Taking Elias and Hyde’s comments at face value

[Pat Kelly]

The challenge is around this part of the Elias’ talking points. 

Acknowledging up front that you can’t keep up with teams and markets is not what an Orioles fan wants to hear.  We are not Tampa Bay or Oakland or the Cubs for that matter. This is a franchise that has a rich history of competing and being one of the best and most highly regarded teams in baseball, with a stadium that changed the game and sports stadiums for that matter.  

Yes recent years have not matched that rich history but we got a small inkling during the Andy/Buck/DD years of what it could be until it imploded.    Elias needs to sell a vision, hope, season tickets if he is going to be the voice of the franchise for now.  He is not head of communications or a PR spokesperson!    Mike you raised the wall to attract pitchers, you built a foundation of young talent that is the envy of baseball.   Finish the job and set the team up to not just compete but win in 2023.  Overpay for a couple of key FA’s - it won’t destroy what you built.  Pack the stadium, get into the playoffs and re-imagine Orioles magic.
 

“There are teams and markets out there that are frankly just hard to keep up with, but there’s other teams and markets that look the way that Baltimore does that have really healthy and successful programs, and it might involve us looking a little bit more like those, at least in the short term, until the business is built back up. But there’s ways to have a very healthy Orioles franchise for the next 10, 15, 20 years, and that’s kind of what we’re transitioning ourselves into.”

Edited December 8, 2022 by Pat Kelly

[Pickles]

7 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Do we trust Elias to trade Tate and Santander? I've given Elias his props for his drafting and development, but let's remember, he traded Castro at his peak value for Kevin Smith and Victor González, and Givens for Vavra, Nevin and Mishael Deson. Add in trading Bleier for Isaac Deleon, and it's not like he has a great track record of trading his relievers for value.

I'm not saying Elias is a bad trader, I'm just saying is he has yet to prove he can acquire impact talent or trade his potential impact talent depth for positions of need. 

I'm a little disappointed so far that all of his focus seems to be on free agents and not trading. Now maybe teams are waiting until the major free agents fall into to place to start trading for need, but I've always felt this is the areas where Elias needs to do well in this offseason especially since we know the Orioles are not going to be in on significant Free Agents that demand 5 or more years.

I can't speak for you, or anyone else, but I do.  I also feel open to changing my mind about that in a few years as we gather more data points.  The real test of that will come in the next few years.

As someone else suggested, I think the trade market heats up after the FA market cools down.