone into thinking the Orioles had a contending in 2025? The entire professional world of sports (from Vegas book-makers, to industry media, to MLB front offices) said that they were contenders.
So, how’d Elias do it? How’d he fool everyone in and around professional sports?
@O what is wrong with you. What are you talking about? Who’s talking about someone duped EVERYONE into thinking they were going to be contenders? You slammed a couple 40s tonight?
@ CLNC — Nevermind, carry on, have a lovely night. smh
Ok thanks. Don’t shake your head too much though. you could hurt yourself.
I think O’s point was that, if everyone predicted the O’s to be a contender, then maybe he actually did put together a contender.
Joe Brady, you can say that. Anybody can say that. Half the people might’ve thought that. But the other half saw problems coming. That guy was talking about predictions and people making bets and all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah that’s great. If I was a betting man, I would’ve put money on the Orioles not being that good.
Elias deserves credit for how he built up the team, though all that tanking—which doesn’t reward teams anymore like it used to—didn’t hurt. He may also merit criticism for not doing enough to bolster his young core with enough established vets, though ownership probably bears some responsibility for that, too, depending on how willing they were to spend.
All in all, both things can be true; he played a major role in building up a contender, and has a hand in not doing enough to go even further. It wasn’t just us rondo’s in this comment section who thought the O’s should have done more to land established front-end pitchers, for example.
Jazz he definitely deserves credit for building up the farm system. It looks like there’s a lot of really good players coming up but time will tell like with any organization but it doesn’t stop there. Ownership always has the final say in money matters. Doesn’t matter what anybody says that’s the truth. The job doesn’t stop with building up the farm system though he should’ve done a lot more to supplement the talent that was coming up. Baseball has been like that forever. It’s nothing new. Whatever the problem is, they’re gonna have to spend money or they’ve gone as far as they’re gonna go with the group they have right now.
dc — “Not doing enough”, “almost nothing” are all 20/20 hindsight based views.
At the beginning of the year, industry consensus was the Orioles were a contending team.
If you want to attribute the season to Mike Elias, you’re suggesting he was clairvoyant and could/should have anticipated the wild divergences from norms/expectations the Orioles had.
Atlanta also flounder this year too being a contender…is AA just as ‘not doing enough’, or is it just Elias?
What is ‘doing enough’? ‘He needs a TOR arm’, well he’s gotten 2 of them in the last 2 seasons in Rogers and Burnes.
Doing enough seems vague and super subjective. Could you define it more specifically?
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Going into 2025 there were homegrown “stars” at every position except right field. Elias added two starters and two back-end bullpen guys at the deadline in 2024, then signed two additional starters and another back-end bullpen guy in 2025, “upgraded” the backup catcher position, and “replaced” Santander in the outfield.
By all measures, he upgraded the team. He fielded a lineup that fans had been dreaming of for several years, full of homegrown players. The problem is that those players regressed, and a slate of injuries decimated the pitching staff combined with uncharacteristically bad performances from Morton and Eflin.
I don’t think money is the only solution. Leadership, effective coaching, and not building a team full of babied lil Abercrombie poster boys that have never faced adversity, on the other hand, are just as critical as an effective FA signing.
Boggs-Ok I’m wrong. I’m not gonna keep beating this to death. All of a sudden we’re back to this where nobody knows what they’re talking about. At the beginning of the season lot of fans on this site we’re talking about how he didn’t do enough improve this team. A lot of people were saying the additions he made were questionable at best. Until I posted my first comment yesterday, not too many people were happy with the Orioles general manager. There was a lot of talk about they were trying too hard to save money and they thought the new owner was gonna start putting money into the team and make improvements. But I guess I didn’t really read any of that and I don’t know what I’m talking about so OK sounds great.
I never bought into this years team contending for anything other than a wild card spot. I was shocked when some people in the media were picking them to finish on top of the division. They lost their staff ace and best power hitter last offseason and failed to replace either with anybody meaningful. I think it’s very fair to say that Elias didn’t do enough to supplement the team. He has a lot of work to do this offseason to make up for it.
jdgoat — Again, the ‘I think it’s very fair to say Elias didn’t do enough’ is a view after the fact, not before the season.
