Jump to content

Poll: Grading Elias' Tenure Thus Far


Greg Pappas

How would you grade Elias' tenure thus far?  

127 members have voted

  1. 1. How would you grade Elias' tenure thus far?



Recommended Posts

Thus Far. Those are the keywords here.  How would you grade Elias' work thus far, on the simplest scale? Some may wish for an A+, A, or A- choice, but that would create too many choices. 

Naturally there are inner workings at play that we're not privy too, and that can skew the big picture. Has ownership interfered with Elias' vision in any way? If so, to what extent?  Hard to know, so I'd recommend grading Elias based on what you believe to be true.

To potentially help you come to a decision, here are two quality threads regarding Elias' tenure:

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

B.

Love the foray into international scouting the most so far. I love the new consideration for an analytics based approach, and the hiring of Driveline gurus like Chris Holt to really figure out pitching mechanics. It showed in the minor leagues where many many pitchers took steps forward to contribute.

Im lukewarm about the handling of Villar and Davis, but I’ll admit that I don’t care about Villar like some other people do. I thought he was playing over his head, and new OAA metric exposes his defense in a way not previously considered. Davis may not be within his control.

still waiting for them to make up for FanFest.

i personally think this is the correct way forward to sustaining the long term health of the franchise, though admit it sucks watching bad baseball.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Man, that's tough.   Because what he has been doing thus far is building infrastructure, which is hard to evaluate.   He APPEARS to have done the following:

   -- spent more than we have spent in years on international free agents

   -- had a pretty good first draft

   -- infused all the levels of the organization with people who use advanced metrics and state of the art tools to evaluate and instruct and develop players

   -- gotten rid of guys who don't appear to be "with the program" such as Brady Anderson, etc

   -- obviously been consistent in his philosophy of building talent in the organization from the bottom up (Bundy & Cashner & Villar for younger guys, etc)

But all of that is appearance.   Do I really KNOW that any of the international free agents we signed are any good?   Do I KNOW he drafted well?   Do I really  KNOW anything about all the people he has hired other than scant biographical information?   I THINK he is doing well in those areas, but that's just based on appearances.

But there does seem to be a bit of a disconnect with fans.  Cancelling Fanfest pissed some people off.   Those who are not "with the program" of the rebuild haven't been given much of anything to look forward to, the base assumption that the fans are sheep who will flock back when we win is probably true, but in an era where in person attendance at sporting events is down all over the place, even the fanatical world of college football, getting people out of the habit of coming to to games for some period of time is treading on dangerous ground, they just might find that they don't miss baseball that much.   Now that stuff might not necessarily be in Elias's wheelhouse, maybe someone on the business side might be more responsible, but at some point he's the point man for the franchise and everything that has happened falls back in his lap.   The buck has to stop somewhere.

I'm going B.

 

4 minutes ago, Griffey said:

C.

Count me in the "too early to tell" category.  

I also was going with B, but changed my mind at the last second, as I was thinking "A minus" (not a choice). A minus or B plus seems about right to me.  Overall I'm happy with him and expect to continue feeling that way for the foreseeable future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those offering a 'too early to tell' reply, I tried to express that this grading is based on what you believe or feel about how he's done thus far. It's still early in his tenure,  however, I'm looking to gauge how folks feel about the work he's done up to this point, conceding that there is much still to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would give Elias a "cautious A".    If the improvement in the player development for pitchers in any indication of what is to come then he has made a major leap in building a minor league system.    Four minor league clubs led their league  in ERA.  And he appears to have developed two waves of prospects at AA and in the Sally league.

The O's have drafted pretty well in the passed when they did not trade away their high picks.  But player development under Dan Duquette was for the most part a disaster.   If Elias is turning that around he deserves an A but I am cautious because its only been one season. 

Add to that that he is adding more coaching as each level in his second season and he might be ready for another jump in helping players achieve their potential. 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I gave him a "C", as that is as close to an incomplete as possible.

He really hasn't brought in any talent that is poised to be an under the radar trade or signing. Obviously our #1 pick was a no brainier...too early to tell on any other selections.

None of the trades have brought in any answers... maybe time will prove me wrong on that one. 

He certainly is saying all of the right things, but if I were a fan of another team and someone laid out the moves that have been made so far I would say he's been brought in to prep the team for selling.

There's not any moves so far this off season that indicates that they will be moving forward with trying to get better and win at the ML level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I gave him an A, but truthfully I don’t really know and I adopt almost everything SteveA said.    The only point I disagree about is pinning the cancellation of Fanfest on Elias.    I doubt that was his call.

You think ownership killed fanfest over his objections?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, maybenxtyr said:

I gave him a "C", as that is as close to an incomplete as possible.

He really hasn't brought in any talent that is poised to be an under the radar trade or signing. Obviously our #1 pick was a no brainier...too early to tell on any other selections.

None of the trades have brought in any answers... maybe time will prove me wrong on that one. 

He certainly is saying all of the right things, but if I were a fan of another team and someone laid out the moves that have been made so far I would say he's been brought in to prep the team for selling.

There's not any moves so far this off season that indicates that they will be moving forward with trying to get better and win at the ML level.

Yeah you can’t evaluate the draft at this point.  Ashley was a no brainer and the other guys you can’t evaluate yet. 
 

