From today’s WSJ:
SARASOTA, Fla.—Mike Elias, the new general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, understands the difficulty of reconstructing a baseball franchise from scratch. He joined the Houston Astros, pioneers of the full-blown-teardown-to-achieve-success model, at the beginning of their process, ultimately rising to the role of GM Jeff Luhnow’s top deputy. He knows what it takes to transform a mess into a perennial contender.
But not even the Astros’ dramatic rebuild can totally prepare Elias for the challenge he now faces. The Orioles went 47-115 last season, piling up more losses than all but three teams since 1900. The Astros, even after intentionally bottoming-out their roster, never finished with a record worse than 51-111.
Help won’t arrive anytime soon, either. The Orioles’ farm system ranks among the worst in the sport, lacking both in top-level prospects and significant depth. The Astros already controlled a future MVP in José Altuve, a future World Series MVP in George Springer and a future Cy Young winner in Dallas Keuchel when Elias arrived in Houston.
Elias also inherited an organizational infrastructure embarrassingly behind their competitors’. When he showed up, the Orioles’ entire analytics department consisted of one web developer. They had virtually no international scouting presence in place. They still owe Chris Davis, the first baseman who compiled a historically miserable campaign in 2018, $92 million through 2022. Oh, and they play in a division with two powerhouses in the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
In other words, Elias walked into a disastrous situation, tasked with an almost impossibly daunting job: trying to fix it.
“The Orioles hadn’t quite made that turn” into analytics, Elias said. “We’ve obviously made an organizational strategical decision to go all-in with it and push the speed-up button.”
Given that, despite an entire mountain range of responsibilities on his plate the first time he sat down at his desk, Elias immediately recognized his most urgent priority. He needed to create the foundation of a data department that eventually could rival that of his former employer, perhaps the most technologically sophisticated club in the majors.
To do that, the Orioles quickly hired Sig Mejdal as their assistant GM for analytics. Mejdal, one of the most respected quants in the game, worked alongside Elias with the Astros since 2012. Very quickly, Mejdal says he learned that in Baltimore “the utilization of the data-driven decision-making tool was not a priority here whatsoever.”
Mejdal worked under Luhnow for all of his 14 seasons in baseball, first with St. Louis, then in Houston. After the Astros won the World Series in 2017, Mejdal felt restless. He missed the start-up environment of the Astros in the early days and believed he could recapture it with the Orioles.
Indeed, Mejdal has already added a handful of analysts and developers to his burgeoning group, but not nearly enough to compete with the rest of the industry. For now, his team must build databases and video storage systems required for modern player evaluation.
“You’re very aware of what you don’t have,” Mejdal said.
Elias and Mejdal also turned their attention to the question of who would replace Buck Showalter, the Orioles’ manager since 2010. That search lasted about a month before they landed on Brandon Hyde, a first-time skipper also intimately familiar with the pain of complete reset.
Hyde came from the Chicago Cubs, where he enjoyed four consecutive playoff appearances and a championship in 2016. In Hyde, Elias and Mejdal saw somebody willing to act as a partner as the Orioles prioritized development over anything else, probably for several years. In Elias and Mejdal, Elias saw leaders capable of fulfilling their promises.
“Both of us got good pretty quick,” Hyde said of the Cubs and Astros. “We have the same vision for how that’s supposed to happen.”
With Hyde installed, the final major piece of the first wave fell into place in early January, when the Orioles named Koby Perez their senior director of international scouting. The Orioles mostly neglected the Latin American market under former executive Dan Duquette. Perez boasted five seasons of experience with the Cleveland Indians, most recently as their director of Latin American baseball operations, and years as a scout before that.
He, Mejdal and Elias comprise the trio in charge of returning the Orioles to prominence. Though Elias intends to continue to add to the head count, nothing could happen without robust, self-sustaining scouting and analytics departments. Everything else flows from those.
“That is the key to unlocking improvement across all areas, and we’re getting that going as quickly as we can,” Elias said.
Until the last two seasons, the Orioles had enjoyed some success despite their old-fashioned ways. From 2012 through 2016, no team in the American League won more games, and they reached the postseason three times during that span.
Their failure to adapt to the modern era finally caught up with them last season, prompting this overhaul—a shift in direction brought about by in part by a change in the organization’s hierarchy. Longtime owner Peter Angelos, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in July, has largely ceded control to his sons, John and Louis. Advancing the Orioles into the 21st Century emerged as a top consideration for the younger Angelos brothers.
The players already detect a difference. Veteran starter Alex Cobb said that members of the new regime “are bringing a lot of technology to our attention” that the Orioles didn’t have last year, like high-speed cameras to help pitchers with their mechanics.
It’s the first step toward making the Orioles more like the Astros, though they realize even that won’t be enough. When Luhnow, Mejdal and Elias repaired the Astros, their commitment to data and tech far outclassed their peers. They were playing Fortnite when everybody else was just figuring out Pong. Now, Luhnow said, Elias and Mejdal “have the disadvantage of the fact that the rest of the industry has caught up to a lot of the things we did back then that are no longer available as advantages to them now.”
Therein lies the real mission for the Orioles. Just catching the Astros won’t cut it. They have to figure out a way to surpass them.
“We need to repeat the best practices and the state-of-the-art Astros system,” Mejdal said. “The second part is much more challenging: How do we then bust through and then become state-of-the-art in 2020?”
