The rise and stagnation of Mike Elias’ Orioles

Almost exactly a year ago, as Mike Elias sat in the visiting dugout of American Family Field in Milwaukee, he marveled at the rapidly changing fortunes of his ballclub. In June 2024, the Orioles president of baseball operations said at the time, Baltimore was “on top of the sport in almost every facet.”

It was unusual, Elias said, for the downturn to come on so suddenly, so severely.

A year on, as the anniversary of manager Brandon Hyde’s firing approaches this weekend, the Orioles still find themselves in an adverse position. They licked their wounds over the course of the winter, made a splash by signing first baseman Pete Alonso, but under first-year manager Craig Albernaz, change for the better hasn’t come all at once.

To borrow one of Albernaz’s favorite phrases, development is messy. It shouldn’t be a surprise, perhaps, that Baltimore is still finding its way, considering the staff turnover. Maybe, as Elias bullishly said this week, Baltimore’s “best baseball is ahead of us.”

“They didn’t push chips in with a team that could win.”

A National League scout on the Orioles

But zooming out, when analyzing Elias’ eighth season at the helm, it’s worth scrutinizing the rise and stagnation of the Orioles. From 100-loss seasons blossomed a top-ranked farm system. A top-ranked farm system gave way to a 101-win 2023 season.

Since June 2024, however, the Orioles have declined. They are 137-157 since June 21, 2024. From the top of the baseball world to a middle-of-the-road club, the Orioles are at a critical juncture. Patience around Baltimore is wearing thin as the team struggles in some of the same frustrating ways it has for months.

Among the questions facing this team, currently four games below .500, is whether the 2026 season is in danger of a spiral, just as 2024 and 2025 spun into ignominy.

“We’re continuing to believe in this team and push this team to succeed further in this season,” Elias said this week. He said the farm system remains one that can be used, in trades or through promotions, “to facilitate what we need at the major league level and keep the team in contention in a really tough division.”

“I think, overall, there’s a lot of positive stuff going on, but we don’t like where we’re currently at,” Elias continued, “and it’s a spot that feels bad coming off where we were in the first half of 2024, and it’s been a puzzle.”

The Banner spoke with Elias and multiple sources around the baseball industry — scouts, agents and an opposing executive — to develop an idea of how the budding superpower descended into middling play.

To many on the outside, Baltimore is at risk of becoming a cautionary tale: an example of how quickly a window of World Series contention can close.

“They didn’t push chips in with a team that could win,” one National League scout said on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. The time for serious investment in the rotation and impactful veteran bats (similar to Alonso and Taylor Ward this year), the scout said, was in 2024 and 2025.

In the internal calculus of the Orioles’ front office, there is belief that this group of players is positioned to turn the season around. It remains early, and the tepid starts for many American League teams leave a path for Baltimore to make the postseason. And, if it gets there, anything can happen.

In a statement, Orioles control owner David Rubenstein said as much.

“I have great confidence in Mike Elias’s leadership and strategy,” Rubenstein said. “We have many remaining games on the schedule and I believe the team will continue to improve and will benefit from players returning from injury. We will continue to make investments on and off the field to support the short- and long-term success of our organization.”

A spokesperson for Michael Arougheti, a prominent figure of the ownership group who sources said plays a large role in baseball decisions, did not reply to an interview request.

To understand how the Orioles got here, it’s worth going back to 2022, when the rebuild gave way to a team with promise. Once top-ranked prospect Adley Rutschman debuted in May, there was a swell of support from the city and energy within the clubhouse. Baltimore finished above .500 for the first time under Elias.

But at the trade deadline, as the Orioles flirted with playoff contention, Elias decided to sell. He traded away closer Jorge López and first baseman Trey Mancini. Although they were prudent moves in a long-term sense, some players in the clubhouse at that time quietly expressed regret to reporters that the front office didn’t gamble on a magical 2022 run, although they said the right things publicly.

From Rutschman’s debut to Aug. 2, the day of the 2022 deadline, the Orioles were 37-27. They were two games above .500 overall on Aug. 2 and were only 1.5 games back of the final wild-card spot.

Elias flew to Arlington, Texas, after the trade deadline to address the team. He met individually with several players, including Cedric Mullins. At the time, Hyde said it wasn’t “damage control” that brought Elias there. Instead, “I think it was just communicating with them on where we are as an organization and how excited he was about how well they’re playing.”