Everyone seems to want to proclaim their own clairvoyance while faulting Elias for not having the same clairvoyance.
Their were a multitude of issues that happened this year to the Orioles, and of course, posters here knew that, but the Industry was blind.
Funny, making a bet for the Orioles to finish below .500 and in fifth place in the AL East would have make a lot of millionaires. I hope you all enjoy your fortunes for your divergent views from the sports industry.
Or maybe…we all are disappointed and hoping Mike does what he’s always done…be aggressive in building the team. I dunno
I’m similarly surprised Toronto is in the World Series. I didn’t think the addition of Andres Gimenez, Jeff Hoffman, old Max Scherzer, and Anthony Santander were going to lead to a 20 game turnaround. (Gimenez had a nice glove but couldn’t hit. Santander was a disaster, Scherzer was bad and Hoffman was below average in the regular season)
Toronto actually just got a ton of production from low cost acquisitions and not what they spent money on. Myles Straw, Ernie Clement, , Eric Lauer. Addison Barger and Nathan Lukes came up and produced.
Won’t be completely surprised if Baltimore wins more games than Toronto next year either.
O’Neill was supposed to crush lefties and has huge power so I wouldn’t really say Santander wasn’t replaced. He was but it was a disaster.
You weren’t expecting Cowser to crater, Gunnar to be hurt and decline, Adley to not hit, GRod to not pitch, Morton to be the worst pitcher in baseball for 6 weeks, Kittredge to start the year hurt, Bautista to blow his arm out.
Before the season I’m pretty certain that 99% of neutral baseball fans would’ve said Cowser, Mayo and Holliday would easily produce more WAR than Myles Straw, Addison Barger, and Ernie Clement this year.
That’s why they play the games. New manager, new coaches and a new bullpen this year. Elias has work to do but I think any team can win the ALE next year.
O- it’s time for you to admit that a lot of other people knew what they were talking about when they were concerned about the Orioles before this season even started. You didn’t need a crystal ball or any of that other stuff to figure it out. Baseball has always been if you don’t make additions or supplement your core growth will stop. And it did. The Orioles GM might’ve done a good job building things up but it’s like that’s all he was going to do. People saw that and saw problems coming. Now just stop.
CLNC — Carry on brah. I can’t help you.
O’s, as I mentioned several times, I gave a preseason guess of 83-79 with less than 50% chance at WC and many “experts” here excoriated me for it. My main issue was Morton and Sugano being back end guys at best and not getting a top half of the rotation guy, I saw the staff not being playoff caliber…per usual with this team. I expressed concern about O’Neill’s health and was told to shut up and expect 30 HR.
I was mostly hearing it because of the “experts” sunny predictions. I was honestly shocked PECOTA had them at 88-89 wins at one point in Feb-March. While PECOTA tends to cluster close to .500 on predictions and miss outliers they’ve historically under-predicted the Orioles (2012-17 most notably). Most sites had them comfortably as a WC team if not division winning – for example, 5 out of 6 on the CBS Sports panel picked them for 2nd or 1st and all had them getting WC. I saw a lot of predictions having the Jays as low as 4th in the east, too.
Everyone needs to think a little more about separating their takes from the “experts”, and maybe they need to do a little more homework to justify their expertise. This is their job, its all they do all day, while I’m an armchair GM with a full time job.
Another thing is to look at what Elias says and what Elias actually does to draw conclusions.
PS to their credit, someone on MLB network at the winter meetings was incredulous Elias was doing nothing about the starting pitching at the winter meetings, saying they were asleep at the switch. I yelled at the TV: “Yes! Someone gets it!” Sorry I don’t remember who the analyst was, but props are due.
Elias was giving smug interviews and giggling about moving the wall in and signing Sanchez and O’Neill.
