Last week it was announced that Mike Elias was promoted to President of Baseball Operations last offseason. If that seems like a weird sentence it’s because it is.
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear the Orioles decided that Mike Elias’ promotion to POBO needed to be kept secret. Even the reporting in the Athletic remains vague. The most definitive statement for when this promotion happened is the words “last offseason”. Was he promoted seconds after the Orioles were swept by the Royals? Before the Winter meetings? In February because Rubenstein was so super impressed by the pitching staff they put together in the offseason?
Last offseason the Orioles announced a bunch of hirings, firings and promotions. What about this Mike Elias promotion was so special that nobody could know about it? Foul Territory had the theory that they wanted to wait for a good moment to announce the promotion and there just hasn’t been a good Orioles moment until that Dodgers walkoff on 2131 night.
The theory made me chuckle imagining Mike Elias saying “Not now, everyone is mad we got swept.” and then “Not now, everyone is mad I didn’t sign anyone.” and then “Not now, we stink and I have to fire Brandon.” and finally “IDK maybe we just don’t tell anyone.”
However over the past 7 years of the Elias era I haven’t seen a ton of evidence that they care what fans think and they’ve put out a host of tone deaf press releases so what difference would one more make.
The most plausible explanation for the secrecy that I can think of is that they didn’t view it as a big change, didn’t want to answer questions about it and figured they’d hire the new GM and then announce the promotion in one fell swoop.
So I guess he really meant all that huh.
Regardless of the reason for the secrecy, my main takeaway from the fact that Elias was promoted is that it confirms that Rubenstein is fully bought into Elias’ vision for the Orioles and that he’s going to be around for a while.
I supposed I should have already known this because that’s what Rubenstein has said every time he’s been asked about Elias’ future with the team. My reaction to all those pro-Elias quotes was: “Well of course that’s what he’s going to say, the alternative would cause a massive media distraction.”
I always held some belief that Rubenstein was gently wading into his role as team owner and that eventually he would replace Elias and Sig with his own hand picked guys but now it appears that Rubenstein has put his money where his mouth is and has committed to Elias for at least the next few seasons.
Rubenstein has been consistently complimentary of Elias and maybe I should learn to just believe him but I do wonder if there is some buyer’s remorse with this commitment. According to the reporting the promotion happened in the offseason before the Orioles were a punchline. If I promoted someone and almost doubled their operating budget and in the subsequent year they were substantially worse in every measurable way whether you’re looking at wins, attendance or just money I would feel like maybe I made a mistake. That’s just me though, I’ve never made a billion dollars in private equity.
This promotion and assumed extension for Mike Elias (again the reporting doesn’t mention a contract extension but it makes sense) means that David Rubenstein is now responsible for everything this front office does.
Over the past couple of seasons there have been reports that Rubenstein has deferred almost entirely to Mike Elias. People have criticized him for this but I’ve always had the perspective that you’re better off if your new owner doesn’t come in trying to immediately change everything.
The example I think of is how Matt Ishbia detonated the Phoenix Suns fun young core that had just made the finals to make a “win now” move and now there’s not an NBA team further away from winning the finals than the Phoenix Suns despite having a very enthusiastic owner.
So with that in mind I thought it was fine for Rubenstein to let baseball people make baseball decisions and didn’t hold him accountable for Mike Elias’ detrimentally conservative approach. However now that Rubenstein has promoted Elias he is no longer a bystander in this operation.
Whatever Elias does from here happens because Rubenstein green lighted this promotion. There’s no more “Well this is the group I inherited” excuse. Whether or not Rubenstein hired Elias the fact that he promoted him makes him Rubenstein’s guy.
So what’s this new GM going to be doing?
In addition to the reporting around when this promotion occurred being vague the reason is vague as well. The stated reason in the Athletic is “to build out the front office” and when you look into other reporting/ commentary around the promotion you hear more or less the phrase “The GM will handle more of the day top day responsibilities” It’s unclear to me what that really means and what the difference is between having a POBO/GM combo running the show and having a GM/Assistant GM (I’m gonna start saying AGM) combo atop your organization.
There are several front offices that have a POBO + GM structure. In my brief research of how these teams divide up the work between POBO and GM there doesn’t seem to be a set list of tasks that either role takes on. Obviously plenty of teams don’t have a POBO and some teams with a POBO don’t have a GM. So it’s kind of a choose your own adventure as far as how you want to divvy up the labor.
Elias has done a lot of good things for the Orioles organizationally, bringing them into the current century from both an analytics and international scouting perspective. If his full time focus was to make sure that the Orioles were keeping up with other organizations or even trailblazing in important areas such as those, while allowing someone more adept at negotiation to handle that part of the job I could see that working beautifully.
Unfortunately there are a few factors that I believe will keep that from happening.
First of all, the one name that’s been associated with the open GM position was Josh Barfield. Maybe Barfield is a great guy and would be perfect for the role but Barfield has been an assistant GM for less than 2 years. During that time the White Sox didn’t sign anyone of note. So what exactly is he bringing to the table in the signing big free agents department? Advice on how to sign Austin Slater?
Before that he was a director of player development for 4 years with the Diamondbacks. Which is fine experience but player development isn’t where the Orioles lack. Overall it points to the Orioles targeting less experienced candidates who fit with the Orioles current philosophy rather than bringing in someone with experience who might dare to push back.
The Orioles have been extremely well aligned during the Mike Elias era. Everyone seems to be on the same page pulling in the same direction. That’s part of why they never have leaks and are able to keep secrets from the media so well. Leaks generally come from dissatisfied employees looking to cause some trouble or start a narrative or just venting a little bit to someone they probably shouldn’t.
