Mike Elias quietly received a promotion in the offseason, per reporting from Ken Rosenthal and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic. His previous title with the Orioles was general manager but he was promoted to president of baseball operations before the 2025 campaign began. No announcement was made and the development wasn’t publicly reported until today. Today’s report adds that the O’s plan to hire a GM to work under Elias.
The title change is largely ceremonial. Elias was already the leader in the Baltimore front office. Bumping his title presumably came with some kind of pay increase and contract extension but his job duties should be essentially the same.
He was originally hired by the O’s in November of 2018. The club had just seen their competitive window slam shut. They were a good team for most of the decade up until that point but many of their biggest investments had fallen flat as key players aged.
The early years of the Elias tenure saw the club clearly in rebuilding mode. They spent almost nothing in free agency for many years. Established major league players were traded for prospects. The club lost at least 108 games in each full season from 2018 to 2021.
The consequence of all that losing was the ability to build up a strong farm system. MLB had not yet implemented a draft lottery and the associated rules around teams getting strong draft picks in consecutive years. From 2019 to 2022, the O’s had one of the top five picks in the draft. They took Adley Rutschman first overall in 2019, followed by Heston Kjerstad second overall, Colton Cowser fifth and Jackson Holliday first in the following years. They were also able to grab Gunnar Henderson with a second-round pick in 2019 and Jordan Westburg with a competitive balance round pick in 2020.
The roots of that system eventually blossomed in the majors. The O’s went 83-79 in 2022. They didn’t make the playoffs but that was a huge step forward from their 110-loss campaign in the prior season. More progress followed, as they won 101 and 91 games in 2023 and 2024 respectively. The former campaign saw them win the American League East, while the latter led to a Wild Card spot.
The O’s were swept out of the postseason in both of those years but the trend lines appeared to be fairly good. The club was winning and a lot of the core players were still young, controllable and affordable.
During that span, there had been a change in ownership. The Angelos family sold the club to a group led by David Rubenstein. That sale became official in March of 2024. The 2024-2025 offseason was therefore the first of the Rubenstein era. It seems the new owner was pleased with the way the front office was being run, based on the news of this promotion.
There was plenty of optimism around the club as of last winter, though a lot of that has dissipated since. Many expected Rubenstein to take the O’s to a greater level of spending on the player payroll. The O’s did sign a few guys but didn’t do anything really bold. Their three-year, $49.5MM deal for Tyler O’Neill was a bit bigger than anything they had done in recent memory but not by too much. They also made a few one-year investments in older pitchers like Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano and Andrew Kittredge.
Those investments largely didn’t work out. Many of the club’s core players got injured and/or underperformed this year. Put together, that resulted in a dreary first half, which led to a deadline sell-off. The O’s traded away Morton, Kittredge and plenty of other players ahead of the deadline. They are now 68-77 and 9.5 games back of a playoff spot. They will certainly miss the postseason and will likely finish with a losing record as well.
Elias received his promotion prior to all of that happening but it will naturally lead to more pressure to turn things around. The O’s still have a lot of talent on the roster but they traded away a lot of their bullpen and might be without Félix Bautista for all of 2026. The rotation is also a big question mark with Morton gone, Sugano an impending free agent and Grayson Rodriguez having missed the entire 2025 season.
It’s possible the club can be better next year simply by getting healthier seasons from their controllable core but the front office might also want to increase the margin for error by more aggressively making offseason upgrades. Time will tell what kind of approach they take. As for the GM search, it’s unclear what sort of timeline they have in mind but they will likely want to make a hire by the early part of the offseason, if not sooner.
Photo courtesy of Tim Heitman, Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
This a weird situation where being promoted might actually indicate the team is losing faith in you.
Idk about that. He’s far from the worst GM in MLB.
Built elite farm system. Won 101 91 games. I don’t see any reason to lose faith. They promoted to keep him.
Built an elite farm system but couldn’t maintain it! Has yet to prove himself in having the skills in targeting trades that will benefit the team… scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Cheap not effective!
@ Aiden Awe
Classic situation in business, “you don’t have to run faster than the bear — you just need to run faster than the other hunter”.
it’ll be interesting what a new face in the FO brings. I hope they don’t just find another Yes Man who is just happy to be there, like Brandon and Tony have been as manager. I don’t want a FO that is butting heads but someone willing to ask, “why” or “why not” to the power above them is actually good for the org.
Seems like that this season has taxed the goodwill that Rubenstein and Elias have enjoyed… they need to right the ship and make some uncharacteristic Orioles moves and aggressively sign talent to grab the AL East lead next season, no more hoping the other clubs falter. Time to bash them in the face and throw your best stuff.
