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A day after the Orioles season ended with a rainout, not a game, president of baseball operations Mike Elias said he and the rest of the organization are “tired” of losing baseball. Elias thanked the fans for “hanging in there with us” and said Baltimore will undergo a full organizational review to improve the team’s fortunes.
These are five takeaways from Baltimore’s end-of-season press conference with Elias and manager Craig Albernaz.
Execution is the buzzword
The reasons the Orioles finished 79-82 in this 161-game season are multifold, but the conversations Albernaz had with players in one-on-one meetings all included the same word.
“Execution,” Albernaz said.
The Orioles didn’t execute well enough all year. Baltimore led the majors with 88 unearned runs, and the club lost far too many winnable games due to mistakes. Albernaz often preached needing to do the “little things” correctly, and as he enters his second year, there will be renewed focus on that front.
Of course, Albernaz made that a point of emphasis in his first spring training, as well. He told the group then that “they’re talented,” but “everyone is talented in this game.”
“At the end of the day, we have to make sure that we do the little things right and the fundamentals right, and it really is more of a mental piece than actually physical,” Albernaz said. “Everyone is physically capable of doing it. It’s just the consistency of mentally locking in on every single pitch, knowing what you’re supposed to do with the ball, or et cetera. So, for us, it’s really drilling down on that mental capacity of each guy, and for us as a coaching staff, if there’s any shortcomings or anything that’s lost in translation, we have to be there to support the players.”
In conversations with multiple players over the last few days of the season, this was an oft-repeated phrase from them, too. Infielder Jackson Holliday pointed to his dropped popup against the Colorado Rockies as an example of a lack of execution, and that directly led to a loss. Shortstop Gunnar Henderson said the failure to do “little things” consistently well is what led to a losing record in one-run games this year.
“It’s executing our game plan when the hitter is in the box,” Albernaz said. “Executing our game plan when we’re on the mound. Executing on defense, baserunning. Execution is the biggest thing. And that is something that we’re going to be diving into and drilling hard this offseason and then looking forward in spring training.”
What is up with Gunnar Henderson’s wrist?
After what turned out to be the final game of the season, shortstop Gunnar Henderson admitted, with reluctance, that he dealt with a wrist injury for about half the season. He declined to share the exact details but said he will not require any surgery.
It’s a possible explanation for why Henderson’s season went as poorly — by his standards — as it did. The 25-year-old produced a career-worst .715 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, down from the heights of .893 in 2024.
“I really don’t like making excuses, because everybody’s banged up at this point in the year. But yeah, I had a little [right] wrist issue going on,” Henderson said. “But I felt like bat knob changes helped that out. So it was just minor, getting that a little bit better.”
Henderson changed his bat handle from a traditional knob to an axe handle. The results didn’t markedly improve. He produced a career-low .232 average against fastballs.
Still, Elias credited Henderson with the way he powered through and stayed on the field for 158 games.
“He did a great job navigating everything,” Elias said. “It’s part of baseball, and I think the organization and Gunnar handled that particular situation about as well as you could.”
Albernaz said there were daily check-ins with Henderson to assess his availability, but he admitted that “sometimes you just have to just let him be, because he’s intense and he’s as competitive as anyone I’ve been around.”
The balance, of course, is whether playing with a nagging injury is a case of diminishing returns.
“I know it wasn’t the results that he wanted, but you look up and he had an over .700 OPS and 24 homers,” Albernaz said. “It’s still productive for a shortstop at this level. So, I’m proud of Gunnar and the way he went about his business this year.”
An expanding front office
The Orioles’ front office has already undergone some changes. Sig Mejdal is no longer overseeing the analytics department. Matt Blood, the vice president of player and staff development, departed the organization.
Elias is hoping to build out the front office with outside voices, especially given that he estimated that Baltimore’s front office size is 29th out of 30 in Major League Baseball. The Orioles are restarting a search for a general manager under Elias, and a source with direct knowledge of the search said Baltimore would like to find someone with a player development background to complement Elias’ scouting history.
“With our ownership group now, we have a good opportunity to sort of participate in that growth a little bit more than we’ve been doing,” he said. “And there’s parts of our baseball operation that I think I could use some different voices and ideas in more than others. I don’t know that I want to get into it here on the stage, but you’ll probably be able to see as these hires come in where we’re looking for some impact.”
Analytics are part and parcel to modern baseball
The discourse surrounding the modern approach of analytics can revolve around how the Orioles rely on it too much. It’s an idea mentioned by former Orioles shortstop Mike Bordick on 105.7 The Fan last week.
In reality, analytics are a part of baseball’s present and future, and that isn’t going to change.
“It’s clearly an enormous part of success in this sport nowadays,” Elias said. “It can, I think, get unfairly attacked when a team is not being successful because it, by nature, presents counterintuitive information. That’s the whole point of it, and I totally understand and appreciate all that. And my roots as a person in baseball, over 20 years in Major League Baseball, is as being a subjective evaluator that does not provide analytical information but marries it with stuff that’s more traditional and more intuitive.”
Pete Alonso was a smashing success, but the Orioles will pick their spots in free agency
Pete Alonso, fresh off his five-year, $155 million contract, was a huge success in his first year for the Orioles. He became the first player in MLB history to lead the National League and American League in RBIs in separate seasons after he posted 113, along with a league-leading 43 homers.
But Elias didn’t commit to pursuing that level of free agent each offseason.
“We have owners now that really have the ability to do that, and they’ve already flexed that,” Elias said. “We were in a position this offseason to pursue a player like Pete, and we did it pretty aggressively, and so far, really happy with that. … I’m glad that the experience we’re having with Pete has been so rewarding so far because it is important to be able to pursue and attract big free agents when it makes sense.”
Elias said the scouting department will determine when the Orioles have the “confidence” in a large free agent, “that’s how we’ll pursue it.”
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