How easy would it have been on the day Brandon Hyde was fired for a dissatisfied member of the front office to tell the Baltimore Banner that Mike had actually recently been promoted? And yet nobody did.
I have a hard time imagining Mike and Sig going through all they’ve gone through building this operation and getting everyone aligned that “this is how things should be done” just to bring someone in who is going to pull in the opposite direction and make them the second more powerful person in the building.
In that same vein does this new GM get to bring in any of their own guys? Do they get a say in who the next manager is? Who the hitting coaches are? Are they allowed to hire a new analytics team? I rather doubt it.
In response to the question I posed earlier; what will this new GM be doing? My best guess is whatever Mike Elias wants them to.
Who wants this job?
Every 2-3 years someone agrees to coach the New York Jets because there’s just not very many of these jobs out there. So somebody will want the Orioles GM job, the question is who?
Even though they’re hiring for the GM job it’s clearly a second in command position so that rules out anyone who is currently the lead decision maker for a team. This might seem obvious but if the Orioles had decided to move on from Mike Elias they would have had the opportunity to try to poach away an acting GM.
It’s not impossible but I think this mostly rules out anyone that is currently the #2 guy in their organization. I don’t see guys like Carter Hawkins or Preston Mattingly making a lateral move to work under Mike Elias, there’s just not much upside. If things go well Elias will just remain on top and he’s young enough he could be POBO for the next 30 years easily (assuming he mixes in a salad here and there). If things go poorly you probably get fired as part of the cleaning house.
Those guys are better off staying with their current orgs and interviewing for top jobs until they get one.
I could see a world where someone like Brandon Gomes is interviewing for the Nationals job this offseason and they tell him they’d like to hire him but they don’t know if he can succeed outside of LA and then he feels like he needs to prove he’s not a Dodgers merchant. Seems like a bit of a long shot though.
So you’re looking at a pool of candidates who are assistant GMs that would view being the stated #2 guy in an org as a definitive promotion.
Who are these guys?
It’s an interesting pool because it can be pretty easily reduced to about 75 candidates. I considered listing out all the assistant GMs that would view the Orioles new GM position as a promotion but I paused and asked myself what would be interesting about that.
Although to be fair it would be nice if information on front offices were more widely available. As I did my research to find candidates that I liked I found that only a handful of organizations have a full directory with bios, most have a directory with no information other than names and titles (which as we know from the Orioles still listing Mike Elias as GM isn’t even necessarily accurate) and some orgs just have no readily available information. So maybe a list of all the assistant GMs in baseball and where they’ve they’ve worked would be useful
Nevertheless I decided to look around the league and pick out a handful of front offices that it would be cool to steal an executive away from.
The Dodgers
The Dodgers are an elite organization. If I may continue to reference The Athletic, they surveyed 40 MLB executives for their thoughts on who the best front offices are and the Dodgers were voted the best by a lot.
You read the commentary from other executive about the Dodgers and they anonymously admire them for their roster management, how they continue to win on the margins despite having the budget to justify ignoring the margin and how they continue to have a top farm system. They are a team that does everything right.
Obviously a Dodgers executive wouldn’t be able to bring along the Dodgers mighty payroll but they would have a crystal clear idea of what great looks like from an operations perspective.
Their SVP of Baseball Operations Josh Byrnes has been a GM before, so he’d be a great candidate but it seems like he’ll be vying for the Nationals top job so if he’s off the table I’d also consider Jeffrey Kingston who has spent 7 years with Dodgers as an AGM after coming over from the Mariners where he was the AGM for 9 years.
The Brewers
I’ve had my gripes with the “do more with less” type front offices whose main value proposition is that they provide a winning team while costing the owner as little as possible. I don’t really want to see the Orioles do more with less, I’d like to see them do more with more.
BUT the Brewers are widely recognized as one of the most analytically advanced organizations and I think it would be good for the Orioles to have someone come in and look at what they’re doing from an analytical perspective and give them an idea if they’re up to par or behind the pack compared to the industry leader.
Also when the Brewers were rolling this year there was a lot written about their success and I really liked how they were proud of the balance they’d struck between analytical and old school baseball. I’m not saying they found the perfect ratio and now they’re going to win the World Series but the idea that that’s what they were searching for is interesting to me.
They have a trio of AGMs, Karl Mueller, Matt Kleine and Will Hudgins. Mueller and Kleine are long-time Brewers while Hudgins is a bit newer. All of them are experienced enough to be considered for the Orioles job.
The Phillies
I am intrigued at the idea of bringing in someone that has experience working with Dave Dombrowski. The Phillies are a very analytical front office, especially their AGM Anirudh Kilambi who I think would be an excellent candidate, but if you’ve been working with the Phillies for a few years you know that it’s all about going for it. It could be a clunkyish fit with the Orioles “don’t risk it” front office but if they could find someone to bridge the gap between those styles it could work.
The Rays
Sometimes you just gotta hand it to them. This front office has the juice, every year it seems someone leaves Tampa and begins a successful front office career wherever they land. You’d think after this happened several times they’d suffer too much brain drain to keep going but they haven’t produced a dud yet. #JusticeforChaimBloom
The Rays currently have 4 AGMs. Will Cousins, Chanda Lawdermilk, Carlos Rodriguez and Kevin Ibach. Moving from a 4 way tie for AGM in Tampa to being the clear cut second in command in Baltimore could be very tempting.
Final Thoughts
I’ve seen some people float out that the new GM position could be a promotion for Eve Rosenbaum. If that’s the case then this is much more of a poitnless shuffling of the deck chairs than it currently appears to be. I don’t really know what the difference between GM Mike Elias/AGM Eve Rosenbaum and POBO Mike Elias/GM Eve Rosenbaum would be except for the it would make Eve Sig’s boss.
The Dishwasher 
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