Obando

My list of priorities for DR (in no particular order): 1. Lock up Elias, Sig & Eve and all key front office members to long term extensions 2. Lock up our young stars like Adley, Gunnar, & Holliday to long term deals (I would include Santander as a core member of the lineup) 3. Sign Kevin Brown to a long term broadcasting extension 4. Resolve the MASN situation (ideally resulting in multiple streaming options) 5. Upgrade the stadium using the $600M public funds approved by the General Assembly 6. Develop the land around the stadium

I seriously doubt it. I’m guessing Rubenstein offered to let JA stay on as an ownership consultant for this season as an olive branch for selling the team to him, and until the full 70% stake is acquired, but I doubt JA wants to stick around without having control of the franchise anymore.

My understanding from someone in the know is that the owners’ vote to approve the sale will take place on or before Wednesday, but that it will be made official on Wednesday, just in time for Opening Day. Don’t kill the messenger if it doesn’t happen, but that is what I was told.

Interesting. I figured that Elias & Rubenstein have probably spoken by this point, since it’s now public knowledge that the team is being sold to DR. I would think that Mike Elias probably impresses most people he speaks with, as he’s incredibly smart, articulate and personable, and being a Yale grad is probably a big selling point for DR right off the bat, in addition to the fact that Elias is from the DMV region, just as DR is.

He seems to have an inside source from all indications.

Nestor is such a D-bag! He has found a way to get himself alienated by the Orioles and Ravens when that’s who he basically owes his career to. He has no one else to blame but himself for killing his own career. He’s basically an afterthought in Baltimore sports media now that is trying to stay relevant and failing miserably.

This is great to hear! I was concerned this process might drag on for a while. Would be great to celebrate the new ownership on Opening Day and maybe gave Rubenstein throw out the first pitch with a grand introduction to the fans.

It’s possible that Holt no longer wanted to juggle being the Director of Pitching and also the major league pitching coach, which is a lot to be responsible for. I can’t imagine Elias/Hyde would just make this change without having Holt be on board with it, especially after the pitching staff as a whole made so much progress over the last 2 years. I’m guessing Holt preferred to have some flexibility and wanted to be able to focus more on the development of minor league pitchers, which he couldn’t do as ML pitching coach, and Elias/Hyde were on board with it. If I recall correctly, Holt had to take a leave with the team for a period of time last year, so he could have some personal things going on off the field that have made it harder for him to focus on both jobs, and he decided it would be best to focus more on minor league development. He and Drew French have a relationship going back to Houston, so I would assume he played a big role in picking him as his replacement, since they probably have the same pitching philosophy and speak the same language, so to speak, which should make the transition more seamless.

I know Holt is still with the organization as Director of Pitching, and I’m probably reading too much into this, but I think it’s strange that Holt isn’t listed on the Orioles organizational directory as being in the front office or coaching staff. It could just be that the directory hasn’t been updated yet to reflect this, but all the other Director positions are acknowledged, and even Justin Ramsey is listed as Upper Level Pitching Coordinator and Triple-A pitching coach. As the Director of Pitching, Holt oversees pitching instruction & strategy for both the major & minor leagues, so to me, that would put him under the general Player Development category, and I just don’t see him listed anywhere. Like I said, I have no concern about this, but I just think it’s a bit strange.

It’s very possible that Elias already has POBO power & pay without the POBO title, and he may be fine with that. Regardless, he is the clear leader of the O’s Baseball Operations department, so unless another team comes calling and offering him a POBO title and much better salary than he’s making now, I don’t see John Angelos letting him go without doing everything necessary to match whatever is on the table from another team. JA might be viewed as cheap, but that seems to be more associated with spending on top free agents, not with front office personnel, scouting, player development, analytics, etc. Mike Elias knows what he’s building in Baltimore, and I think he wants to see it through, plus he grew up in the region, so this is probably a dream job for him.

I’m already paying for Express VPN but I might need to try NordVPN as well and see if that works any better. I don’t want to have to pay for a 2nd VPN, but if that’s the only shot I have to be able to watch the games, I’d be willing to bite the bullet.

I’m sorry to hear you are having this issue as well. If only MASN would allow for paid streaming without needing a cable subscription, that would solve this problem, but unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be in the cards anytime soon. Regardless, we as fans shouldn’t have to go to these great lengths to watch our teams play, and especially not when we’re paying good money for it and still have roadblocks preventing us from doing it. It’s a total money grab and should be outlawed.