I see that Breslow is also looking for a GM for the Red Sox. Hope the O’s doing lose out to them in finding a good talented person.
Not really. It is frequently a defensive move as another team can hire away another team’s GM by giving him a promotion into the position of President of Baseball Operations, even if the GM is under contract. However, lateral moves aren’t allowed – a team cannot hire away a GM under contract with another team to become its GM.
His trading for Burnes a few years ago was a good move. Burnes wanting to sign closer to home was not a surprise. The orioles just massively under achieved this year. There’s still talent and he’s still an elite GM
If only he’d bring in some top of the rotation starting pitching.
…other than Bradish, Rogers, and Burnes you must mean to say, sillywabbit.
So a trade he made a “few years ago”makes him “elite “, what does the crap he’s done since then make him?
Barnes wanted $. I’m sure if it was the same he would pick Arizona but the Baltimore offer wasn’t the same. It was less. Both Burnes and Baltimore said as much. And getting the draft pick and having the $ to invest elsewhere was the much better decision than signing a 30 something pitcher with plummeting k rate. They had no interest in signing him as they should have.
Could be why he was too “busy” to address any of the team’s needs last winter…
You can’t force health to cooperate. They went into the season with 8 potential rotation members on the IL, including the injuries to Eflin, GRod and Suarez that occurred after the start of spring training. There was very little left in free agency by that point.
You’re tripping. Bradish pitched like a #2 at worst in 2023 and 2024. Ditto Eflin and GRod last year. Also, you left Suarez and McDermott off your list.
Agreed, though they may not need one now with Rogers and Bradish pitching the way they are. But they should still go for one this offseason imo.
Bradish is definitely a #2 if not a low end Ace.
Bradish has picked up right where he left off. As long as he stays healthy the O’s are fine with him. Rogers has been elite. The horrible O’s rotation that began this season is in large part already gone and probably will be totally gone next season. I doubt they try to bring back either Eflin or Sugano. They’ll probably be replaced with stronger arms but it remains to be seen.
Not only that, but three out of the five expected to be in the rotation had serious arm/shoulder/oblique injuries coming into the season.
It isn’t a shock that two guys that needed a UCL brace on their elbows eventually needed surgury. That’s a logical progression of that injury. It isn’t a shock to assume the guy that has suffered months long “oblique” injuries for the past two seasons, comes up with one again, and debuts in spring with much lower than expected velocity. It is called a pattern at that point.
And why would you expect him and count on him to stay healthy at this point. Think about his recent health track record.
Nobody expected Rogers to come on like gangbusters as he has, and it would be silly to bank on that happening in the future.
What gives you any indication that this front office is going to buck the decades long trend of not going out and getting “stronger arms” and will instead let the top talent sign elsewhere, and over pay for the scraps like Morton and Sugano again, and then try to rely on their in house, broken down arms like they always do?
Well Bradish was/is a #1. 4th place Cy Young votes in ’23, so, yeah, Ace.
Dodgers
You’re using the same argument I’ve used for several years now and you won’t get anywhere with those begoggled in orange.
Bradish had 2/3 of a season of high level stuff, otherwise he was a #2 before the injury. Rogers hard hit rate and unfathomably unsustainable BABIP will regress. He’s probably a #3 type of guy.
Eflin pitched very well in a few starts down the stretch in 2024, marks well above anything else in his career. The orange blinded folks thought that would just carry forward automatically. he’s a #3. Same with Suarez, who had #3 numbers out of nowhere last year but broke down in September.
The rest, I’ve posted about many times before, are back end of the rotation guys. Wells is ultimately a bullpen guy, he will pitch well in stretches and break down. Rodriguez is either injured or about to be but the orange blinded fans believe he will suddenly become 100% healthy and make 30+ ace level starts for the next 8 years. Or that Kremer, who has been hot and cold his whole career, will suddenly be another high end guy.
Take a look at 2023’s lack of injuries, 1-run record, high leverage hitting. That was a 90 win team who had things break right. They even sold in 2022 when they were 1 game out of a wild card at the deadline.
The fact that the team didn’t announce this makes me think that they were almost embarrassed about it. Given the disastrous offseason and 2025, I would be.
By the way, finally 1 extension. Basallo is the only Oriole with a commitment for the 2028 season.
We’ve seen this story play out too many times with this organization. They believe in their own prospects’ hype. They take a small sample of success, and then bank on it like it is a lock that is what they will see going forward.
