With today marking exactly one year since the Orioles tabbed Mike Elias to succeed Dan Duquette as the franchise’s general manager, now seems like a natural time to check in on Elias’s tenure and evaluate the changes he has implemented thus far. Preaching a transformation of Baltimore’s scouting, player development, and analytics departments, it hasn’t taken long for Elias to get his fingerprints all over the internal structure of the Orioles. While the on-field product didn’t show much improvement from 2018 to 2019, sweeping changes have been made to the organization’s infrastructure in Elias’s first year running the show, which has by and large been spent “getting up to speed on all of the basics.” Joe Trezza of MLB.com has a comprehensive roundup of all the turnover, with analytics and international scouting representing two of the organization’s fastest-growing departments. This implementation of Elias’s philosophy marks a foundational step in the Orioles’ complete rebuild, which remains in its early stages. Ultimately, though, Elias’s success will be judged according to success on the diamond, meaning that he and his staff will need to demonstrate that they can acquire and develop the requisite talent to climb baseball’s ranks—no small task after consecutive 100-loss seasons.
- With last week’s GM meetings coming to a close, Elias spoke to MASN’s Roch Kubatko about just what happened during his stay in Arizona, as well as how he and his staff will navigate the offseason on the heels of a 54-108 season. Elias names middle infield, pitching, as well as depth at catcher and in the outfield as particular areas of focus in free agency and trades. Of course, one look at the O’s win-loss record suggests that those aren’t the only needs, and Elias’s Orioles are poised to take an active role in trade discussions as the team looks to bring aboard young talent all over the diamond. As Elias says, his team boasts a host of players that has steadily attracted interest since his arrival, though the team will be diligent in choosing when to move those players, if at all.
- In another change ahead of the 2020 season, the Orioles are opting for earlier start times to weekday night games before Memorial Day and after Labor Day, writes The Athletic’s Dan Connolly, moving first pitch up a half-hour earlier than past seasons. The scheduling alteration is motivated by the team’s desire to attract families and kids to games during the school year. As one can imagine, attendance has suffered as a result of the Orioles’ on-field struggles over the last two seasons, and the organization is looking for ways to remedy that. Connolly notes that the crosstown Nationals made a similar change in advance of the 2019 season.
If they win 60 games that will be a small miracle, there fans deserve better.
Even 6:30 games that time of year is to late. I live by Camden Yards and I don’t want to sit outside on 39 degree nights with the April winds.
It’s an old line now, but cue Stringer Bell’s line from the Wire about a 40 degree day in Baltimore.
I’m not afraid of being cold, I am afraid of being mugged. But the mayor has a new crime fighting strategy; pray for cold weather to keep the gang bangers in doors. True story.
“Middle infield, pitching, catching, and outfield”
Wouldn’t it be easier to just say everywhere?
Well, they don’t really need any outfield prospects or corner infield prospects as much. Their prospects there are relatively strong.
They tried to compete for too long. Should’ve already been rebuilt.
“the crosstown Nationals”
What is this town in which Washington, DC is across from Baltimore?
The Orioles are to the Redskins what the Ravens are to the Nationals. I think that’s an answer to an SAT question.
Btw if you’re not from the area DC is only 50 miles from Baltimore. The Redskins play in Maryland, not DC. The Capitals and Wizards used to play in Maryland until they moved back into DC proper. I grew up and went to college between both cities, which was pretty cool.
It’s easy to get giddy over Elias (they were such a mess when he got there), but I’m less than sure. We don’t know if the beating the Astros are going to take for “l’affair du sign stealing” will involve Elias. It wouldn’t surprise me for them to point the finger at him (“That’s why we didn’t mind when he left”).
As for “re-working the organization”, well, EVERY new Baseball Ops guy does that. Especially in a situation that the O’s were in, it’s pretty easy for the new broom to sweep clean. TBD at this point is whether the broom was pointed in the right direction.
Farm system better? Mostly due to (a) Duquette’s 2018 mid-season trades and (b) the favorable draft slot; it’s not like just about everybody wouldn’t have taken the kid catcher. And just throwing money at the international market is a nothing-burger; LOTS of teams spend heavily there, most with very “meh” results.
Brandon Hyde? Dunno about that one; even the young players seemed disinterested. If it wasn’t for Villar’s and Boom Boom’s quest for the big arbitration dollars, the play on the field was decidedly dull. Mistake after mistake that Hyde just seem to shrug about.
I see more positive direction in KC and Detroit at this point.
Detroit won 47 games and has a god awful collection of positional players. With an embarrassingly thin amount of real positional player prospects in the minor leagues.
