O's to hire Eve Rosenbaum as Director of Baseball Development

[interloper]

Super cool hire. Man the Orioles braintrust is STACKED y'all. We have a no joke legit front office full of some of the brightest minds in the game. 

And the structure makes more sense. It's tidy. There's a clear hierarchy. There's cool new positions. It's just nice to know the right people are in place busily working on rebuilding this whole franchise CORRECTLY. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

Super cool hire. Man the Orioles braintrust is STACKED y'all. We have a no joke legit front office full of some of the brightest minds in the game. 

And the structure makes more sense. It's tidy. There's a clear hierarchy. There's cool new positions. It's just nice to know the right people are in place busily working on rebuilding this whole franchise CORRECTLY. 

From our vantage point, the people being hired look good and the processes being put in place look good.    But, until we start seeing tangible results at the major league level, I’ll hold off my congratulations.   And that may take a while.   

[weams]

8 hours ago, Darkhawk said:

Could you link me to where Sig said he was going to leave or where Elias said he wasn't involved with the cheating scandal? Thanks in advance. 

https://www.mlb.com/news/analytics-guru-sig-mejdal-leaves-astros-c300229436

Never heard where Elias has discussed this.

[Redskins Rick]

32 minutes ago, Frobby said:

From our vantage point, the people being hired look good and the processes being put in place look good.    But, until we start seeing tangible results at the major league level, I’ll hold off my congratulations.   And that may take a while.   

True, but we have a valid reason for hope, there is a plan to build a contender, and step 1 has to be getting the right people in place.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

True, but we have a valid reason for hope, there is a plan to build a contender, and step 1 has to be getting the right people in place.

Couldn’t agree more.    On paper, the people we’re hiring look very good.   

[Obando]

If you notice the pattern of what has been happening the last 2 off seasons, long-time Astros baseball Ops employees have chosen to leave the organization to pursue other opportunities (presumably when their contracts expired).  Last off-season it was Sig Mejdal and Mike Fast (who went to the Orioles and Braves, respectively), and this off-season it was Eve Rosenbaum and Oz Ocampo.  Mike Elias technically didn’t choose to leave, but he was in demand as a GM candidate and decided to accept the Orioles job rather than stay with the Astros as Assistant GM.  This was obviously a promotion for him, but we have seen other qualified GM candidates turn us down in the past to remain in lesser roles with their organization, most notably Tony LaCava before we hired Dan Duquette.  So we really don’t know if Elias accepted the job because he truly wanted out of Houston, or because he simply wanted the promotion to GM and task of rebuilding the Orioles.  That ultimately doesn’t matter all that much.

However, it’s very telling to me that longtime Jeff Luhnow assistants like Sig and Oz Ocampo chose to leave the organization on their own, and to a lesser extent, Eve Rosenbaum.  This tells me that they were not happy with the culture that had developed there, and it’s very possible that it’s directly related to the sign stealing and trade for Roberto Osuna.  And then of course once Brandon Taubman did what he did and the organization botching how they handled it, that probably was the last straw for Rosenbaum and Ocampo (Eve in particular being a woman).

So far, the only Astros executive with any direct connection to the sign stealing is Kevin Goldstein, but since he works for Luhnow, you would have to believe that Luhnow was fully aware and supportive of what was going on.  But at this point, it’s not fair to implicate people like Elias, Mejdal, Rosenbaum, and Ocampo, just because they worked for the organization when these incidents occurred.  Like Elias said recently, there are a lot of good people with the Astros that are being unfairly disparaged just by being associated with the organization, so I don’t blame many of them for wanting to leave, especially if they didn’t have anything to do with what was going on (even if they were aware of it).  Being aware of something going on in your organization and supporting it are 2 different things, so let’s not lose sight of that.

From purely a quality standpoint, I think we should be excited about the hiring of Rosenbaum, and it’s a good sign that she wanted to come here and work with Elias & Sig again.  That tells me she thinks highly of them.  And I would not at all be surprised if Ocampo ends up here as well in some high level assistant or director role.  He goes way back with Elias & Sig to the Cardinals days, and he worked with Rosenbaum in the Astros International scouting department.  The fact that he chose to leave indicates he probably already has an opportunity lined up with some team, and among people with other teams, he has the strongest connections with Mike & Sig, plus David Stearns in Milwaukee, who was in Houston with Ocampo for 3 years earlier this decade.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Obando said:

From purely a quality standpoint, I think we should be excited about the hiring of Rosenbaum, and it’s a good sign that she wanted to come here and work with Elias & Sig again.  That tells me she thinks highly of them.  And I would not at all be surprised if Ocampo ends up here as well in some high level assistant or director role.  He goes way back with Elias & Sig to the Cardinals days, and he worked with Rosenbaum in the Astros International scouting department.  The fact that he chose to leave indicates he probably already has an opportunity lined up with some team, and among people with other teams, he has the strongest connections with Mike & Sig, plus David Stearns in Milwaukee, who was in Houston with Ocampo for 3 years earlier this decade.