SARASOTA, Fla.—Mike Elias, the new general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, understands the difficulty of reconstructing a baseball franchise from scratch. He joined the Houston Astros, pioneers of the full-blown-teardown-to-achieve-success model, at the beginning of their process, ultimately rising to the role of GM Jeff Luhnow’s top deputy. He knows what it takes to transform a mess into a perennial contender.
But not even the Astros’ dramatic rebuild can totally prepare Elias for the challenge he now faces. The Orioles went 47-115 last season, piling up more losses than all but three teams since 1900. The Astros, even after intentionally bottoming-out their roster, never finished with a record worse than 51-111.
Help won’t arrive anytime soon, either. The Orioles’ farm system ranks among the worst in the sport, lacking both in top-level prospects and significant depth. The Astros already controlled a future MVP in José Altuve, a future World Series MVP in George Springer and a future Cy Young winner in Dallas Keuchel when Elias arrived in Houston.
Elias also inherited an organizational infrastructure embarrassingly behind their competitors’. When he showed up, the Orioles’ entire analytics department consisted of one web developer. They had virtually no international scouting presence in place. They still owe Chris Davis, the first baseman who compiled a historically miserable campaign in 2018, $92 million through 2022. Oh, and they play in a division with two powerhouses in the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
In other words, Elias walked into a disastrous situation, tasked with an almost impossibly daunting job: trying to fix it.
“The Orioles hadn’t quite made that turn” into analytics, Elias said. “We’ve obviously made an organizational strategical decision to go all-in with it and push the speed-up button.”
Given that, despite an entire mountain range of responsibilities on his plate the first time he sat down at his desk, Elias immediately recognized his most urgent priority. He needed to create the foundation of a data department that eventually could rival that of his former employer, perhaps the most technologically sophisticated club in the majors.
To do that, the Orioles quickly hired Sig Mejdal as their assistant GM for analytics. Mejdal, one of the most respected quants in the game, worked alongside Elias with the Astros since 2012. Very quickly, Mejdal says he learned that in Baltimore “the utilization of the data-driven decision-making tool was not a priority here whatsoever.”
Mejdal worked under Luhnow for all of his 14 seasons in baseball, first with St. Louis, then in Houston. After the Astros won the World Series in 2017, Mejdal felt restless. He missed the start-up environment of the Astros in the early days and believed he could recapture it with the Orioles.
Indeed, Mejdal has already added a handful of analysts and developers to his burgeoning group, but not nearly enough to compete with the rest of the industry. For now, his team must build databases and video storage systems required for modern player evaluation.
“You’re very aware of what you don’t have,” Mejdal said.
Elias and Mejdal also turned their attention to the question of who would replace Buck Showalter, the Orioles’ manager since 2010. That search lasted about a month before they landed on Brandon Hyde, a first-time skipper also intimately familiar with the pain of complete reset.
Hyde came from the Chicago Cubs, where he enjoyed four consecutive playoff appearances and a championship in 2016. In Hyde, Elias and Mejdal saw somebody willing to act as a partner as the Orioles prioritized development over anything else, probably for several years. In Elias and Mejdal, Elias saw leaders capable of fulfilling their promises.
“Both of us got good pretty quick,” Hyde said of the Cubs and Astros. “We have the same vision for how that’s supposed to happen.”
With Hyde installed, the final major piece of the first wave fell into place in early January, when the Orioles named Koby Perez their senior director of international scouting. The Orioles mostly neglected the Latin American market under former executive Dan Duquette. Perez boasted five seasons of experience with the Cleveland Indians, most recently as their director of Latin American baseball operations, and years as a scout before that.
He, Mejdal and Elias comprise the trio in charge of returning the Orioles to prominence. Though Elias intends to continue to add to the head count, nothing could happen without robust, self-sustaining scouting and analytics departments. Everything else flows from those.
“That is the key to unlocking improvement across all areas, and we’re getting that going as quickly as we can,” Elias said.
Until the last two seasons, the Orioles had enjoyed some success despite their old-fashioned ways. From 2012 through 2016, no team in the American League won more games, and they reached the postseason three times during that span.
Their failure to adapt to the modern era finally caught up with them last season, prompting this overhaul—a shift in direction brought about by in part by a change in the organization’s hierarchy. Longtime owner Peter Angelos, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in July, has largely ceded control to his sons, John and Louis. Advancing the Orioles into the 21st Century emerged as a top consideration for the younger Angelos brothers.
The players already detect a difference. Veteran starter Alex Cobb said that members of the new regime “are bringing a lot of technology to our attention” that the Orioles didn’t have last year, like high-speed cameras to help pitchers with their mechanics.
It’s the first step toward making the Orioles more like the Astros, though they realize even that won’t be enough. When Luhnow, Mejdal and Elias repaired the Astros, their commitment to data and tech far outclassed their peers. They were playing Fortnite when everybody else was just figuring out Pong. Now, Luhnow said, Elias and Mejdal “have the disadvantage of the fact that the rest of the industry has caught up to a lot of the things we did back then that are no longer available as advantages to them now.”
Therein lies the real mission for the Orioles. Just catching the Astros won’t cut it. They have to figure out a way to surpass them.
“We need to repeat the best practices and the state-of-the-art Astros system,” Mejdal said. “The second part is much more challenging: How do we then bust through and then become state-of-the-art in 2020?”
