Mike Elias did it to himself. There's no one left to blame now. The manager he hired? Fired last season. The player he drafted first overall in 2019 — a practical and symbolic marker of the start of Elias' tenure? Elias just traded him, and to an American League East rival, no less.
If the Orioles don't turn things around, and quickly, Elias is the only one left who any blame can truly be pinned on if fans stop showing up. Ownership isn't going to fire itself.
There are a lot of directions to take a post-trade-deadline analysis. Adley Rutschman is gone, dealt to the Red Sox along with catcher Jake Rogers, for a package headlined by pitching prospect Anthony Eyanson and two others — talented arms of the kind Elias largely avoided drafting in his first several years on the job, when he preferred to stock Baltimore's farm system with position players.
A lot of those players — Colton Cowser, Jordan Westburg, Jackson Holliday, and pour one out for Kyle Stowers — have dealt with injuries, and then limited playing time even when healthy. Former manager Brandon Hyde, and now first-year manager Craig Albernaz, both seem to have been directed to platoon players by lefty-righty splits rather than let young players simply develop every day -- and learn the fundamentals of defense, too.
Elias could draft the talent and assemble a system to identify it. The Orioles haven't been able to develop it successfully enough, or keep it healthy, since.
In 2022, 2023, and 2024, with nothing to lose and no expectations, the Orioles played free. They haven't since being swept out of their second straight postseason in '24. The pressure has mounted, and along the way, each edition of the roster has had a glaring weakness. Amid a run of injuries last year, it was a lack of viable major league pitching. It was embarrassing. This year, the front office tilted toward loading up on starting pitching but still didn't sign a bona fide No. 1 starter in free agency, and left holes in the bullpen and on defense. Simple defense. Embarassing. As recently as Friday, Elias pointed to injuries, bad luck, and bad defense as reasons for a sub-.500 record.
He said the front-office would re-evaluate how it values defense? Really? These are basic things.
How about a balanced roster for once? One that feels like it has the support of the front office?
Hyde was the fall guy first. Rutschman, who's battled injuries and underperformance — though not this year, when healthy — represents another, even though he's far from to blame for all of it, though maybe some. He also could have committed to Baltimore long-term under the franchise's new ownership group, post-Angelos family, presumably. Giving Samuel Basallo a long-term deal first after he was drafted by Elias later seemed to torpedo that chance, though, if it were ever there.
Nevertheless, Elias is now closing in on his eighth year in Baltimore, hired in November 2018 and handed the No. 1 pick that became Rutschman less than eight months later. The Orioles stunk up the joint for three years to stockpile draft choices and lost a lot of games. Great.
They finally reached the postseason two straight years, in 2023 and 2024, but didn't win a playoff game either time, looked overmatched, and haven't been back since. Still, Elias says that despite what just happened at the deadline — four trades, all sells, headlined by Rutschman, Taylor Ward (dealt to Seattle for three pitching prospects), Tyler Wells, and Dean Kremer — he still thinks Baltimore can make the playoffs. The one notable subtraction that didn't happen: left-hander Trevor Rogers, who stayed put, the closest thing to a "buy" the Orioles made all week, but now does he want to sign a long-term deal after this season?
It doesn't add up. Fewer things are adding up and making sense as time goes on.
Fans were just starting to come back to pack Camden Yards, at least on weekends, and attendance is down from 2024. The pressure is back on the players, and on Elias, to put together a roster that can win consistently, given the backing it has from ownership and, all things being equal, from the city and its baseball fans.
Right now, after trading away what was the face of the franchise, that's not the case.
"Things don't last forever in sports, and it's my job as a GM to manage the roster and make really hard decisions about balancing the present and the future," Elias told reporters on a video call Monday night. "We're going to have to make moves that are uncomfortable and require some short-term heartache at times. This was tough."
He's right. Things don't last forever in sports. GMs don't stay around forever, either, and Monday may just have marked the beginning of the end of his tenure.