For days, the Orioles tamped down reports that their managerial search, still ongoing two weeks into December, had led them to Brandon Hyde. Meanwhile, much of the industry considered Hyde's hiring a foregone conclusion. All the two parties had to do was cross some T's and dot some I's.
That process reached its official completion Friday, when the Orioles announced what was long speculated: That Hyde would become the 20th manager in franchise history. A veteran instructor with more than two decades of baseball experience, Hyde spent the past six seasons with the Cubs, where he served as Joe Maddon's bench coach in 2018. He replaces Buck Showalter, whose nine-year tenure with the O's ended in October.

Neither the length of Hyde's contract nor its financial details were immediately available.
"After conducting an intensive search, I believe that we have found the ideal leader for the next era of Orioles baseball," general manager Mike Elias said in a statement. "Brandon's deep background in player development and Major League coaching, most recently helping to shape the Cubs into World Champions, has thoroughly prepared him for this job and distinguished him throughout our interview process. I look forward to introducing him to our fans next week and to working together with him to build the next great Orioles team."

That introduction is set for Monday at 12 p.m. ET, via a press conference at Camden Yards. There, Hyde will get a chance to lay out his vision for the challenge he and Elias are now set to embark on together.
They'll do so as a rookie duo. Elias is a month into his first job atop a big league front office, while Hyde arrives in Baltimore with a lone game of big league managing experience. That came back in 2011 -- Hyde, then the bench coach for the Marlins, worked one day as acting manager between the tenures of Edwin Rodriguez and Jack McKeon.
Hyde managed five years in the Marlins system in the late 2000s, and then he spent two seasons on the Marlins' big league coaching staff before landing in Chicago in '13. There, two stints as bench coach bookended a three-year run as first-base coach, the position he held on the Cubs' '16 World Series championship team. Hyde becomes the latest Maddon disciple to land a big league managing gig after Dave Martinez was hired as the Nationals' skipper in '18. Hyde has also worked as a farm director and Minor League field coordinator.
That player-development experience likely resonated with a new front office tasked with rebuilding the Orioles from the ground up. Hyde and Elias inherit a roster coming off a Major League-worst 115 losses in 2018, and a franchise long considered behind in essential areas like analytics and international scouting. These areas will become Elias' main focus now that he's hired a manager, which he repeatedly called his "first and foremost" priority since taking the job on Nov. 16.
In the end, it took Elias a month to sift through a six-man field to tab Hyde, who interviewed for managerial openings with the Angels, Rangers and Blue Jays earlier this offseason. He beat out a trio of other bench coaches in Mike Redmond, Manny Acta and Chip Hale -- all of whom have prior managerial experience -- to claim the gig. The other candidates to interview were D-backs executive Mike Bell and Royals quality-control coach Pedro Grifol.
At 45, Hyde is the youngest O's manager since Johnny Oates, who took over in 1991 at the same age.