The Elias era so far

[interloper]

Hat tip to the very good Elias Progress Thread. Just thought it would be fun to list everything so far. I think with the recent trades, we are seeing an Elias who is more knowledgeable about his own roster and, IMO, more familiar with the value of the players. Thus: trades. 

Year One: Infrastructure

• Hired Hyde and some new coaches literally at the off-season buzzer. Had to deal with his first "leak" as news of Hyde broke early. Welcome to GM life, Mike!
• Hired Sig to usher in a new era of Orioles analytics. 
• Canned some dudes: Rajsich, Graham, and at the end of the year, Brady.
• Hired Koby to usher in a new era of Orioles international efforts.
• Hired Holt as the new pitching guru, promoted at the end of the year.
• Made some bold minor league coaching moves - grabbing some young college coaches and promoting the young Buck Britton to manager of Bowie.
• Oversaw some upgrades to the Dominican facilities and added a DSL team. 
• Oversaw some upgrades/additions to technology/video tools. Implemented those tools for the first time during ST.
• Had largest international signing class in franchise history.
• Drafted Adley with the #1 overall pick. 
• Traded Cashner for 2 Dominican league prospects, OF Elio Prado and IF Noelberth Romero.
• Announced deal with K-Motion.
• Made several hires to build out the analytics department and promoted former lone analytics guy Di Zou.
• Canned a bunch of scouts, but then hired a bunch of scouts.
• Hired Matt Blood as director of player development.
• Hired Eve Rosenbaum to help coordinate efforts between scouting, development, and analytics department. 

Year Two: Pipeline

• ML and MiLB coaching tweaks. I like to think the new coaches are guys that fit Elias' system now that he has more time to build a coaching staff. 
• Traded Villar for SP Lucas.
• Traded Bundy for RP Mattson, SPs Peek, Bradish, Brnovich.
• Upcoming:
  • The #2 overall pick
  • A second effort into the J2 signings - do we see a larger class or simply a more expensive one or both? Koby should have more of an effect this year.
  • Probably more trades from the 26-man roster - Givens? Mancini? Cobb (we can hope)? Nunez? 
  • Probably some more front office hires. There's still no scouting director at the level of Rajsich. Elias has mostly taken that on along with Kent Qualls, I believe. I could see a hire being made here. Or perhaps just more staff continuing to be added in the various departments.
  • I think this is the year we really see them dig in on development with the late hires of Blood and Rosenbaum, along with the influx of players from the 2019 draft and recent trades. Elias has stated he wants everybody on the same page from the MiL teams up to the ML team. That definitely was not fully possible last year, but I think that begins in earnest this year. 
  • Safe to expect more technology additions.
  • Now that Sig has his feet under him and an actual staff to work with, I predict a much bigger emphasis on analytics and really starting to see full implementation in the MiL teams.
  • Perhaps further expansion internationally? I believe Elias was a little iffy on a Venezuelan facility due to the political climate over there, but if there's a guy who can do it it's Koby. 

Basically, I'm excited to see what's in store for Year Two. Elias was able to accomplish a staggering amount of stuff in less than one year. Pretty much a full on restructuring of baseball operations. Now that he's got his people mostly in place, I think we're seeing that he's comfortable stripping down the roster and acquiring MiL depth. And then the development of that "elite pipeline" can really get cranked up. I'm encouraged by some of the progress we saw in that area last year with the strikeout numbers going up throughout the farm system, etc. 

Elias isn't for everybody, but I don't think anyone can question the level of detail or zeal with which he has attacked this task. The biggest thing I'm seeing is this looks like an extremely organized, smart, talented front office with an actual streamlined system of communication between all departments. This isn't some lazy effort. I think everyone knows they have to be on their game and expectations are very high. 

Let me know what I forgot or got wrong!

[Frobby]

No doubt Elias has been busy.    It’s his organization at this point.    

I plan to spend 2020 mostly focused on how our minor leaguers are developing.     When watching the O’s I’ll mostly just be focused on a few players who might still be here in 2022-23 or who might bring us a solid return in a trade.    I thought this quote from Elias was pretty interesting:

“I think that ultimately we may see many of those rotation spots hopefully inhabited by guys who are already in the organization, that were either in Triple-A last year or are going to be in Triple-A for the first time,” Elias said.

“I think we’re having some pitchers starting to knock on the door to the big leagues that we view as starting pitcher prospects in our system, but we don’t want to rush them and we also don’t know if and when they’re going to be ready, so we do plan on supplementing our core of starting pitcher candidates outside the organization this winter. Whether it’s major league free agency or minor league free agency, I think we’re going to be bringing in some competition for the rotation so that we’re not in a situation where we’re having to do something to one of our prospects that’s not best for his development.”    https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2019/12/elias-on-trading-bundy-the-return-and-what-could-follow.html

That sounds to me like Kremer and Zimmermann could make their debuts in 2020.     That will be interesting to me.   We’ll certainly see Akin fairly early on, if he’s healthy.   

