I guess we can all agree that it’s better to be Mike Elias today than it was at just about any other time since his hiring back on November 16, 2018, as Orioles executive vice president and general manager.
When you are as bad as the rebuilding Birds have been for the past three seasons, that 47-48 record and recent 10-game winning streak has you wanting to bump your chest out. But the reality is that baseball is a lot like golf. Just about anyone can learn to drive the ball down the fairway, but that isn’t the way you bring you score down from over 100 to shoot even an 80.
That’s where the Orioles are right now. The moves Elias makes now are part of his short game. It’s how he takes his team from 100-plus losses to 90-plus wins.
An important piece of his work is over now with the 2022 MLB Draft having come and gone. He has come away with one grand prize in Oklahoma high school shortstop Jackson Holliday at 1-1. If things go right from here, Elias and the Orioles probably won’t have 1-1 again for a very long time.
The 10-game winning streak shocked the fans, and no doubt about it, it shocked Elias and his front office. Plans had probably been made about how to maximize the expendable talent the club had in order to bring in younger, cheaper and potentially better players.
But there comes a time in every rebuild in which you have to stop spinning plates and really double down on making decisions as to who is part of this team’s short- and long-term future.
For Elias, his questions are many. What can he turn Trey Mancini into? Mancini is scheduled to hit free agency after the season. Most everyone has been watching this unfold for the past three years.
Aside from the potential of a Mancini deal, Elias is sure to be fielding calls on outfielders Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander and relievers Jorge Lopez and Dillon Tate.
The rebuild is at the point where the one real missing ingredient to take the Orioles to another level is the starting rotation. As such, any return that would come back to the Orioles would have to include one near-big-league ready starting pitcher and perhaps even a second younger prospect.
In any business, you have plans of how you intend to move forward, but events — such as a 10-game winning streak that comes out of nowhere — have to allow the possibility of being nimble enough to adapt to changing circumstances.
In other words, the chances of the Orioles automatically trading a contributor have probably lessened since the team is not far out of a playoff spot. Still, it’s a needle that needs to be threaded precisely.
For example, suppose a team that is a lot closer to being World Series-ready needs a closer and is willing to blow you away with an offer for Lopez. You have to listen, and if the calculus is right for such a deal to make you better 18 months from now, you have to pull the trigger.
That’s why Mike Elias is making what he’s making. These aren’t easy decisions.
In the next several days, Elias is going to have decisions to make regarding how to finish off this season and make it time well spent for Kyle Bradish, D.L. Hall and even Matt Harvey.
All three of these starters could significantly help make the club better now. Hall has been fairly dominant at Triple-A Norfolk, even if he is 2-5 so far for the Tides. He has a 3.46 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in 17 starts.
Those numbers give you an indication that something isn’t right. It’s Hall’s control and his pitch counts. He has only tallied 67.2 innings in those 17 starts (about four innings a start). Throw in 37 walks and suddenly the picture gets a bit muddied.
That said, he has struck out 113 batters and only given up 48 hits in those 67.2 innings.
That sounds to me like someone I’d rather use three times per week and have him impact multiple games per week rather than once every five or six days.
We have all seen enough of Bradish to hope that the remaining two months might provide us more reasons to believe. With Harvey, it’s a different story. He carries a lot of baggage, but he also carries with him a once incredibly powerful right arm.
Harvey’s arm will never be overpowering again, but perhaps he may just be learning the art of pitching. I saw enough glimpses of that in 2021. So far in six starts at Triple-A he has tossed 30 innings to the tune of a 2.96 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. I remain intrigued enough to want to see what he does in 10 or 11 starts during August and September.
So, while Elias sees blue skies ahead for the Baltimore Orioles, I see a golfer shooting 100 and trying to shave off an additional 20 strokes. That’s the toughest part of golf. What Elias has in front of him isn’t going to be easy.
But it sure as hell helps that he has laid the groundwork.
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