I’m not really sure where you’d see the potential moving on that team. The same front office that sank their battleship is still in charge.
I don’t see how any critique of Elias is in fair at this point. You’re telling me all he found was a catcher but what the hell did he have to work with? He’s had one draft. He found semi-useful guys on the waiver wire.
Avilla in Detroit had his successes in Miami and Detroit holding DD’s coat; Dayton Moore’s success speaks for itself.
I completely agree it’s too early, but if you’re going to salute his waiver wire pick ups, you have to also look at Yaz. And I’m sorry, he gets no credit for Rautchman; nor do the Rays for taking Price, or the Nats for taking Bryce and Stras. Complete no brainers, all of them.
Is Elias the new Rick Hahn or AJ Preller, the constantly rebuilding guys? We don’t know, and I’ll grant his task is the bigger one, given the division. But we really don’t know if the changes were good ones or not. And if Hayes/Santander/Means all work out, that’s on Duquette, not Elias.
I don’t really think Duquette deserves an ounce of credit for John Means. He didn’t even throw a change up while he was in the organization. John means deserves the credit for John Means’ performance. The Yaz thing is irrelevant. Duquette didn’t protect that guy for 3 years for the rule 5 draft. If anyone should get blamed for the miss I’d argue it was him. Who really never gave the guy a chance…. But I’d really just chalk that one up to being a part of the luck in baseball.
As for the Detroit Tigers; Avila’s been the GM since 2015. The teams has at least been in a rebuild for 3 seasons now. The team has very little when it comes in the way of positional player prospects and a dinosaur in the dugout. I don’t see how anyone could argue that they made any on field improvement last year. The semi-interesting young guys they had (Stewart, Candelario) regressed and he’s yet to sell a single asset he’s had at peak value. I’d have more faith in an assistant GM From Houston than I would in that guy.
But sure, obviously rebuilding in the AL central is much easier than the East.
But I’ll take the guy who was In the FO who remade Verlander into a stud. Over the guy who traded Verlander for what looks to be not a whole lot. And you know couldn’t get the best out of him either.
@jbiz12
Oh no! Bad news! Fan Graphs shows Means threw change ups during his short time with the Orioles in 2018! While DD was still the Orioles GM!. fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=16269&posi….
You and bobtillman win the blow hard/inaccurate comment award for this MLBTR post, congrats…
google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/sports/oriol…
Means was a “fastball-slider” pitcher. He developed the change up this offseason. Whatever pitch fangraphs was picking up was not the change up he throws now. But that’s the problem when you use a fangraphs page. And try to come in like a grade A sock sucker when you don’t know what you’re talking about. FG is a great resource but you clearly don’t know the story here.
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But I’ll give you some knowledge. Means developed that pitch at P3 performance center this offseason. Spending his own money to train there. He received no direction from the organization to develop that pitch or anything. So yeah like I said John means and the guys at P3 sports deserve all the credit for his change up. Not Elias and certainly not Duquette.
Which really doesn’t matter because that wasn’t anywhere near the point of my argument. The issue was saying anything bad about Elias right now. The guy inherited a roster that was stripped down to the studs. He was given Mancini and Givens as his two most marketable assets. That’s it. If you start arguing “oh Santander, Hays, Means was a duke guy” as a reason to knock Elias you just simply want to knock Elias.
He didnt have a Manny Machado, Kevin Gausman, and Jonathan Schoop to trade. He inherited a team that was stripped to the studs and his responsibility is to get the team into the 21st century organizationally first. All he can do now is stockpile assets. But again how can you grade him after one year when he has almost nothing to extract value from on the ML roster?
He did about as well as could be expected year one. Givens had an awfully bad down year and wasn’t going to be dealt. He has to make a choice on Mancini; but unfortunately bat first players with no real defensive position don’t fetch much in return. I don’t really see anyway to critique Elias’ work until some point in 2021. That’s when you’ll know if we’re making significant strides.
U made sense until u said young players were disinterested which isn’t close to accurate and then u got really way off in seeing better positive direction then Detroit. Detroit is like two years behind Orioles right now
Perfect change of scenery swap in Miggy for Davis.
Pass. Miguel Cabrera is owed significantly more money. If they even up contracts, sure I’d do it.
Love what Elias is doing. From our presence in South America to the overall direction of the club. I’m beyond excited we are finally doing a full rebuild. Should of happened in 98. ALSO Brandon Hyde was tremendous last year. Team played with fire all year. Hard to do when your losing the majority of your games.