In the Baltimore Orioles most recent game against the Kansas City Royals, Craig Albernaz did something that managers rarely do these days: he allowed a pitcher to talk himself into staying in the game.
This is something that used to be fairly commonplace. Managers would approach the mound and look their starter in the eye and ask, "whatcha got," and the pitcher would lie and say, "I've got more in the tank," and then the manager would leave him in the game to face the lineup for the fifth time in a 5-5 ballgame with a pitch count north of 110.
Nowadays, when the manager goes out to the mound, there isn't much a player can say to convince him to deviate from the game plan, which is likely laid out pregame and backed by data. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Craig Albernaz is determined to change the way they've done things in Baltimore
But Albernaz isn't like most managers. Since his introductory press conference, he has let everyone know he's about the people. He wants to treat each of his players as individuals; he does not want to set limits on what they can do on the baseball field, and he's not afraid to stick his neck out to give his guys a chance to prove something.
Allowing Shane Baz to stay in the game after he came out to get him probably hurt the Orioles chances of winning that game against the Royals. It's hard to say if it really worked out, as allowing one run in a two-on-no-out situation is about as good an outcome as you could ask for. But if Baz had given up a three-run home run after Albernaz walked back to the dugout, the headline of the game would have been "Orioles Manager Makes Massive Mistake".
There is a safety in following conventional wisdom, if you just do what everyone would do, if it goes wrong, nobody would say a bad word about you. Albernaz did what he did knowing that if it didn't work out, he would be the one to take the heat.
Why did he do it then? It's about building your guys up for later in the season. If the Orioles are going to contend for anything this year, they are going to need Baz to develop into one of their better starters. They are going to need him to pitch deep into games, face really good hitters, and get out of jams.
In that single at-bat vs Bobby Witt Jr in the seventh inning, with his pitch count elevated, it taught the Orioles and Baz more about Baz than 10 scoreless five-and-dive starts. Down the line, when Baz is asked to pitch deep into a game and face a lineup for the third or fourth time and see some of the best hitters in the game, he can hearken back to when his manager let him stay in to face one of the best hitters in the AL for the fourth time with the game in the balance. That's valuable experience.
The Orioles went on to lose that game, and they may lose a couple more games because Albernaz wants to push to issue, trusting his guys to come through for him. The bet they are making is that in the end, this will make them a better team.
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