I am not saying these guys are bums, Grayson appeared to have some real talent. But, he’s fragile. And even when he comes back from what is currently going on with him, it is a wonder what he will be, and how much you can count on him as a rotation arm.
Bradish and Wells also have numerous arm injuries and are coming back from repairs. A lot of guys come back fine, but there are enough that do not. Case being John Means. He looked pretty lights out for a while, too. Then came a Tommy John, and then another.
If they are going to bank on in house arms and the bottom of the barrel types again, expect the same results as this year. Sure the record might be better if the position players stay healthy, but without good pitching, you’re not winning.
The track record of success for pitchers returning from Tommy John and other injuries is so high now. if you’re going to count on O’s pitchers failing to come back from injury then you have to count on Gerrit Cole and Corbin Burnes failing as well. Jacob deGrom has come back strong from TJS as have too many other examples to name. As to whether the O’s go out and get some more strong starters, you may be right they don’t do enough, but I think the pressure is so high on Elias now he has to do more. It may be another trade like with Burnes and Rogers instead of a big FA splash. We’ll have to wait and see.
I think the O’s saw something in Rogers they thought they could work with. Somehow it’s paid off, and he’s been awesome all year. He may not be as good next season, but he’ll probably be better than, say, Dylan Cease has been this season.
I don’t have to speculate on other pitchers, I only have to speculate on the O’s pitchers. Each one of these guys dealt with more than just a TJ issue. The O’s know how to ruin pitchers. And I bet that Rogers is doing something new with his pitches that will result in an injury for him as well. Just the nature of the beast.
I doubt anyone working under him will have any authority.
GM is a title which doesn’t mean so much anymore, as it is the POBO who actually runs things in today’s baseball world.
This article even tells you that the title is ceremonial. Much like the Co-VP of baseball operations that Angelos deployed. It doesn’t mean anything at all.
Congratulations on the promotion. Always nice to get recognized for your efforts.
I secretly farted in June.
I heard rumblings about that.
Mike Ellias is the Oli Marmol of GMs. Gets promoted for failing and failing time and time again
Failing time and time again? Care to elaborate on your viewpoint or provide examples of GMs who have perfected the profession and get nothing wrong?
@ba$ebal Dombrowski, AA, Friedman and Preller are the best GMs in the game
Dombrowski fired after draining the.minors dry on how many teams?? Preller has how many world series wins?
I would argue that the Mariners GM Justin Hollander has set his team up for future success the best. M’s have the 3 rated core of players & the second best rated farm system with 8 players in the top 100. He hasn’t emptied the farm to go all in & consequently, the future looks bright. Can’t change the past lack of championships, but you can improve the now to better ones odds. He’s done all of this with an ownership group who’s fiscally handcuffing the team too.
Then who is David Stearns lol? The O’s have been terrible this year but still a very strong foundation. Hopefully a little more investment this offseason than last
@camsenyards46 I don’t like Stearns either, you can tell by my username
Why do you keep getting banned again and again?
Well, if you must fail, fail upwards.
I’m not sure that paying another executive is something I want to see as a fan. I want to see all the financial resources utilized to acquire the talent necessary to push this team over the edge for a deep postseason run and to extend existing talent, before I see it used for a position in the front office with a good amount of redundancy built into it.
I don’t think the six figures that executive is going to get is going to be difference between you guys signing and not signing a difference making free agent.
When you hear comments about razor thin margins and similar sentiments, it’s still not something I’d expect them to invest their financial capacity in.
Will probably be 3 or 4 million. Still nothing though. A good gm can do much more than any 4m player. They can even find you a 4m player who gives you 5 or 8 or 10 million production.
The whole promotion thing is usually to prevent other teams from poaching your personell. Mlb has a rule that you have to let a front office person under contract go when another team offers him a promotion and you do not match that.
That is why Assistant GMs get promoted to GM and GMs to POBO.
Maybe someone was trying to poach elias. Or someone wanted to poach an important AGM so he was promoted to GM and Elias to POBO. Basically title inflation to keep personell around.
The Orioles need to spend, a GM is not going to help .They should give Schwaber $250 and 10 years. Tucker $500 and 13 years, Mad Max $50 for one and a half, and $200 for Naylor. Then, they can trade the flop Holiday for Vientos or someone.
They shold also extend Henderson and Rushman for $400 each, minimum.
$250 seems low. Will be more like $140 million.
one thousand dollars seems too cheap… if that’s millions, they aren’t the dodgers…
If there’s a flop it’s Rutschman, not Holiday. Clearly you haven’t been following the team lately. And Henderson has taken a pretty big step back this season.
