Elias is great at drafting and eyeing international talent, there’s no denying that. But I think he missed a valuable lesson from his time with the Astros. It wasn’t just prospects coming up that made the Astros successful. It was knowing when to move them for established pieces to become a contender.
The Orioles also seem to be lacking in the area that, to me, is the true reason the Astros have been the class of baseball for a decade. Pitching development at the big league level, specifically. The Astros were able to transform guys like McHugh, Peacock, Morton, etc. Into differnce makers. The Orioles have been unable to do that. The Astros way doesn’t work for the Orioles if they can’t replicate that, so they need to do things differently but Elias is unwilling to part with prospects to add pitching through trade. How was Crochet not an Oriole? Cease was available in the offseason, how is he not an Oriole? Nah, just sign 40 year old Charlie Morton.
As for the Dodgers, the only similarity between the Astros and Dodgers is the use of analytics. The Dodgers didn’t follow an Astros path because they didn’t need to. The Dodgers are more a “Rays with lots of money”
I remember once hearing Kevin Goldstein say that the feeling among the Astros staff was that they looked at a free agent signing as a failure—they wanted to be able to provide for all possible needs through draft and development. Elias would have been part of that crew. (Plus the other conceivably more important guy with the funny name I cannot presently recall who went with him.) I wonder if they might have advertised their services to the then Baltimore ownership as being particularly efficient in that regard, and thus inculcated a deleterious reticence to shopping the odd prospect.
Luckily for the Astros Luhnow and Crane took a broader view.
Sig Mejdal. It’s been said about him, Elias too to a certain degree, that he favors efficiency above all. To a detrimental level, it seems. In a vacuum, almost every trade where you send prospects(6 years of control for each player) to a team for an established player with only a year or two of control, you’re likely to lose that trade in a strictly value for value assessment. But if you wanna win, you have to be willing to make those moves. Likewise when signing a FA, they would say “well our minimum salary guy is halfway as good at a tenth of the cost, that’s a waste!” But if you do that across the board you end up with a pitching staff that looks an awful lot like what the Orioles have right now.
I’ve read stuff before that the new ownership in Baltimore has told Elias they are willing to increase payroll if he needs it and he has refused. Some guys are just not cut out for the top job and I wonder if Elias is one of those guys. His track record for building a minor league system is honestly second to none, maybe that’s where he should be, a farm director.
Mets pitcher has walked three guys in the inning (one intentionally), including the two immediately preceding Volpe, so what does Volpe do? Swings at the first pitch and grounds out to short to end the inning. That’s the kind of savvy you can’t teach.
Down 6-3 after 6 to the Red Sox, the Orioles bring in former Astro Cionel Perez to pitch in the 7th. He gets through the inning without surrendering a run BUT gives up 5 runs without getting an out in the 8th. The Orioles bring in 3rd baseman Emmanuel Rivera to finish the 8th, and he does just that, but not before giving up 8 runs himself. Sox score 13 runs in that 8th inning. Final score 19-5, with Rafael Devers getting 8 RBI’s in the game. This was the first game of a doubleheader.