Connolly: Q&A with Mike Elias

[interloper]

Quote

But, alongside your typical rebuild, there was a ton to do across the organization from an infrastructure standpoint. I think, most notably, our international operations were minimalist, and we weren’t participating in the July 2nd market the way that 29 other teams are. We had some physical infrastructure deficits that we’re still kind of working on around the organization. Analytically, and in our digital infrastructure, we were way, way behind where the other 29 teams are. These are just areas that had been neglected. The team had done a good job steering resources toward the major-league roster. Still, there was a lot of work to do around the organization, the front office, player development, and, in a sense, this was a bigger project than just the rebuild.

I think we have accomplished a lot in a year in terms of addressing the structural and infrastructural issues of the organization. We’ve got the international apparatus up and running. We’ve revamped our player development methods and we’ve started to see some early success with that.

Here's another good bit and I'll refrain from posting any more. There's a ton more, though.

I like this quote because it makes it seem like actual pieces of the Warehouse were crumbling. That's probably not what he means, but who knows! I think this probably refers to a lack of equipment/physical technology. But dude walked into a situation where he was probably like "where the heck do I even start..." 

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I know what he said.

I also know that every dollar that they traded away got spent by teams that had a better 2018-2019 International signing period than the O's did.

Unless someone produces actual proof I'm not going to back off of this opinion. 

Mind you I was asked to go over this again.

You just admitted that you didn't subscribe to The Athletic, so I'm not sure how you know what he said.

The O's just started their international outreach. International signings involve more than throwing money around, they involve developing relationships over a period of time. You can't expect Elias in less than a year to be able to make up for years of international neglect. Other teams had a better 2018-2019 signing period than the O's because they didn't start signing international players a few months prior. It would be foolish for Elias to spend money just to spend money. 

I'm not sure why you're getting so chippy. I was just responding to your comment.

[Mr. Chewbacca Jr.]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

Here's another good bit and I'll refrain from posting any more. There's a ton more, though.

I like this quote because it makes it seem like actual pieces of the Warehouse were crumbling. That's probably not what he means, but who knows! I think this probably refers to a lack of equipment/physical technology. But dude walked into a situation where he was probably like "where the heck do I even start..." 

I'd hold off on posting too much. While posting excerpts is fine, posting large sections of an article isn't much different than torrenting a movie.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Mr. Chewbacca Jr. said:

You just admitted that you didn't subscribe to The Athletic, so I'm not sure how you know what he said.

The O's just started their international outreach. International signings involve more than throwing money around, they involve developing relationships over a period of time. You can't expect Elias in less than a year to be able to make up for years of international neglect. Other teams had a better 2018-2019 signing period than the O's because they didn't start signing international players a few months prior. It would be foolish for Elias to spend money just to spend money. 

I'm not sure why you're getting so chippy. I was just responding to your comment.

Quote

Elias clearly said he didn't want to spend money just to spend money.

He has been quoted as saying that, or nearly that, numerous times to include sites without a paywall.

Was that not what you were referring to?

Did he say something substantially different this time?

[HowAboutThat]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Elias has a blackbelt in saying a lot without saying anything at all.  He's on a Bruce Lee level.

 

Nobody approached Dan in the ratio of verbiage to non-substance 

[CallMeBrooksie]

41 minutes ago, Philip said:

Nobody approached Dan in the ratio of verbiage to non-substance 

Exactly...any good manager in any industry can BS a topic and sound like he's giving you something .. DD may as well have been reading the day's lineup card word for word every time he opened his mouth.

[Gatoriole]

6 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I know what he said.

I also know that every dollar that they traded away got spent by teams that had a better 2018-2019 International signing period than the O's did.

Unless someone produces actual proof I'm not going to back off of this opinion. 

Mind you I was asked to go over this again.

You know that every dollar that the Orioles traded away got spent? I'm not sure if I'm following that statement correctly, but where is that tracked? As far as I have ever seen, media outlets seem to have a hard time tracking exactly how much has been spent. 

[atomic]

7 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Agreed.  He makes no bones about how far behind this franchise was when he arrived.

 

That is just an excuse. 

[atomic]

50 minutes ago, Gatoriole said:

You know that every dollar that the Orioles traded away got spent? I'm not sure if I'm following that statement correctly, but where is that tracked? As far as I have ever seen, media outlets seem to have a hard time tracking exactly how much has been spent. 

Elias is saying they are spending more on the draft because they are drafting higher in each round.

[Gatoriole]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

Elias is saying they are spending more on the draft because they are drafting higher in each round.

Perhaps this is my misunderstanding. Aren't we talking about the trading of international slot money? That does not relate to how much is spent on drafted players.

[Can_of_corn]

7 hours ago, Gatoriole said:

You know that every dollar that the Orioles traded away got spent? I'm not sure if I'm following that statement correctly, but where is that tracked? As far as I have ever seen, media outlets seem to have a hard time tracking exactly how much has been spent. 

I read a quote (and no I won't go hunt for it) that teams spent all of the money allotted to them, as a whole, to spend.  Now might that actually mean that some teams left some negligible amount unspent?  Perhaps.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

First off I don't think ownership gave Elias the budget to participate more fully in the 2018-2019 season.

I don't have a huge issue with how the 2019-2020 season is progressing.  We've spent a reasonable amount to date.  Obviously you don't want to leave any money on the table so ideally more would have been spent.

I have a thing for folks saying one thing and doing another.  So if Elias said that they were not going to trade the slots and they end up trading some slots I'd like to know about it.

I think that fans do an awful lot of word-parsing and inferring context and asserting that what a GM says on February 11th is exactly and literally what he has to do on November 22nd or he's being disingenuous.  When the 322nd interview question of the month is answered with a "no" instead of a probably not" I'm sure someone on the internet will call him out for his duplicity.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, atomic said:

Elias is saying they are spending more on the draft because they are drafting higher in each round.

Gatoriole is talking about whether the traded slots get spent by the acquiring teams.    He’s pointing out that we don’t always know if they get spent.    But I do think I read somewhere that for the 2018-19 class (could have been 2017-18), 99.5% of the total allotment was spent.   

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think that fans do an awful lot of word-parsing and inferring context and asserting that what a GM says on February 11th is exactly and literally what he has to do on November 22nd or he's being disingenuous.  When the 322nd interview question of the month is answered with a "no" instead of a probably not" I'm sure someone on the internet will call him out for his duplicity.

Some fans do.

[Number5]

Although there are some folks that believe the best measure of improvement in international free agency is whether every last nickel allowed to be spent is spent, I don't necessarily agree with that quantity over quality approach.  Elias has impressed me sufficiently thus far that if he feels that the team is better served by acquiring other assets that he deems superior to those available by spending all of the remaining slots on those international players that remain in a given season's signing class after being picked thru for years by all of the other MLB teams, I would tend to believe he has a pretty good idea of what he's doing.   It just doesn't seem logical to me - and I've seen no evidence to suggest - that he is leaving countless plus prospects on the table with his approach.