I am a YouTube TV subscriber as well with no MASN access. Do you live in Baltimore like I do? If so, how are you able to get the games on MLB.TV with the blackout restrictions? Do you have a VPN?

Yes, I have tried changing the source country for the VPN and it hasn’t made a difference. It’s just strange that it was working fine up until about 2 weeks ago, and ever since then I just can’t get it to work. I have even tried deleting the MLB app and then reinstalling, and it hasn’t changed anything. How do I clear the cache & cookies for MLB.TV? I use the MLB app on my iPhone & iPad to watch the games, so how do I use a separate browser and configure it to clear all data on shut down? Would it make a difference if I tried watching on a Mac or PC?

I cut the cord last year and have been watching O’s games via my MLB.TV subscription with a VPN (I have Express VPN) as needed since then. I haven’t had any issues watching games up until the first game of the Astros series a couple weeks ago, and ever since then, I have been unable to get the games, regardless of home/away or with the VPN turned on or off. I have tried troubleshooting with Express VPN and everything is working fine, so I reached out to MLB.TV customer service and they said that the O’s games are blacked out in my zip code (I live in Baltimore County) and even a VPN would not solve the problem. I’m curious if any of you have been having the same issue that I have, should you be using the same MLB.TV/VPN system? I’m really pissed because not only am I no longer able to watch the games (of course it had to happen in an amazing season like this), but I’m wasting money on the MLB.TV subscription and the VPN, which is the sole reason why I purchased both in the first place after deciding to cut the cord. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to combat this issue?

Baumeister’s agent is probably telling the Orioles that he thinks his client can improve his stock and get late 1st-early 2nd round money if he goes back to school, and holding out for that kind of money now in order to eschew the chance to prove it. But when push comes to shove, I can’t see them walking away from any offer of at least $1.4-1.5M, since all it takes is an injury or poor performance to kill his value if he goes back to school (plus he’ll be 22 years old with less leverage next year). I think his agent just wants to make the O’s sweat a little bit to get the most money they can before he agrees to terms. Deadlines usually get deals done, so I think it happens unless he failed a physical, in which case we likely will find out about it eventually if he doesn’t sign (similar to what happened with Nolan McLean last year).

I think it’s probably a matter of Baumeister knows he has the leverage to go back to school if he wants, so his agent is probably going to drag this out until the last day to see if the O’s are willing to give him his number, but ultimately, I can’t see him not signing unless something came up on the physical like it did with McLean last year. There’s no doubt that Baumeister is going to need an overslot deal to sign, it’s just a matter of how much overslot it’s going to take while also giving the O’s a chance to sign either Forret or Ritchie (or both). I’m sure the O’s are trying to manage the bonus enough to get all 3 of them signed, but when push comes to shove, it’s most important to get Baumeister signed and then hope you have enough to sign at least 1 of the other 2. I would hope that all 3 of them have taken physicals already, so that if/when an agreement is reached with Baumeister, they can quickly get deals finalized with at least one of the other 2 by the signing deadline and not have to worry about them having them take physicals before it can become official.

No, John is the Chairman & CEO, but Elias has the top position in baseball operations, with a title of Executive VP/GM. That’s why I think it would be easy to bump him to President of Baseball Ops (it would likely come with a pay bump too) so that you can elevate Sig to EVP/GM (also with a pay raise) and make it harder for another team to hire him unless they name him President of Baseball Ops. I think Crane is probably the only owner that would do that, though, since he has a history with Sig.