They are signing Tucker and Schwarber, have you lost your mind. I think so.
Adley will be lucky to get 4 for $60 million. Cal Raleigh got 6 for $105 million and is so much better than Adley. Gunnar strikes out way too much. I am not giving him anywhere near $400 million.
I must be the only one who thinks this, but no other GM believes their in-house press more than Mike Elias. People must have amnesia, but just last year, 2024 – the O’s were the best team in baseball, and could have been ALL IN. The Tigers were shopping Tarik Skubal to them at the trade deadline (it’s hard to believe that now, since the Tigers have been the absolute best team in MLB since then) – and Mike Elias passed. All it would have cost is Jackson Holliday and another top prospect (let’s pretend for a minute it was Adley Rutschman). Mike Elias believes those 2 are future hall of famers, and didn’t make the deal, and the rest is history. Skubal is about to win his 2nd CY Young in a row, the Tigers are amazing because of him, and the O’s have been absolute garbage, and these can’t miss future hall of famers all look totally ordinary and pedestrian. Mike Elias is scared of making the big deals to get his team over the hump.
Skubal wasn’t moving last year…
The Tigers were NEVER shopping Skubal. Why let facts get into the way of your comment.
…. you’re not the only one who believes in alternative reality, unfortunately.
I’m just hoping for some better preparation this off season. You made minimal moves to bolster the rotation, believing it would be enough to keep you in the playoff race until you get your best pitchers (Bradish/Wells) back from injury while hoping they haven’t skipped a beat. And while Wells and Bradish have looked exactly like they did before their injuries, the moves made were not nearly enough for their current contributions to matter. Couple that with a very questionable (imo) signing of Tyler O’ Neill and the last offseason was just bad.
Hopefully he doesn’t rest on his laurels now that he does have a healthy Bradish and Wells in addition to a currently otherworldly Trevor Rogers. Get a top of rotation starter and a mid rotation guy, to push Kremer and Povich to long relief or competing for that last rotation spot.
The offense has to be better but you do have young guys still knocking on the door as far as position players go. Holliday has made big strides especially compared to last year. Recently hes been taking way more walks which you love to see for a leadoff hitter. I think hes better suited for the 2 slot but it is what it is. He looks the part of a 25+ homer and 20+ steals guy, though he needs to work on said baserunning, maybe talk to Henderson about that. Speaking of Gunnar, dudes been a demon on the base path but hes had a big power outage this year. Love Cowser and Westburg but they NEED to be healthy for the long haul otherwise you can’t rely on them.
TL;DR, Elias has plenty of work to do this off season. Particularly on the pitching staff. You can’t just hope that pitchers are going to stay healthy or return to form. You have to better prepare for worst case scenarios. I imagine the offense looks fairly similar personnel wise next year even if it does need some tweaks in my opinion. The real question is whether Elias is willing to take a chance on impact players even via trade or free agency even if they’re pricey.
How many of the large wads of cash pitchers worked out from the 24-25 off-season? Burns no, snell no, verlander?, scherzer?, flaghtery?
Only fried was a win it seems from the top 10 and you don’t outbid the yankees.
For years they had a top ranked farm full of promising position players. Perhaps trading more than they did would have balanced their lineup between offense & pitching.
Their pitching has been good the past month at least. It’s their hitting that’s sucked most of the year. And they’ve traded away Kyle Stowers (perhaps better than all the hitters they kept), Joey Ortiz, DL Hall and several other guys for Zach Eflin, Seranthony Dominguez and Gregory Soto. The main reason the O’s sucked this year was because of injuries, but Elias should not have signed such old starters to replace injured guys. And two offseasons in a row he did almost nothing to improve the bullpen.
This is really the only month to consider because their ace Bradish is back, Rogers looks like a Corbin Burnes replacement (except Burnes is down with TJS) and Wells and Suarez are back. The trainwreck that was their staff — mainly Morton and Gibson in rotation and some woeful relievers — are gone. The staff rotation is more or less back to normal now — though GRod is still out and it’s hard to imagine Rogers being Skubal good next season. The big problem is still the bullpen with Bautista down again. As long as Bradish stays healthy and Rogers pitches pretty well, the O’s rotation looks like it’s got a solid foundation for next season. They still need another starter though. It’s their hitting that has sucked all this year and is more worrisome now.
Bradish was never an ace.
It’s also their hitting that let them down in the WC series in 24. The pitchers pitched to a 1.50 era for that series.
