| By Kurt Dusterberg |
For 13 seasons, he climbed the professional baseball ladder, often shuttling back and forth between Class AAA—the highest level of the minor leagues—and the major leagues. As a catcher with a strong bat, he found his way onto the big league rosters of six different teams from 2011 to 2019.
Now, at age 38, he is working his way to the top again—this time as a minor league manager. Federowicz manages the Norfolk Tides, the Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. It is his third straight season as a minor league skipper, all at the Triple-A level. After 10 seasons playing at this level, he knows exactly what his players are going through—and they know their manager has done it all before.
“They’re aware of my career,” he says. “I’ve done the grind that they’re working on now. I was the big prospect coming up that had to prove himself at Triple-A to get a call-up. I was also that guy getting sent down who had to prove himself to get called back up. And then I was the old veteran guy who was the stop gap, trying to get through the rest of his career. That helps a lot. I think guys truly listen when I talk to them. I feel like I can add a lot of value to these guys’ careers.”
The road to Major League Baseball began at Apex High School. Federowicz also played basketball as a senior to stay in shape, but “I was pretty locked in to baseball once I realized I was pretty good and
I kind of had a future,” he says. “My junior and senior year of high school, I started to have a couple scouts follow me around and talk to me and my parents. I used to pitch and catch back then.”
After high school, he committed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he quickly became a fixture in the Tar Heels’ lineup.
“I don’t think I played the first two games, but I started the third game on a Sunday,” he says. “I think that’s when it really took off for me. Agents started to reach out to me. There were more and more pro scouts at my games.”
Following his junior season, Federowicz was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the seventh round of the 2008 MLB draft. He turned pro that summer and moved through the minor league ranks until he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2011, making his major league debut that season. Soon, he was learning the realities of life in professional baseball.
“I always felt like I just needed that opportunity to be the backup [in the majors],” Federowicz says.
“I had a couple years where I thought I was getting close, but I just never really stuck.”
In 2013, he made the Dodgers’ opening day roster, but Los Angeles immediately traded him for veteran catcher Ramón Hernández. “It pushed me off the roster without ever playing a game,” he says. “So I was pretty frustrated.”
As quickly as the situation soured in Los Angeles, things turned back in Federowicz’s favor. He hit a red-hot .418 at Triple-A Albuquerque, and Hernandez was released in June. Federowicz finally earned a major league backup job, but even then, there was more to prove.
“I felt like I was playing pretty well,” he says. “I hit .231 that season. I felt like, as a backup catcher, that was enough. Then I quickly realized on a team like the Dodgers, you’re expected to win. It’s hard to keep those opportunities. You’ve got to keep putting up numbers. That’s where I think it just fell apart. I just wasn’t consistent enough.”
Federowicz shuttled between the majors and minors long enough to earn additional stints with the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, and Texas Rangers. But the long stretches in Triple-A prepared him to relate to players who are experiencing the same concerns he faced just a few years ago.
“It’s managing personalities, managing frustrations,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of frustration at this level, whether a young prospect comes up and he’s struggling and doesn’t know if he’s ever going to make it—or if he even belongs. There’s something that didn’t carry them from their top-prospect status to a regular big leaguer, so we try to help them figure that out. There’s always something that’s going to help you take that step further, and we’re here to help you find it.”
It takes a special touch to manage at the top level of the minors. Wins and losses aren’t as important as making sure players are ready for a call-up. At Norfolk, it’s Federowicz’s job to make sure his players are ready to go to the majors on a moment’s notice.
“At this level, it’s hard not to be selfish about your [statistics] and protect yourself from injury,” he says. “I get it when I see guys taking it easy or not being as aggressive in certain situations. But it’s hard to flip that switch when you go up. You almost have to stay in the win-at-all-costs mentality.”
Just as his players are hoping to get the call to the major leagues, so is Federowicz. “That’s my goal. I would love to be a major league manager. I have a passion for managing, and I love the game. I feel like my career set me up for it.”
His career also helped him earn the respect of his players. He once noticed his players checking out former New York Yankees closer and two-time all-star Clay Holmes on the clubhouse TV. Federowicz told them he once launched a home run off Holmes into the second deck in Cincinnati while playing for the Reds. “I always tell the guys, ‘He’s in the books!’ They’re like, ‘No way!’”
While he pursues his second act in the game, Federowicz is in a good place. His family—wife Megan and two daughters, ages five and nine—calls Chapel Hill home. “They come up [to Norfolk] sometimes on the weekends,” he says. “We also play in Durham and Charlotte. After a Sunday day game, I can sneak home for the off day, depending on the travel the next day. When you come home, they’re excited and when you leave, they’re sad.”
Federowicz knows all about emotional ups and downs. But the ones he learned in baseball are now his teaching tools—and maybe his ticket to manage in the majors.
“I think these last three years have been very beneficial at the highest level below the big leagues. I hope it happens one day. That would be pretty cool.”