To the media covering the team in Texas, Elias said the trades of Mancini and López didn’t diminish the hopes of 2022. Rather, they reinforced a competitive window in the near future and beyond.

“We’re going to continue with the plan of building for this bright, long future in the American League East,” Elias said. “I think we’re right there.”

And then Elias said the line that still echoes in the minds of fans.

“I think it’s liftoff from here for this team,” Elias said.

In a sense, Elias was right. The young core grew into major contributors, and the club won its first American League East title since 2014. It was evidence to support Elias’ vision, even though Baltimore failed to win a playoff game that year and its sunburst of success faded into the winter. This, it seemed, was a group with staying power.

This is easier in hindsight. But sources within the industry — a scout, an analyst and two agents — point to three trade deadlines as pivotal, and costly, moments in Orioles history. To a lesser extent, some wonder if the Orioles should have bought — or at least stood pat — in 2022.

More view the 2023 offseason additions and trade deadline as half-measures. Baltimore didn’t sign a top-of-the-rotation arm. Instead, Elias turned to right-hander Kyle Gibson, who, to his credit, started 33 games and logged 192 innings.

Looking for rotation help at the deadline, the Orioles acquired right-hander Jack Flaherty. The prospects sent to the St. Louis Cardinals have not been difference makers there, but Flaherty also flopped. He posted a 6.75 ERA in nine appearances.

The offseason trade for right-hander Corbin Burnes was a major step that indicated Baltimore’s willingness to take a risk. But, later in the year, acquisitions didn’t work out as well.

The biggest miss, those around the industry said, was the 2024 trade deadline, which saw massive roster turnover for a team that had begun to falter. The Orioles finished 12-13 in July, and their American League East lead dwindled to half a game. Reinforcements were necessary, especially with season-ending injuries to Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells and John Means. More injuries soon followed.

But the vast overhaul — and the lack of impact from those players — may have brought more discord than harmony.

“The 2024 deadline will haunt them,” an analyst for a National League team said.

“The 2024 trade deadline still looms as a dark period that the team has not overcome,” one agent said..

“I think it hurt the culture,” a second agent said.

The Orioles acquired seven major league players ahead of the trade deadline: outfielders Austin Slater, Cristian Pache and Eloy Jiménez, left-handers Trevor Rogers and Gregory Soto, and right-handers Zach Eflin and Seranthony Domínguez. Among those departing was longtime outfielder Austin Hays.

The injuries meant the Orioles required additions. But some wonder if the number of new faces led to another adjustment period as players and coaches acclimated. From August onward, the Orioles were one game below .500. They made the wild card and didn’t win a game for the second straight October.

“Clubhouse cohesion is one aspect of winning that some execs do not appreciate,” one of the agents said, speaking generally rather than specifically about Elias. Regarding the 2024 Orioles, however, the agent thought the clubhouse character changed for the worse after the trade deadline.

Beyond the culture, those additions didn’t impact the team. Eflin was the outlier. He produced a 2.60 ERA in nine starts and generated 1.9 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference. But, of the other six major league players acquired, none generated more than Slater’s 0.4 WAR (which he built despite a .675 OPS).

As well as Rogers pitched in 2025, he made only four appearances in 2024 and held a 7.11 ERA. One scout said it was optimistic at best for the Orioles to believe they could improve Rogers’ performances quickly enough for him to be a factor in a pennant race, let alone October.

With a meager end to 2024, the slow start to 2025 led to Hyde’s ouster.

During that decline, several key players regressed, Rutschman among them (although, now healthy, he seems to be back to his best). Baltimore lost Burnes in free agency and didn’t replace him at the head of the rotation.

And, by the morning of May 17, with a 15-28 record, Hyde was fired.

“June 2024, you’re looking at every category, and everything seems excellent,” Elias said this week. “And then for it that fast to get into a situation where we had dropped out of playoff contention almost in early May, that came on us really quickly. We had to do a lot of self-assessment and make a lot of changes really quickly as a result of that, which is really unusual.”

At the end-of-season news conference, Elias said it was imperative for him and the front office to evolve and adapt. When asked how the Orioles have done that, he pointed to a change in player acquisition strategy — namely the signing of Alonso and a trade and contract extension for right-hander Shane Baz.

When asked about changes to the projection models Baltimore’s front office employs, Elias said, “that is something we have to continually scrutinize, and we do.”