You’re forgetting Trevor Rogers. He has dominated this season to the point that just today MLB.com today ranked him the 5th best starter in their power pitcher list. The O’s may have no aces or they may have two already. Have to see how it plays out — but they do need another starter. Snell is dominant but not durable, and he was never going to play for a team not on the West Coast. Fried was always going to the Yankees or the Dodgers. O’s had no chance at either of them even if they matched the offers of the Dodgers and Yankees. But they don’t need an ace any more than the Brewers needed an ace. They just need some good starters, a better bullpen and some guys who didn’t forget how to hit.
how much better would this team have been with Nathan Evoldi this season?
niched:
Trevor Rogers is significantly out pitching his underlying metrics. The guy is due for a major regression. Do not expect him to pitch anywhere near this well next year.
The Orioles have a down year way below expectations and prediction and now he’s the worst GM ever? Give me a break. Sure he did not land a number 1 starter before this year, but who would have been willing to part with a number 1? And who would want to give the Orioles a number 1 with the on field talent they have. Now injuries have had a huge impact on success of this team, that’s obvious. They have really shown grit and moxie at the end this year and that’s a good place to start towards next year. They’ll be back.
Elias had a terrible offseason. Hopefully this year they will spend more money and spend it wisely. It’s time to put up or shut up for Elias. No more excuses.
who would have been willing to part with a number 1
White Sox
AI — Easy to say now in hindsight, but Garrett (in the off-season of 2024) didn’t have a history that screams long term answer/TOR. He was a pretty big leap of faith. (And the extension wasn’t gonna happen in Baltimore either).
Just saying, Garrett wasn’t an obvious slam dunk TOR as he does now. (And Boston didn’t move any of their top 3 prospects to get him, unlike what people blame Elias for in not trading their top prospects).
If Elias gets negative marks for not trading the farm for Garret, he should get a key to the city for not signing Burnes. But folks love hatin’ more than lovin’ around here.
No hindsight. I said it before and on the day Boston traded for him. He was tor in 2024. Same exact pitcher last year as this year.
Now that Bradish and Wells are back, the Orioles rotation has been quite good lately — especially with Trevor Rogers suddenly pitching like Blake Snell (which probably won’t hold up, at least not at that level). What’s been so concerning about the O’s lately is their offense. They really miss Ramon Laureano, especially (and obviously Kyle Stowers). They have not hit well at all for most of the season — and their best hitters of late have been, uh, Dylan Beavers and Jeremiah Jackson. Who? I think the O’s still need another starter at least, but if their starters are mostly healthy next year they may need more help in the lineup. And as usual they definitely need help in the bullpen. The bullpen is especially where Elias came up short this season and last.
Can’t say we miss Stowers since he did about nothing here.
When the O’s traded him he had a .797 OPS. Yet all the attention was on all the other young O’s players. Stowers may end up being the best of all of them — but then again maybe not. But most guys aren’t awesome right away — and some who are great early on end up regressing — like basically the entire O’s offense this season (with the exception of Holliday).
37 Abs and 13-0 K/W ratio. He was awful when he was first dealt to Miami. The truth is that they fixed his swing. Like the O’s fixed Rogers. Both guys benefitted from the change.
If it is true that the Marlins “fixed Stowers’ swing” then they certainly deserve credit, and they should be hired as consultants to fix Adley and Cowsers’ swing too. But it’s not like Stowers wasn’t hitting when the O’s traded him (797 OPS like I already said), and he was always regarded as a strong hitting prospect with a high ceiling.
I mean I don’t think the 37 major league at bats were really a sign that he was hitting. Pretty meaningless sample.
He wasn’t hitting very well in Norfolk. There’s a lot of stuff out there on Stowers’ new swing in Miami online.
He’s being bumped up to take care of organizational duties and he’s gonna hire somebody who knows baseball to run the baseball part
Probably just to add a hopefully bright mind. Will also decrease his work load. Probably makes the final call on bigger decisions.
Want to improve, get some freakin’ good pitchers. It is really simple. Those with good pitching win ball games.
Like the Pirates and their good pitching!
even the best pitchers can’t have a negative ERA.
bats seem to disappear when there are ducks on the pond. except for players previously not even on the radar in Emmanuel Rivera and Bullfrog. (although Beavers and Bassalo are making great strides in their short major league careers to join that list).
Like the Tampa Bay Rays when they had that era of sustained success. Like most world series winners.
I like that this means they will hire a GM. Can’t hurt to have another savant
gorav114:
Where’s the first savant?