I think his trades have been pretty awful and other than the shortstop he brought in this year he really hasn’t signed anyone. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Posts

    • Yeah the amenities are pretty outdated at the yard and they seem to do nothing year over year to improve them. The touchscreens have been banged on to death to the point they barely function, so you can't accurately fill out your order at the kiosks, and they don't have a way for the people behind the counter to ring you up at many of the food places. The sound is low to non-existent in certain sections of the club level, like around 218. Seems like there should be speakers that reach there but they might have been damaged by rain, etc. and they are too lazy to fix them. If you go to a game that's even slightly busy, you will wait forever to get into the bathroom, and the sink will be an absolute mess with no soap or paper towels. It's even worse on the club level where they have one sink that's right by the door. Nearby businesses don't care, either. The Hilton parking garage reeks of decay, pot and human waste. They don't turn on the air circulation fans, even if cars are waiting for an hour and a half to exit from P3, filling up the air with carbon monoxide. They only let you enter the stadium with one 20 oz bottle of water. It's so expensive to buy a drink or water in the stadium, but with all the salty food, 20 oz of water isn't enough, especially on a hot day. Vegetarian food options are poor to none, other than things like chips, fries, hot pretzels and the occasional pizza. Vida Taco is better, but at an inconvenient location for many seats. The doors on the club level are not accessible. They're anti-accessible. Big, heavy doors you have to go through to get to/from the escalators, and big, heavy doors to get to your seats, none of them automatic (or even with the option to be automatic with a button press). Makes it hard to carry food out to your seats even if not handicapped. The furniture in the lounges on the club level seem designed to allow as few people as possible to sit down. Not great when we have so many rain delays during the season. Should put more, smaller chairs in and allow more of the club level ticket holders to have a seat while waiting for thunderstorms to pass. They keep a lot of the entrance/exit gates closed except for playoff/sellout games, which means people have to slowly "mooooo" all the way down Eutaw St to get to parking. They are too cheap to staff all the gates, so they make people exit by the warehouse, even though it would be a lot more convenient for many fans to open all the gates. Taking Light Rail would be super convenient, except that if there's at least 20k fans in attendance, it's common to have to wait 90-120 minutes to be able to board a non-full train heading toward Glen Burnie. A few trains might come by, but they are already full, or fill up fast when folks walk up to the Convention Center stop to pre-empt the folks trying to board at Camden Station. None of the garages in the area are set up to require pre-payment on entry (reservation, or give them your card / digital payment at the entrance till). If they were, emptying out the garage would be very quick, as they wouldn't need to ticket anyone on the way out: if you can't get in without paying, you can always just leave without having to stop and scan your phone or put a ticket in the machine. They shut down the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Station in 2015 because the Maryland Stadium Authority was too greedy. That place was a fun distraction if you were in the area when a game wasn't about to start, like if you show up super early on Opening Day or a playoff day. Superbook's restaurant on Eutaw is a huge downgrade from Dempsey's in terms of menu and service quality. Dempsey's used to be well-staffed, you could reserve a table online, and they had all kinds of great selection for every diet. Superbook seems like just another bar serving the same swill that the rest of the park serves, with extremely minimal and low-quality food. For that matter, most of the food at the stadium is very low quality these days. A lot of things we used to love are made to a lower standard now if they are served at all. These are gripes about the stadium and the area that haven't changed my entire adult life. Going to an O's game requires one to tolerate many small inconveniences and several major inconveniences, any number of which could easily be fixed by the relevant authorities if they gave a damn about the people who pay to come see the team play. You would think a mid-market team would be able to afford to invest in the fan experience. You would think the city and partnering organizations like garages, the Stadium Authority and MTA would at least try to do their part to make the experience enjoyable and free of kinks. You would think they would put some thought into handling the "growing pains" of the fanbase due to recent renewed interest after the dark years. Instead, all we get is the same indifference and the same annoyances year in and year out. The whole area is overdue for a revamp. Not sure if $600 mil will get it done, but at least it's a start. Hopefully they can start to patch up some of the many holes in the fan experience. If you're not going to invest in Burnes, at least make it so paying customers have an easier, more enjoyable time getting to/from the stadium and having some food while we're there.
    • Elias has only been in rebuild mode with the O's so there's not much to speculate on there.  Houston, where he spent his formative years, doesn't seem to like to be on the hook for more than a couple of big long-term contracts at any given time.  I can see that as being Elias' choice as well, albeit with a lower overall cost - Houston runs a big payroll.  But it's all guesswork.  I really don't know. If Elias takes the 2025 payroll to $150 million it will creep up to $200 million or so by 2028 just from keeping the core together.  That's where I start to wonder about sustainability due to market size, economic forces, etc., etc., etc... If it were up to me, I would add a couple of free agents this offseason even if the contracts were longer than ideal and be conservative about extensions elsewhere until the prospects establish themselves a little better.  I think there's a competitive opportunity that the team is already into that's worth exploiting. I think ownership is very happy to have Elias on board and they're not inclined to force him to do anything.  I also think Rubenstein's demonstrated business prowess is great enough to assume that he has had plenty enough time to come to a mutual understanding with Elias as to goals.
    • We need a RH O’hearn…in addition to Westburg. At least 3 batters that will push up the pitch count and cause damage in the top 5 of the lineup.
    • Boy,  that Jackson Merrill is a good young player that is playing his best ball down the season stretch and in the playoffs.   He's only 21.  I guess some young guys are able to play up to the pressure.   Who could have guessed that?
    • I’m aware.   You are arguing something im Not.
    • What agreement? The agreement you are talking about happened as a result of the move.  The MASN agreement would not have existed if Angelos had gone to court to block the move.
    • I’m saying the Os had an agreement with MLB and that should have held up.  Been pretty clear about that. 
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...