“And when you’re not getting results you expect, I think that that should intensify, and it has,” Elias said. “Our competition in that regard is really stiff these days and the margins are really small, so it’s become an increasing focus of ours, and we’re not happy with our results thus far this season. So we’re looking at that stuff.”

When asked for a specific example of how those processes have changed, Elias noted it was not prudent to share trade secrets of scouting, player development and analytics. One change that’s obvious, he said, comes with the manager and coaching staff.

“One of our assessments was that aspects of the major league environment were something that we wanted to make changes to, and we brought in a highly sought-after manager from an organization that we admire, and we’re allowing him to make his imprint in that area,” Elias said.

For instance, Albernaz led the efforts to fill coaching staff roles. Earlier this season, Albernaz said defense “hasn’t really been in the forefront here for a long time, and that’s something we’re instilling.” When asked about that, Elias said defense has always been important but Albernaz is bringing best practices from his time with Tampa Bay and Cleveland.

Hiring Mike Shildt as a player development coach in the minors may be part of Baltimore’s increased focus on drilling fundamentals into young players.

Still, the defense has been “lackluster,” a front office executive for an American League club said, and injuries certainly play a part. Losing Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday from the infield mix at the beginning of spring training must have been “brutal” to Baltimore’s plans, the executive said.

“That has a ripple effect, and guys are now put in a position where they have to perform at a high level,” the executive said. At the same time, “shit happens,” the executive said, and more teams than just the Orioles are dealing with injuries.

There are, however, many injuries at play. When outfielder Dylan Beavers landed on the injured list this week with a low-grade oblique strain, he became the 19th Oriole to spend time on the shelf in 2026.

Albernaz said the high number of injuries may require internal changes.

“We’ve got to look at things differently, do things differently,” Albernaz said. “Whatever’s been done, we’ve got to try to do whatever and evaluate every aspect to make sure that we’re taking care of our guys and we’re doing the right thing around here. And that’s something I’m challenging the whole staff on.”

As ever, the explanation for the Orioles’ decline is more complicated than one reason or another. They blend together and likely exacerbate each other as issues compound. Injuries lead to larger roles for other players, and sometimes those other players haven’t taken the next step in their development.

Gunnar Henderson, winner of the American League Rookie of the Year in 2023, is hitting .197 with a .646 OPS. Colton Cowser, a finalist for the same award in 2024, has lost his everyday role of late and holds a .462 OPS. Tyler O’Neill, signed to bash left-handers, has a .233 OPS against them this season (and a .562 OPS overall). Coby Mayo struggles at times on defense and is searching for offensive consistency.

In some cases, it’s a matter of time. “It’s also a matter of work,” Elias said.

To one of the agents and to an analyst for a National League club, there is a sense that the Orioles’ player acquisition strategy and modeling leave something to be desired. It appears, the agent and analyst said, that the front office occasionally struggles to evaluate its own players and has created an unbalanced roster due to reluctance to make moves earlier in players’ development timelines.

From the outside, some sources wonder why players who appear poised for long-term success haven’t improved substantially.

“I think they’re fantastic at identifying things in the draft on the hitting side to get elite talent,” one agent said. “Now they struggle to turn that talent into stars at the big league level.”

The transition is different for every player, of course. And slow starts don’t mean they won’t become stars, just as a slump from Henderson doesn’t mean he won’t return to All-Star form.

“Some guys come in like gangbusters and taper off. Others have a slower transition. Others never figure it out,” Elias said. “I think this group in particular, very highly rated, not just by us but outside ratings agencies and scouts. Their minor league statistics were phenomenal. To see some of them come up and have slower starts at the major league level has caused a lot of introspection in our organization, because it’s unusual, but I don’t think it’s the end of the road for a lot of these guys, and health has just been such a huge factor for so many of them, too.”

The silver lining for the Orioles is that other American League teams are experiencing slow starts, too. Entering Thursday, only four American League teams were above .500: the Yankees, Rays, Guardians and Athletics.

“That puts us in a better spot than if that wasn’t already the case,” Elias said.

Despite everything, the Orioles entered the day only 1.5 games back of the wild card. From the standpoint of the stated preseason goal of competing for another AL East title, Elias said nothing has changed. For all the introspection that has led to what he describes as change within the organization, Baltimore isn’t out of it. Not like last year at this time.

“We want to get into the playoffs. We want to advance in the playoffs. We want to win a championship,” Elias said.

His tenure may well hinge on how the rest of this season goes.