Photography courtesy Baltimore Orioles
Photography courtesy Baltimore Orioles
Mike Elias deeply appreciates the rich history of the Baltimore Orioles. When Elias took over as executive vice president and general manager in 2018, he enthusiastically contacted franchise icons Cal Ripken, Jr., Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Eddie Murray to let them know about his plan for an overhaul.
“We have more than our share of Hall of Fame players,” says Elias, an Alexandria, Virginia, native. “We have a lot of good resources there. And they are all around the area.”
Those players probably like how Elias, a former assistant general manager with the Houston Astros (2016–18), helped the Orioles become relevant again, starting in 2022. It took a few years because the Orioles organization was in difficult shape. Baltimore lost more than 100 games in each of the 2018, 2019, and 2021 seasons.
“The organization was fractured quite a bit,” Elias recalls.
Who expected this turn around? The Orioles are the only team in modern MLB history to go from 110-or-more losses in a season (2021) to a winning record (83-79) the following year.
Things got even better. The 42-year-old Elias, a Yale graduate who played baseball there, earned the 2023 Major League Baseball Executive of the Year award after Baltimore won the American League East and league-best 101 games that year.
Baltimore went 91-71 in 2024 and returned to the playoffs. The winning likely won’t stop, as the Orioles’ minor league system consistently receives national praise.
Was getting the general manager’s job like a homecoming for you? I went to elementary and high school in Northern Virginia. The Nationals didn’t exist yet. So, the Orioles were the local major league product. We watched the games on TV and went up to Camden Yards. They were good in the late-’90s. Cal was a local hero for any young kid playing baseball in the area, including me. I grew up with him. I still have a lot of family in the area. I used to scout this part of the country. I am familiar with the area. It was a big draw for me.
Talk about how important it has been to get the Orioles back to winning? The way I look at it, no one has been able to string together a long stretch of sustained competitiveness and excellence in the American League East in this modern era. You have to go back to the ’70s to see three playoff appearances in a row. We are trying to solve that. Uniquely, for a stretch of time the Orioles were the top organization in baseball. They just did everything well and were dominant on the field. They were known as a nimble, smart organization. That’s what we sought to tap into and reestablish because that was a big part of the Orioles’ identity. The fans, especially the ones that have been around a long time, or have multiple generations of fandom, have that sight of excellence in Orioles’ history.
Has it been exciting to interact with some Oriole all-time greats like Ripken, Palmer, and Robinson? One of the great things about the Orioles is the history of the team. My first couple of days on the job, I called them. Jim Palmer is one of our main broadcasters, Cal lives in the area and is in our ownership group. Brooks passed away (in 2024), but he was so gracious, and inspiring. He would come talk to the team. He was proud when the group started winning in 2022. Eddie Murray works for us and comes to spring training. They have devoted their lives to the Orioles.
When you arrived from Houston, you stressed analytics. Has that been your biggest impact? There wasn’t a lot of alignment between the front office, ownership, and player development. We had a few problems structurally and one was the lack of a modern analytics department. We ramped up investment and infrastructure, built staffing, and the data science and software engineering spaces. I think the track record that I have brought from the Astros and Cardinals allowed us to do so quickly. Now, I think we have a first-rate, very healthy organization with a good farm system, major league team, finances, and first-rate infrastructure.
You have made a number of trades. What were the ones you liked the most and one you’d like to have back? The Corbin Burnes trade was a good one. It’s a shame we weren’t able to enjoy him longer in the playoffs (left as free agent, 2024). He pitched great, but we didn’t advance. Some of the ones we did during the rebuild really had an impact. Kyle Bradish (2023 All-Star) was a big boost after getting him in the Dylan Bundy trade. In 2022, we had a tough decision to sell or not. We were in the wild card race a little bit. We traded Trey Mancini. We got a good arm back from Houston and he went on to win the World Series.
Photography courtesy Baltimore Orioles
Tell me about each of the three biggest free-agent acquisitions for this season; outfielder Tyler O’Neill, and pitchers Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano? We like the way the roster has shaped up. We have a tremendous young core of position player talent. We are able to build around that. Tyler is an obvious need, and it has been for a year or two now of having a right-handed slugger to balance the lineup. There’s almost nobody that hits left-handed pitching as well as him. He hit 31 home runs last year. With our starting pitching, we are targeting innings, durability, and experience. They have proven track records.
What have been the positives of new majority owner David Rubenstein? He is just getting started. The capital injection from him and his group is huge. They are energetic and well-funded—tremendously successful investors. That will enable us to run the Orioles’ franchise optimally. It doesn’t mean we are going to look like the Yankees or Dodgers. But we’ll work in the context and realities of the Major League economic system and being the market size we are. This group will allow us to explore everything that is smart to keep this franchise in a good spot. David is from Baltimore and really cares about the city. I think what he does is wonderful. He is very transparent and accessible and enjoys the experience. He likes to sit in the seats with the fans.
What kind of baseball player were you at Yale? I was a good high school pitcher. I turned into a run-of-the-mill pitcher in the Ivy League. But I was a left-hander who threw seven different pitches and knew how to pitch. I had two pretty good years, then I had a shoulder injury that slowed me down. I came back from it, but it enabled me to start shifting gears and thinking about a career in baseball.
What were you thinking of as a career choice in college initially? I was studying Arabic. My dad was a secret service agent and he worked in intelligence. We have Syrian in the family. He could speak a little bit, and I thought it would be interesting to learn it. It was very, very time-consuming. But once I realized I was devoted to baseball, I switched majors. I had devoted my whole life to practicing, learning, and following baseball. I wasn’t good enough to play professionally. But I felt I accumulated a lot of knowledge. I didn’t want to waste that.