 

[wildbillhiccup]

38 minutes ago, Frobby said:

No doubt Elias has been busy.    It’s his organization at this point.    

I plan to spend 2020 mostly focused on how our minor leaguers are developing.     When watching the O’s I’ll mostly just be focused on a few players who might still be here in 2022-23 or who might bring us a solid return in a trade.    I thought this quote from Elias was pretty interesting:

“I think that ultimately we may see many of those rotation spots hopefully inhabited by guys who are already in the organization, that were either in Triple-A last year or are going to be in Triple-A for the first time,” Elias said.

“I think we’re having some pitchers starting to knock on the door to the big leagues that we view as starting pitcher prospects in our system, but we don’t want to rush them and we also don’t know if and when they’re going to be ready, so we do plan on supplementing our core of starting pitcher candidates outside the organization this winter. Whether it’s major league free agency or minor league free agency, I think we’re going to be bringing in some competition for the rotation so that we’re not in a situation where we’re having to do something to one of our prospects that’s not best for his development.”    https://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2019/12/elias-on-trading-bundy-the-return-and-what-could-follow.html

That sounds to me like Kremer and Zimmermann could make their debuts in 2020.     That will be interesting to me.   We’ll certainly see Akin fairly early on, if he’s healthy.   

 

This is where I am. I was hoping to see an influx of minor leaguers (at the MLB level) at the start of the season, but in hindsight that probably wasn't a very realistic expectation. If Hays, Mountcastle and maybe 1 or 2 young arms make the opening day lineup I'll be happy. Then hopefully we'll have some late season call ups that show promise as well. Next year is when I really want to see the shift from replacement level players to  prospects at the MLB level start to happen. Even if that doesn't equate to wins it will at least give me an opportunity to invest in the players and root for the future. 

[Redskins Rick]

Im at a lost as to the new for a new Elias discussion thread.

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Im at a lost as to the new for a new Elias discussion thread.

Come again?

[DirtyBird]

2 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Im at a lost as to the new for a new Elias discussion thread.

Are you a graduate of Tony's school of loss vs lost?

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

Come again?

 

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, DirtyBird said:

Are you a graduate of Tony's school of loss vs lost?

Nah, Im the one that is lost.

[interloper]

Just now, Redskins Rick said:

 

Yeah, I just didn't understand what "at a lost as to the new for a new" meant. 

I did give a hat tip to that thread and don't intend for this thread to take over that one. Just kind of a round-up after the first full year.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

I did give a hat tip to that thread and don't intend for this thread to take over that one. Just kind of a round-up after the first full year.

Works for me.   I think that thread is really meant as a place to collect news about recent hires etc., rather than as a place for discussion about general progress.    So I don’t see this as redundant even though much of the information in the OP is found in the other thread as well.     

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

This is where I am. I was hoping to see an influx of minor leaguers (at the MLB level) at the start of the season, but in hindsight that probably wasn't a very realistic expectation. If Hays, Mountcastle and maybe 1 or 2 young arms make the opening day lineup I'll be happy. Then hopefully we'll have some late season call ups that show promise as well. Next year is when I really want to see the shift from replacement level players to  prospects at the MLB level start to happen. Even if that doesn't equate to wins it will at least give me an opportunity to invest in the players and root for the future. 

I’m not too focused on the OD roster.    It’s perfectly OK with me if Mountcastle and Akin start the year at Norfolk.    But, I’d certainly hope to see them before too long.   

[interloper]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Works for me.   I think that thread is really meant as a place to collect news about recent hires etc., rather than as a place for discussion about general progress.    So I don’t see this as redundant even though much of the information in the OP is found in the other thread as well.     

I just like to dork out over progress. It's like driving by a construction site every day and taking note of how it progresses. 

I don't think any GM in Orioles history has done so much in less than one year. It's seriously impressive when you look at it as a whole because it's not just hiring replacements, it's creating entire new departments and determining how they interact with each other.

My other point in creating this thread was to speculate on what we see in Year 2, which as I said, I think will be much heavier on development and actually utilizing all the things that were put in place in Year 1. 

[Tony-OH]

31 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

Are you a graduate of Tony's school of loss vs lost?

Damn, taking arrows from all over!

[weams]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Damn, taking arrows from all over!

You come at the king, you best not miss.

[Redskins Rick]

19 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Damn, taking arrows from all over!

You what they say about that fine line between love and hate.