Be prepared, because I see the comments about Wells being seen as a rotation guy and optimism that Rodriguez will be healthy this time as ominous warning signs that this winter won’t see enough action on starting pitching. They need TWO #1-#2 guys, and Wells should be a swing/emergency starter. I’d put the over/under on 2026 MLB pitches for Rodriguez as 0.5, as he has 5 months to get injured again before opening day.
Did you think Toronto did enough to be here? Berrios and Bassett looked to be in decline.
Oneill——Santander
Morton——-Scherzer
Sugano—-Lauer
Kittredge——Hoffman
Laureano——-Andres Gimenez
Not a substantial difference and that Toronto team came off a 74 win season the year before. Their top 3 starters stayed healthy and they got surprising production out of the bargain bin aisle. 36 year old George Springer somehow turned back time and hit like 27 year old George Springer. Certainly didn’t see this coming.
I thought Toronto would be right around the Orioles (.500 or so).
O’Neill > Santander 2025 obviously. O’Neill Morton. I think Morton stopped working out last Oct. until Elias called him in January.
Lauer pitched well in MLB in 2021-22 and several years younger than Sugano. Good move by Jays.
Vlad Jr > Mountcastle, Mayo
Varsho/Straw > Mullins
Kirk > Rutschman
Jays hit .264 versus lefties with a .755 OPS. The Orioles were comically inept versus LHP the first third of the season.
Jays hit .292 with RISP, .810 OPS.
Also relatively healthy. 8 guys on offense 130 GP+. 3 guys with 30 starts, 5 bullpen guys with 50+ appearances (6 if you include Seranthony’s Orioles stats)
The 2025 Jays had a season like the 2023 Orioles. They won 7 less games in the regular season, 9 more (and counting?) in the postseason. Odds are for regression to the mean, not as good health, and them being called a disappointment in 2026 if they win 85.
Agreed w/ pretty much everything. Lauer wasn’t great in the KBO but he obviously was a find like Suarez was for us the year prior.
That’s the funny thing about baseball though. The Yankees did everything in the offseason to make you happy and they went home. The Jays and O’s spent money and didn’t get a whole lot for it. Jays still end up in the WS because of the other guys.
Thornton — I know you, and I, and most Orioles fans weren’t fans of T.O. signing. It was taken with a grain of salt by most since most believed Heston was gonna out play TO in the OF. Woops.
As far as Morton and Sugano goes, they were added as 4th/5th options when they were signed. Then, after free agency was picked through (and Burnes chose AZ), then in early January both Rogers and Grayson got injured. The sequence of events is consequencal. By April Efflin was hurt too.
When a team goes into the season waiting for their top half of the rotation to get healthy, well, we know the rest. Can’t win it all in April and May, but you can loose it. Sho nuff.
And yes, we should look at what Elias has done to draw conclusions…but we seem to be seeing different people. Mostly.
(Yes, even experts can miss a perfect storm, but folks saying they saw this outcome need to stop fooling themselves. The deficiencies are plentiful and innumerable. It was not predictable. Partal credit for knowing the weaknesses of TO and a Burnes-less rotation, I suppose, but that’s more obvious than prophetic isn’t though?)
I know you’re a fan, and you give a rats-butt, so that’s more important than differences of opinion we may have.
O’s great post.
Looking logically at this offseason in the same lens:
Bradish – made 6 (encouraging) starts after a major injury. It still causes a question mark but I feel better about him after seeing that. I think its fairly safe to use pen writing him in the 2026 rotation.
Rodriguez – I don’t think they should count on him one bit. I think he should be in the bullpen TBH if he can even do that. 5 months to opening day is 150 days for him to get hurt again.
Wells – at 31 and with a track record of breaking down in seasons of 100 IP and also coming off another injury. Should be swingman/bullpen. Maybe be the guy who can give 3 or 4 solid innings after a Bad Kremer start to potentially steal a game. Or step in for a few starts when someone is out. Should not be counted as a rotation piece.
So Bradish, Rogers, Kremer. Leaves the need for TWO higher level acquisitions. #1/#2. Not “veterans innings eaters” not “diamond in the rough” not “overlooked gem”. One season of knowing Burnes was taking the ball every 5 games should have showed them how much of a boost that was.
