Poll: Grading Elias' Tenure Thus Far

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

A

It has been exactly what I both expected and hoped for. 

His hires have been very good, particularly Sig and Kobe Perez and Chris Holt and Brandon Hyde. 

He has been aggressive in restructuring and rebuilding international and scouting and development analytics where we have been woeful.

His communication has been better than any GM- open, realistic and focused. 

He appears to have an excellent relationship and understanding with ownership

His first draft was very good to excellent. 

He hired Luke. 

Man, how could it not be an A? 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I'll say an A, but it's way too early for this. Elias is just over 14 months into being the GM of the Orioles. I think by end of 2021 season we'll have an idea if the Orioles are really headed towards building a sustainable model of being able to compete and consistently develop talent. 

[LTO's]

45 minutes ago, atomic said:

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. 
 

So you can't evaluate the draft at this point but you can evaluate the trades? That makes no sense.

[HowAboutThat]

SO FAR, An A Without a doubt.

He has drafted well.

He has traded intelligently.

He has prepared for the future well.

Now put the words “so far” in front of all of those sentences. Therefore, “so far” he gets an A without a doubt.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

You think ownership killed fanfest over his objections?

I doubt he was consulted.    The business operations units are separate and do not report to Elias.     They brought in a new team this fall and I expect this was their brainchild.    

Now, could Elias have gone and raised a stink about it if he’d wanted to?   Maybe, but that’s not his responsibility and I wouldn’t have expected him to do it.    
 

[HowAboutThat]

By the way, he gets serious points for not talking about “marbles” and for never once using the phrase, “qualified major leaguer”

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, tntoriole said:

He hired Luke. 

Man, how could it not be an A? 

Can’t argue with you there!

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I doubt he was consulted.    The business operations units are separate and do not report to Elias.     They brought in a new team this fall and I expect this was their brainchild.    

Now, could Elias have gone and raised a stink about it if he’d wanted to?   Maybe, but that’s not his responsibility and I wouldn’t have expected him to do it.    
 

I'd be surprised to find they didn't consult with him before hand.  That is a little more important than shooting a few commercials.

[Frobby]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

I'd be surprised to find they didn't consult with him before hand.  That is a little more important than shooting a few commercials.

I guess we just have different opinions on how the business is run.    I wouldn’t expect the head of marketing to be consulted before the Orioles traded a popular player, and I wouldn’t expect Elias to be consulted on marketing decisions.   Informed, sure.   

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I guess we just have different opinions on how the business is run.    I wouldn’t expect the head of marketing to be consulted before the Orioles traded a popular player, and I wouldn’t expect Elias to be consulted on marketing decisions.   Informed, sure.   

Considering the fact that Elias is the one that had to answer questions about it, and participate in what they did instead, I think he should have been part of the process.

[DirtyBird]

How can anyone say that 2019 was a good or great draft right now?

[Number5]

3 hours ago, atomic said:

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

[ThomasTomasz]

I give it an A.  

Elias is doing things that we never thought possible as Orioles fans.  He's investing in the minor leagues, international signings and player development, all things that Peter Angelos didn't want previous regimes doing.  He would rather spend that investment money on the major league product in over-the-hill veterans like Chad Bradford and David Segui.  Yes, it got is close to 80 wins, but the rot in the warehouse was extensive.  It took Elias just under a year to clear it all out.  Some people were gone immediately.  Others appeared to have time to get with the program.  

I am a huge fan of the boost to the international operations.  Koby Perez is a great hire, and they are giving him the resources that no one has had before.  It takes time to make these inroads, though, and I don't think many people realize this.  But this investment needed to happen because you need to recruit talent from all over, nothing should be ignored.  

I am also a huge fan of bringing in Matt Blood to head up player development, and the hiring of specific coaches to help the marriage between technology and coaching.  The fact that these guys won't just be handing out the numbers sheet and will be in the trenches working with players and in the dugout is huge.  

The technology piece already has some early results.  Someone mentioned that four of our affiliates led their leagues in ERA.  We saw Cody Sedlock return from the prospect brink.  Grayson Rodriguez and DL Hall are shooting up the top 100 lists.  Michael Baumann could break some top 100 lists if he continues his development on the same track.  And of course, John Means generated fantastic results at the MLB level last year.  Like international signings, the Orioles were woefully behind the rest of the teams, and now they are at least in the middle, but probably in the top third of the league as far as use and implementation.  Again, nothing should be ignored from a talent and development perspective.  

I do think a few things are out of his hands, specifically big financial decisions.  In my job, my boss wants to be consulted about two things- big people decisions and big financial decisions (and we have a number attached to that.) . Otherwise, I do what I want with the business as long as I can defend it to him.  I think Chris Davis probably falls into the big financial decision category, and can't fault Elias for that, nor can I fault him with trying to cut payroll as much as possible.  Part of this goes into the investments mentioned above.  It costs money for technology, it costs money to hire new coaches and pay their benefits.  They also need to start saving money now for extensions and contracts down the road when the team is competitive once again.  

There is also a disconnect with the fans that's not necessarily his fault.  Orioles fans want to win.  We have a proud history of being competitive.  For example, from 1964-85, we had one losing season, with six World Series appearances and three wins.  A lot of the current fans, especially the ones with capital for season tickets, comes from this group.  Then, we had early success with Angelos taking over, followed by the Dark Ages, and a few years of winning under Showalter and Duquette.  Now we are back to losing, but we also aren't spending any money.  

What I think these fans expect is that the Orioles focus on analytics should bear fruit immediately.  We should have a team full of Charlie Morton's, Justin Turner's and JD Martinez's, where analytics have turned their careers around.  Technology can turn around anyone.  The team would be more fun to watch if we had a payroll of $160 million and could bring in major league talent.  And this technology should be able to turn these prospects into decent major leaguers.  There has been no expectations set for what we should be looking for and expecting specifically in this rebuild.  These fans who don't follow MLB to the degree that many of us do who are posting on online forums get this for the most part (some don't, and I get it) but they should be doing a lot more to set Elias and Mejdal out in front of people to explain this process.  

At the end of the Duquette era, many prospect rankings had our system ranked near the bottom.  At the end of this past season, many of them had the Orioles ranked in the top half-top third of the league, including Baseball America ranking us at the highest ever for the lifetime of their website.  We're getting there.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  We added the beginning infrastructure to international scouting where there was no infrastructure.  We took the smallest analytics department and grew it in one year by leaps and bounds.  New coaching positions were added, and new coaches and scouts are being brought in who align around a singular vision.  So yeah, I can't see how this is anything but an "A".  

[scOtt]

 

No, seriously. A+. I like every thing I've seen and read. Elias is like a tornado that blew into town. Overwhelmed the whole organization. And I believe firmly headed in the right direction.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, scOtt said:

 

No, seriously. A+. I like every thing I've seen and read. Elias is like a tornado that blew into town. Overwhelmed the whole organization. And I believe firmly headed in the right direction.

You like that Davis is still on the team?