I was reading some scuttlebutt in Bob Nightengale’s recent column that the Astros owner, Jim Crane, isn’t fully on board with James Click as his GM and may look to replace him at season’s end, even if the Astros win the WS. Click’s contract is up after this season, so that would allow Crane to make a move without having to fire Click. Even though this sounds hard to believe, considering Click has had nothing but success since taking over for Luhnow in 2020, it got me thinking that Crane could attempt to lure either Elias or Mejdal to Houston as either GM or President of Baseball Ops. Obviously, the O’s would have to grant permission for either of them to be interviewed, and it’s much more likely that it would be Sig to leave for a GM job than Elias, considering Elias has the top baseball ops position in the organization, but I was thinking that the easiest way for John Angelos to prevent this from happening would be to promote Elias to President of Baseball Operations and Sig to GM. That would still leave Elias as the chief baseball officer in Baltimore, so Sig might still be inclined to leave for a top job, and in an organization/with an owner he knows very well, but I think it would at least lessen the chances of that happening. I wouldn’t fault Sig if he decided to leave for a GM/POBO job, but I would hate to see it happen, as I think the combo of Elias & Mejdal running the Orioles is special and will be very successful in the long term. Also, I think Sig is happy here and probably thinks of his job as a partnership with Elias, as opposed to answering to him. So for that reason, he may not even want to leave, even if offered the GM job in Houston. But I think John Angelos & Mike Elias need to be prepared in case this scenario were to play out. That’s why if I’m John Angelos, I promote Elias to POBO and Mejdal to EVP/GM and make it harder for Sig to want to leave. That’s not to say titles are everything, because I’m sure Sig feels very valued under his current Assistant GM title. But at the very least, it somewhat lessens the chances of losing Sig, which would be very disappointing now that this team looks to be entering a very competitive window that Sig helped to create.

Louis, is that you?? The way you stated this makes it seem like you have an axe to grind with John. I don’t care if John failed the bar exam 3 times or not. He’s clearly running the organization the right way now by letting Elias run the baseball operations as he sees fit, which is the polar opposite of how Peter ran it. The Orioles were in the prehistoric age with how things were run prior to John taking over, and he understood that the org needed to be modernized and set out to make those changes accordingly by hiring Elias from arguably the most cutting edge, innovate organization there is. Hell, John even recognized that Camden Yards could be monetized in ways other than baseball, which is why we finally had concerts taking place at the stadium starting in 2019 after years of Peter neglecting this revenue stream for no good reason. Peter had the org tie one arm behind its back for years by neglecting the international market, which John recognized was putting us at a major disadvantage and he clearly set out to change that. Same goes for analytics. The point is, John doesn’t need to have passed the bar to have the intelligence and common sense to recognize these shortcomings, and if Louis were the one named as Chairman & CEO by his mother instead of John (and this is Georgia’s decision to make as power of attorney/trustee), I have no doubt that he would have continued running things the same way as Peter based on all the info that has now been made public by the lawsuits. When a mother decides to take one child’s side over another, that’s a pretty telling decision, and it’s typically because she recognizes that there’s an issue with the other child and she recognized the need for change. It’s also very telling that Elias would only take the O’s GM job under the condition that he would report to John only. He probably realized during the interview process that John was the one that understood major change was needed throughout the baseball operation, while Louis was the one that appeared to be fighting it, based on no reason other than “this is how Dad would want things to be because they’ve always been this way.” This isn’t to say that John Angelos can do no wrong, as I’m sure he has his quirks and philosophies just like anyone in a position of power. But it’s pretty clear to me that based on all the info that’s out there now, John “gets it” and Louis doesn’t, and that’s why I’m Team John (and Georgia) all the way on this matter. Passing the bar exam or not is irrelevant to me when it comes to who is the best person to be leading this organization (Peter passed the bar too and look how poorly he ran the Orioles for almost 30 years), so if that’s the argument you are trying to make to show why Lou should be running the show instead of John, I think you are very misguided.

When it comes to pitchers, and especially pitchers from the international market, it’s in many ways more beneficial to sign them when they’re a little older because you have a better idea of how their bodies will mature and skills develop, as opposed to when they’re 16. The Astros struck gold with multiple pitchers by going this route, as they signed guys like Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy, Christian Javier & Enoli Paredes as older International pitching prospects (I think all were at least 18 when signed), and all made it to the major leagues and have been significant contributors to their success over the past couple years. I’m sure Mike Elias is following the same plan here in Baltimore after seeing how relatively successful that strategy was in Houston.

Wow, I guess I spoke it into existence? I just saw Roch’s tweet about it half an hour or so after posting.

Is anyone else wondering why we haven’t signed our 14th round pick, Daniel Lloyd, yet? We have up to $319,600 to spend on him, including the $194,600 remaining of pool money on top of the $125k you can spend on each pick after the 10th round. Unless he failed his physical or his asking price changed after we picked him, I don’t understand why he hasn’t been signed yet. Hopefully it still gets done, but the fact that it hasn’t been announced yet makes me think something happened unexpectedly.

I’m guessing he probably just needs to take his physical before it becomes official. Sometimes the delays are about logistics. Clearly the deal terms were already agreed upon.