I have faith the Orioles will be able to retool the bullpen effectively. They have to make a sound decision about closer, as Kimbrel going from effective to imploding caused a lot of shakiness the 2nd half of 2024. But they’ve found bullpen contributors pretty well the last few seasons.
While getting the RH OF power bat O’Neill was supposed to be for the 2026 team would be a bonus, they get a lot more mileage out of reversing the young core’s stagnation/regression.
I guess the most encouraging thing about 2025 was that they held .500 or so after frying the bullpen with half a rotation and all the flaws the team had. I’d rather have them finish like that than finish 16-34 (like they started). That team was absolutely lost the first 50 games of 2025, with a big assist from Elias not giving them the horses they needed.
If they sit on their hands at the winter meetings again while the other teams improve around them, then I’ll have a lot of trouble seeing them as a favorite.
CLNC – I’m with you, and if you hang out on this site you’ll see others yell at my takes all winter.
Thornton-I definitely don’t know everything. I’ve been around for a while now and I know what I see. Look how 2025 ended for the Orioles. Results speak for themselves. Some of us saw this coming. It’s just a shame that you can’t state the obvious and other people talk to you like you’re a moron. That’s why I don’t comment on here a whole bunch.
@CLNC maybe try avoiding the hyperbole (“doing nothing in the offseason”) because going the exaggeration route and making it a ‘let’s team up against the dissenters, Thornton!’ is not a good look, and maybe signs that you should not even comment at all, or rather think first before commenting.
What a ridiculous comment. Hyperbole what a stupid thing to say. Do you know how many people were saying the same thing I was saying earlier this season? Teaming up against the dissenters? Wow man crawl back in your cave.
Finally.
Never heard of them And they weren’t very effective
that was the guy in the hunter pence trade
Too many assistant this and assistant that. Should only be a handful of coaches on each team.
your track record managing winning big league clubs speaks for itself. you tell’em, @Stick.
All the teams are like that now.
Nice to screw over Tommy like that. The Orioles continue to be a crap organization.
In no world is giving a new manager prerogative over his staff (after an awful year of hitting, no less) “screwing over” an assistant hitting coach. 🙄
It’s as if some of these people just don’t understand how the game works. New managers are typically given some discretion over who is on their staff of coaches. A hitting coach who oversees a horrible year offensively is often criticized for their approach. These are industry standard practices. Heck, just remove the job title and it’s fairly common across many industries!
Silly. The O’s were a garbage offensive team, not a single one of the hitting coaches earned their keep. Asche needs to be next to go.
@NeverRemember
i know that there are a LOT of factors to go into these stats but other than the factor that nearly every new manager brings in their own coaches, there is the fact that the team really struggled offensively. Which is much of what Tommy and Sherman were there to improve.
They’d be a crap org if they DIDN’t shake things up a little from this:
“Their offense also disappointed during the season as they ranked 24th in all of baseball in runs scored (677), batting average (.235) and on-base percentage (.305).”
I do have to give it to you though, I’ve been railing on folks postulating the same complaints, “O’s are cheap”, “Elias is the worst GM in all of history”. You have brought a new argument to the table… “they let Tommy walk,.this is proof positive that Baltimore is a crap organization.”
I bet nobody but you had that on their Bingo card. Bravo. You’re one of a kind.
Changing managers and coaching staff frequently is bound to be a positive. 🙃
Is once in 6 years “frequent” for Managers?
You’re math challenged or not an Orioles fan. 2 managers in 2025 + one in 2026=3. Johnson and Joseph lasted one year each. Without a doubt, more will depart before ’26. The numbers seems clear to me, but arithmetic was my best subject.
From a fans perspective, I think it’s hard to know what the coaches are doing or not doing for the team so it’s hard for me to form an opinion. I will say that I had a couple chance interactions with Anthony Sanders in Seattle and Sacramento this season and he’s a great guy. Talking it up with fans before games and between innings. Not stand-offish like some can be. I hope he comes back, but even if he doesn’t end up with the Orioles next season I believe he’ll be a great asset to any team.