Yes, it will be interesting to see where Ocampo lands.    It certainly would be fine with me if it were the O’s.   
 

While it may be that Rosenbaum and/or Ocampo left for cultural reasons, it’s my impression that they may not have been happy with the way the Astros had reorganized some of their international operations:

Both held leadership positions in the team's international scouting department in recent years, Rosenbaum most recently. When the Astros re-organized their FO in Sept., Jeff Luhnow put senior director of baseball operations Armando Velasco in charge of that department.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jakemkaplan/status/1192123000864362496

[Obando]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yes, it will be interesting to see where Ocampo lands.    It certainly would be fine with me if it were the O’s.   
 

While it may be that Rosenbaum and/or Ocampo left for cultural reasons, it’s my impression that they may not have been happy with the way the Astros had reorganized some of their international operations:

Both held leadership positions in the team's international scouting department in recent years, Rosenbaum most recently. When the Astros re-organized their FO in Sept., Jeff Luhnow put senior director of baseball operations Armando Velasco in charge of that department.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jakemkaplan/status/1192123000864362496

You might be right about that based on the piece of the article you posted.  If Rosenbaum was running the Int’l Scouting department and then got demoted/replaced with Velasco, it would make sense for her to not be happy about it and decide to leave.  Ocampo used to run that department, but in recent years he has been the interpreter for the major league team primarily.  I’m guessing he wanted to have more responsibility and felt he wasn’t going to get it in Houston under the current hierarchy.  Luhnow certainly has a way of ruffling feathers, huh?!  I wonder if he’s doing these things purposely to push people out that he no longer wants, or if he simply likes fresh blood in these positions so the leadership doesn’t get stale.  He seems like the type that likes to keep people on their toes in order to avoid complacency.

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

From our vantage point, the people being hired look good and the processes being put in place look good.    But, until we start seeing tangible results at the major league level, I’ll hold off my congratulations.   And that may take a while.   

"Fine then, you talk, I'll drink."

[Redskins Rick]

getting this derailed thread back on track. :):)

This looks to be a good hire, and hopefully these good hires can start doing that voodoo they do so well.

 

 

[Dipper9]

1 minute ago, Redskins Rick said:

getting this derailed thread back on track. :):)

This looks to be a good hire, and hopefully these good hires can start doing that voodoo they do so well.

 

 

Not to be a debbie downer, but we can have the best FO in baseball and still stink for a couple more years.  Just putting it out there.

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, Dipper9 said:

Not to be a debbie downer, but we can have the best FO in baseball and still stink for a couple more years.  Just putting it out there.

maybe not stink, Im hoping we can see improvements, it didnt take Buck, Andy and DD 3 years to turn things around.

But, if you dont have good people in place, then anything else is just pure luck or crap.

[esmd]

6 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Cheating scandal is the most overblown thing ever.

She seems smart, capable and I'm assuming she's good at what she does.  Good hire.

This.

[esmd]

6 hours ago, interloper said:

Super cool hire. Man the Orioles braintrust is STACKED y'all. We have a no joke legit front office full of some of the brightest minds in the game. 

And the structure makes more sense. It's tidy. There's a clear hierarchy. There's cool new positions. It's just nice to know the right people are in place busily working on rebuilding this whole franchise CORRECTLY. 

Also this.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

maybe not stink, Im hoping we can see improvements, it didnt take Buck, Andy and DD 3 years to turn things around.

But, if you dont have good people in place, then anything else is just pure luck or crap.

Well, Andy was here from mid-2007 through 2011 and never had a winning record.   And he wasn’t left the mess that Elias inherited, IMO.   DD inherited a team that was far ahead of what Elias inherited, with a number of good players just hitting their prime.    
 

That said, here’s what I’m hoping to see:

2020 - Maybe only minimal improvement in the W-L, but some interesting younger players getting a lot of playing time.   
 

2021 - Significant improvement in the W-L, but not really expecting a winning season.    A fair number of interesting players reaching the majors, including hopefully Rutschman.    
 

2022 -  Very good shot at a winning record, as young pitching begins to ripen.    Hopefully a full year from DL Hall, maybe a partial year from Grayson Rodriguez.   
 

2023 - Hopefully a contending team.

Lots could happen to detail or accelerate that timetable.