Hello, friends.
There are now 175 days remaining until the next Orioles game. For the next month, we’ve got some postseason baseball that doesn’t involve the Orioles to divert our attention a little bit. Today, that includes at least three games (this article was scheduled before Reds-Dodgers was done) since all of Cleveland, San Diego, and New York managed to equalize yesterday.
We got some new words from Mike Elias yesterday. The Orioles president of baseball operations joined the MLB Trade Rumors
podcast for roughly 20 minutes where he was asked to weigh in on some of the topics surrounding the team right now that you would expect him to weigh in on. A one-on-one sitdown is a different format than we usually hear from him.
To a large extent, it’s a fruitless activity to try to divine a particular intent to act out of anything that Elias says. His manner of speaking to media is full of equivocations, hedges, and obfuscations, so while you can read a given quote and draw conclusions, Elias does not historically follow through on what seems to be his stated intentions, or at least not to the degree you might think. Still, he’s the boss and these are his words. Don’t get too excited until he does something exciting.
On what went wrong this season:
There were moves that didn’t work as intended. We had issues in how we go about things around the organization that were expressed a little bit more in 2025, and we had a ton of health issues and injuries, so it was a perfect storm. … This is sports, and you’ve got to evolve and adapt and adjust and it’s my job to figure out where are areas we can change and where are areas where we got bad rolls of the dice.
The host, MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald, challenged Elias by reminding him of something Elias said last winter about free agent pitching: “You said you were considering the whole menu of available pitchers and that included high-end free agent deals over many years. In the end, your free agent deals were a one-year deal for Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano. To what do you attribute that disparity?” Good question, Darragh!
Elias offered this response:
We have made offers to sign pitchers to multi-year deals … it’s true that hasn’t come to fruition yet. I can’t imagine that lasts too much longer, can’t make any guarantees in my position. It’s been circuitous path with the Orioles (rebuild, ownership transition). The new group has a lot of stability and understanding that they’re going to be here a long time. That’s going to make those possibilities a little less tricky here and going forward. … The very, very best pitchers are always going to get long deals, and that’s the price of poker to get that type of talent. We don’t want to take that off the table by any means.
Elias said his goal is “to go into Sarasota with a team that we think will win the AL East, and that other people think is going to win the AL East, and getting pitching is going to be a part of that.” Saying that they haven’t taken that off the table is fine, but it doesn’t mean anything until he actually signs a good pitcher who makes the difference they need him to make for 2026 and beyond.
Also included here are answers from Elias about the struggles of Orioles prospects as they arrive in MLB, the juggling act for playing time between Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo next season, the negotiations that led to the big six-player trade with the Padres, the Bryan Baker trade with the Rays, and what he saw in Ryan O’Hearn before O’Hearn broke out with the Orioles. If you’ve got the time, it’s worth listening to all of it, even if there’s obviously nothing earth-shattering because Elias wouldn’t give away his game on a podcast.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
The Orioles want to hire a manager ‘ASAP.’ Here’s who they could target. (The Baltimore Banner)
More teams have had manager positions open up after the season ended than expected, putting some veteran managers out on the market. The Banner’s Andy Kostka runs through some of the candidates.
Orioles manager search: After down year, O’s still a destination (The Baltimore Sun)
At The Sun, Matt Weyrich thinks the Orioles should not have an issue attracting the managerial candidate they want to take their job.
Samuel Basallo is proud to have come up through the Orioles farm system (Steve on Baseball)
Subscription required to Melewski’s Substack to read the full article. Basallo sure seems like a guy with a good head on his shoulder.
Can O’s O’Neill skip opt-out and provide pop and leadership? (School of Roch)
I would say there is not much need to pretend that O’Neill might exercise the opt-out in his contract and just move forward with the presumption that he’ll be here next year.
Anonymous Orioles player survey: Thoughts on the 2025 season, Tony Mansolino, leadership, and more (The Baltimore Banner)
The Banner’s Danielle Allentuck spoke to four Orioles, who remain anonymous. I’m most curious about player 4, who would not answer two of the questions even with anonymity. Come on, man!
Jeremiah Jackson’s self-belief pays off with Orioles in 2025 (Press Box Online)
From a Double-A player who wasn’t even a prospect when the season began, to a decent two-month big league debut. Jeremiah Jackson was one of the better stories in the organization this year.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 2014, the Orioles took down the Tigers in Game 1 of the ALDS, blowing the game open in the eighth inning to take a 12-3 victory in the series opener – this despite Max Scherzer having started the game for the Tigers.
In 2016, Matt Wieters homered from each side of the plate in what turned out to be his final regular season game as an Oriole. The homers helped the Orioles to a 5-2 win over the Yankees, which clinched the O’s a wild card spot.
There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2023 outfielder Aaron Hicks, 2003 infielder José Morban, and 2007 pitcher Victor Santos. Today is Santos’s 49th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: French field marshal Ferdinand Foch (1851), Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi (1869), comedian/actor Groucho Marx (1890), musician Sting (1951), and talk show host Kelly Ripa (1970).
On this day in history…
In 1470, England’s Edward IV fled the country due to a rebellion by one of his key supporters, the Earl of Warwick. During Edward’s brief exile to Bruges, the Lancaster claimant Henry VI – son of Henry V- was restored to the throne.
In 1870, a direct vote on whether the Papal States would be annexed into the growing Kingdom of Italy took place, with 133,681 voting for annexation and 1,507 voting against. This plebiscite followed within a couple of weeks of an Italian military occupation of Rome.
In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice, becoming the first African-American to hold a seat on the court.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 2. Have a safe Thursday.