The hitting was horrific and the coaches had to go. They better send off main hitting coach Ashe as well. Adley ops+ down 15, Mountcastle down 27, Henderson down 34, Urias -21, Cowser -34, Westburg -13, Mateo -50. One guy, O’hearn, went up and I’m leaving out the abject failure with Holliday. They still hit the ball hard but Ks way up, grounders thru the Roof.
O’s hitting coaches have to been cleaned out. Albernaz is a welcome change. We need fresh eyes and ideas.
@saj
“abject failure with Holliday”
+32 on OPS+ year-on-year and the kid is 21 yrs old?. I understand you’re expecting an All Star starter 2B for a 1-1 but he had a decent season and is settling into his big league role.
Don’t dilute your argument with hyperbole. I actually agree that the offense was a much of a problem as the lack of starting pitching early in the season.
This year is big for Holliday though. He does need to take another step. I question whether he’ll ever be good enough against lefties. Crazy young and it’s a shame he didn’t stumble much at all in the minors so he could’ve had more abs against lefties. Tough to play him everyday at the big league level against tough lefties
For me it’s not so much about hitting lefties. His front side opens up too much regardless of who’s pitching.. and it seems intentional, rather than a habit that needs monitoring and correction. Also his ability to get on base at a high clip, although he did seem to improve that at the end of the year. Lastly, his offense with just minor improvement generally speaking would suffice as a 2B but only if he improves his defense. He has to get better moving to his right.
His L R splits are not that extreme. He is a disappointment against eighties too
Righties, not eighties
All call-ups get a couple hundred PAs leeway. After their first 200-300, most MLB hitters perform close to their ultimate numbers.
JH had his intro term last year so 25 should have been postintro, ready to produce. I call it a failure when a kid hits nearly 60% above peers in the minors and below average in MLB. A 160 to 95 gap is very unusual. Maybe you don’t like the word abject, but it was a development failure.
Yes he’s young, hope he improves, but his output is just another black mark on the coaches.
I give half a plus take on this. Adley, Cowser, and Henderson – fully agree.
Holliday – his dad fixed an early season problem, not the Orioles. But he didn’t advance beyond that and slow-faded 2nd half. Hard to tell how much his progress versus 2024 was due to Orioles versus dad. “Failure” is a stretch, wait and see 2026. I would expect 20-25 HR, hitting .260 or better, and improved plate discipline. Also stop swinging at the first pitch so much.
Mountcastle – should have traded him after 2023 based on downward trajectory, doesn’t matter who the coach is. I blame the organization here. Now he’s a non-tender.
Urias – has a clear established pattern that he hits well when he plays consistently. He was above average for a while in 2025, Westburg returned, playing time got spotty, hitting decreased.
Westburg – due to lack of games was one small hot stretch from breaking even or gaining. I think that’s more timing.
Mateo – not a major league caliber hitter to begin with. Full blame on Elias on paying the guy $3.4M to pinch run and occasionally misplay balls in CF and run into the wall (and be praised for “hustle”).
Also on board with approach change – this is what I want to see on judging the new manager. Especially with a guy like Cowser who walked more than he struck out in college and was praised during the pre-draft for his advanced eye. Can’t just employ a swing from the heels approach.
Injury is a constant, playing time comes and goes, some guys start out less skilled. But re: assessing coaches, these excuses don’t matter. Nearly every hitter with a track record was a deep disappointment in ’25 compared to their baseball card. They were horribly managed and coached, no other way to see it.
Always wondered why guys who couldn’t hit in their cup of coffee in the bigs wind up as hitting coaches.
Huh? “Those who can’t do; teach” is one of the oldest adages in the book
What former all-star hitter is a great hitting coach in the MLB this year?
I give up, who?
Better off with Sherman Helmsley, amirite?
Isn’t he occupied with “Jeffersons on Ice” show in Reno?