Even though the Orioles enter the All-Star break with their only four-game winning streak of the season, and they’re close enough to dream about a wild-card berth, there’s still discontent among their fan base.
President of baseball operations Mike Elias is the target of much of the fans’ ire. They’d like him gone, and while that could happen if the Orioles are forced to be sellers at the August 3rd deadline, it’s far from a sure thing.
It’s impossible to know the thinking of Orioles owners David Rubenstein and Mike Arougheti, though Rubenstein has issued supportive statements about Elias.
Even though the fans are down on Elias, changing the head of baseball operations is an extraordinarily complex procedure.
Firing a manager, which Elias did in May 2025, is a much easier process. Many managerial candidates are known to the public, and hiring one, as in the case of Craig Albernaz, took less than a month.
When Elias was hired in November 2018 by John and Louis Angelos, it was much more complex, and a change would be harder now.
After sustaining two seasons plus a pandemic-shortened one of lousy baseball from 2019-2021, Oriole fans hoped that they’d be rewarded with many years of entertaining ball.
They got a surprisingly good year in 2022, which included a 10-game winning streak, a 101-win year in 2023 and another playoff spot in 2024.
Despite these good years, the Orioles have yet to win a single playoff game, and that’s soured fans on Elias.
So have the substandard performances of many of the team’s young players, whom Elias drafted and nurtured.
Many are also angry that the Orioles have refused to draft pitching in the draft’s early rounds and signed veteran starters with much wear and tear for the short term. Most of those signings haven’t worked out well.
Elias has done many good things, too. He’s made some important trades, acquiring starter Kyle Bradish, reliever Yennier Cano and utility player Blaze Alexander at low cost.
He’s acquired useful players who were overlooked or underperformed elsewhere — relievers Rico Garcia, Albert Suárez, Tyler Wells and Grant Wolfram and utility player Jeremiah Jackson.
The Orioles had no real presence in Latin America, and they now have a real one with a budding star catcher in Samuel Basallo and more players on the way.
Prior to Elias, the Orioles had a miniscule analytic department. Now, they have a formidable one, although their work has been heavily criticized.
It’s this body of work that Rubenstein and Arougheti will have to assess, and much more.
The Orioles’ record of 39-44 has made them a fringe contender in a weak American League, and if they somehow manage to qualify for the postseason, will that be enough to satisfy the restive fans?
In Elias’ last meeting with the press on June 27th, he said:
“First of all, and I emphasize ‘first of all,’ we want to make the playoffs. That’s the gateway to winning championships. Winning a division title is great, but right now, we’re not even in the wild card, so I think step one is to get ourselves into the wild-card position.
“And I think if we get into the playoffs and have a good playoff run, we’ll feel very good about this season. You can’t specify exactly what you’re going to do in the playoffs. It’s very hard to do that. But this is a team, if we get in, it means we had a strong second half and I think, if we can be relatively healthy going in, it’s going to be a pretty strong team in the playoffs with the players we have.”
In Elias’ nearly eight years as head of Orioles’ baseball operations, he’s replaced nearly everyone he inherited from his predecessor, Dan Duquette. and grown the department tremendously.
Anyone who replaced him would have a formidable job to install people they feel comfortable with and who understand their aims. Elias has enormous power in the organization, and finding a replacement who’s respected and could move quickly would be very hard.
The fan base wouldn’t stand for another lengthy rebuild so soon after the last one, and I’m not sure the owners have the patience, especially Rubenstein, who’ll turn 77 on August 11th.
Replacing Elias sounds like a much easier process to the fans than it is, and it’s complicated further by the impending labor talks.
If there’s a lockout, and most involved think there will be, that would begin in early December, leaving a new head of baseball operations perhaps a month to make changes to the roster.
Trades and signings are prohibited during a lockout, and if it was like the one in 2022, there would be only a few days after it ended to assemble a team before a truncated spring training begins.
That’s not an appealing scenario for a new head of baseball operations to work. Not only would a new general manager have to expedite roster moves but have an arranged marriage with Albernaz.
Decisions on Elias’ future are probably a long way away. There’s still much baseball to be played, an August 3rd trade deadline and a possible playoff push.
Despite the fans’ cries for Elias’ removal, the guess here is that he’ll remain, and the talk about his future punted until 2027 or beyond.
Notes: High-A Frederick outfielder Vance Honeycutt is on the 7-day injured list with a strained left oblique muscle. … Minor league right-hander Zach Fruit had a right shoulder arthroscopic debridement procedure with Dr. Keith Meister in Arlington, Texas. The Orioles say it was successful.
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