Orioles hire Mike Elias as Executive Vice President and GM

[section18]

Is anyone else curious what player Mike will acquire first? If he brings Joe Espada here to be our manager it will be awesome. Joe has a great background and is Bi-lingual. He is Puerto Rican and speaks their language.  Martin Maldonado the Astros catcher is a free agent, 32 and also Puerto Rican.  Hopefully Mike and Joe can convince Martin to come here and be our starting catcher.

Hopefully his second move would be to trade for James Paxton left handed starter with Seattle. He would be our Ace and has 2 years left on his contract at $9 million per year.  They have been shopping him to NY and Houston so far. They are trying to lower their payroll and have mentioned Dylan Bundy as part of a deal. He currently makes $1.6 million. Mike probably knows  what the Astros have offered or what Seattle has asked for in a trade.

Mike is 36 and Sig Mejdal is 52.  They are probably full of energy and can't wait to get started with our rebuild.

[baltfan]

I am reading the Astroball book and it would be tough for me to be more excited than I am about this if it comes through as expected.  Elias and Mejdal look to be outstanding hires at or near the cutting edge.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, section18 said:

Is anyone else curious what player Mike will acquire first? If he brings Joe Espada here to be our manager it will be awesome. Joe has a great background and is Bi-lingual. He is Puerto Rican and speaks their language.  Martin Maldonaldo the Astros catcher is a free agent, 32 and also Puerto Rican.  Hopefully Mike and Joe can convince Martin to come here and be our starting catcher.

Hopefully his second move would be to trade for James Paxton left handed starter with Seattle. He would be our Ace and has 2 years left on his contract at $9 million per year.  They have been shopping him to NY and Houston so far. They are trying to lower their payroll and have mentioned Dylan Bundy as part of a deal. He currently makes $1.6 million. Mike probably knows  what the Astros have offered or what Seattle has asked for in a trade.

I don't care at all about who they acquire at the ML level.  

 

[baltfan]

More from Astroball.  Luhnow's first two hires were Elias and Mejdal.  These guys were central to the decisions that the Astros made.  Not sure what the falling out was with Mejdal, maybe Osuna, but looks like will be a real asset here.  

This board is going to be tremendously happy over the next few years.  Hopefully, it works out.  

[baltfan]

More from Astroball, Mejdal in advocating for Correa noted he was a young high schooler and would not have been evaluated necessarily the same if he were even a few months older.  Age matters.  Will be interesting given that Witt Jr. is going to be almost 19 at the time of the draft.  

[scOtt]

36 minutes ago, section18 said:

Is anyone else curious what player Mike will acquire first? If he brings Joe Espada here to be our manager it will be awesome. Joe has a great background and is Bi-lingual. He is Puerto Rican and speaks their language.  Martin Maldonado the Astros catcher is a free agent, 32 and also Puerto Rican.  Hopefully Mike and Joe can convince Martin to come here and be our starting catcher.

Hopefully his second move would be to trade for James Paxton left handed starter with Seattle. He would be our Ace and has 2 years left on his contract at $9 million per year.  They have been shopping him to NY and Houston so far. They are trying to lower their payroll and have mentioned Dylan Bundy as part of a deal. He currently makes $1.6 million. Mike probably knows  what the Astros have offered or what Seattle has asked for in a trade.

Mike is 36 and Sig Mejdal is 52.  They are probably full of energy and can't wait to get started with our rebuild.

To answer your question, our one-one draft pick!

Reading that article posted earlier about his rise in Houston I don't think he hires anyone. Question is what remaining players will he trade off. It said his TOTAL commitment was to moves that made sense in the long run. Damn the fans and the record. No playing for .500 to appease them while rebuilding. Bad record only nets more one-ones.

I see one or two more REALLY bad years for the O's. Then our newly revamped minor league system starts cranking out MLers. THEN we acquire one or two good ML FAs and win a World Series.

[Roll Tide]

This seems like a good hire and steps in the right direction. I've been saying since the summer that the Angelos sons deserve the benefit of the doubt from fans. 

They are talking about a new direction and making positive improvements. We need to see if they are prepared to let their hire run the club and only time will tell.

[Going Underground]

His main job is to keep Yankee fans out of Camden Yards, The Orioles fans will be kept out for other reasons.

 

Overall visitation decreased slightly — from 42.1 million in 2016 to 41.5 million in 2017. But the city saw an increase in visitors from targeted markets such as New York. Visitors to Baltimore from the Big Apple increased 10 percent last year, with visitors from Pittsburgh up 4 percent, and visitors from Washington up 3 percent.

 

https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-ci-tourism-20181114-story.html

[Going Underground]

I think someone asked about Dauer rejoining the Orioles somewhere in this thread. 

 

Dauer retired following the 2017 championship season, a decision he made prior to undergoing emergency surgery for a blood clot to his brain caused by a fall in his bathroom. He expressed interest yesterday in getting back into baseball and rejoining the team that brought him to the majors in 1976. The only organization he knew as a player.

 

“The one place that I want to come back to is Baltimore. I’ve been trying to get back there since 1986. For 43 years I’ve been fortunate enough to have a job, and nothing’s ever worked either way or whatever.”

 

http://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2018/11/dauer-on-elias-ability-to-build-a-program-from-the-bottom-up.html

[baltfan]

4 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

His main job is to keep Yankee fans out of Camden Yards, The Orioles fans will be kept out for other reasons.

 

Overall visitation decreased slightly — from 42.1 million in 2016 to 41.5 million in 2017. But the city saw an increase in visitors from targeted markets such as New York. Visitors to Baltimore from the Big Apple increased 10 percent last year, with visitors from Pittsburgh up 4 percent, and visitors from Washington up 3 percent.

 

https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-ci-tourism-20181114-story.html

While the Orioles are losing I want as many fans from other teams as possible.  They help to fill the coffers.  Heck, I would be okay with a stealth campaign to attract them.

[Chromehill]

28 minutes ago, scOtt said:

To answer your question, our one-one draft pick!

Reading that article posted earlier about his rise in Houston I don't think he hires anyone. Question is what remaining players will he trade off. It said his TOTAL commitment was to moves that made sense in the long run. Damn the fans and the record. No playing for .500 to appease them while rebuilding. Bad record only nets more one-ones.

I see one or two more REALLY bad years for the O's. Then our newly revamped minor league system starts cranking out MLers. THEN we acquire one or two good ML FAs and win a World Series.

Regarding playing for .500, in Moneyball Billy Beane said the samething, paraphrasing "you are either contending or rebuilding, no middle ground". 

[weams]

8 hours ago, NashLumber said:

I was there about six weeks ago. It’s now being converted into townhouses or condos. 

 

I link it loses some of it's steampunk power this way. 

[weams]

 

[nate22]

7 minutes ago, weams said:

 

I'm glad. The only other person that I thought might be able to fix this mess is David Blaine.

[weams]

I think the answer here with this move and with the associated moves is that the Orioles will truly turf the next two seasons. spending nothing, and acquiring little other than through markets and sell -offs of any performing assets.