BALTIMORE _ Mike Elias, who first as scouting director and later as assistant general manager played a major role in the Houston Astros' rebuild that culminated in a 2017 World Series title, will get the chance to replicate that as the Orioles' next executive vice president and general manager, the club announced Friday afternoon.
That experience with one of the model modern feats of organization-building in Houston helped the Orioles choose Elias, 35, to take over for executive vice president Dan Duquette, who was dismissed Oct. 3 with his contract set to expire after the Orioles' franchise-record 115-loss season.
The hire adds another step in Elias' swift rise to one of baseball's top jobs, having entered the game shortly after his graduation from Yale University in 2006 and quickly ascending into the game's top front offices.
Elias joined the St. Louis Cardinals in 2007 as an area scout after playing at Yale, climbing to manager of amateur scouting in 2010. He held that role through January 2012, when he joined former Cardinals vice president of scouting and player development Jeff Luhnow in Houston. Luhnow brought Elias on as a special assistant and then scouting director in 2012, with Elias promoted to assistant general manager with player development responsibilities and minor-league operations added to his purview.
He was credited with steering the organization toward star shortstop Carlos Correa with the top overall pick in 2012 _ the same pick the Orioles have in the 2019 draft _ and the Astros are credited not only with hitting on many of the high draft picks of their rebuild (including Alex Bregman, Lance McCullers Jr. and Kyle Tucker), but integrating analytics into every part of their organization and using it to build a productive farm system during and after their rebuild.
Of more immediate interest to the Orioles is that Elias was part of three straight drafts from 2012 to 2014 in which the Astros had the first overall pick, as the Orioles do in 2019. Elias was the scouting director for two of those.
Elias is the third high-profile departure from the Astros front office this offseason. Director of research and development Mike Fast left to become a special assistant with the Atlanta Braves, while Sig Megdal, a special assistant who helped build the Astros' analytics department after coming to baseball from a NASA background, left last month. Megdal could join Elias in Baltimore to do the same with the Orioles, according to multiple reports, including MLB.com.
Elias is the 15th man to hold the position as the Orioles' top executive, and the eighth to hold that job since Peter G. Angelos bought the club in 1993. This hire, however, was the work of his sons, executive vice president John Angelos and ownership representative Louis Angelos, who conducted the interviews as a two-man search party while their father has stepped away for health issues this year.
While they had plenty of time to formulate a list of possible candidates given Duquette was in the final year of his contract and the Orioles never sniffed the playoff race, the process ended up taking the longest of the three clubs who needed new baseball operations heads this offseason.
The New York Mets had a wide-ranging, public search that landed them former agent Brodie Van Wagenen on Oct. 29. The San Francisco Giants hired Farhan Zaidi away from the Los Angeles Dodgers on Nov. 6. In the interim, the Orioles have been meeting with a set of candidates with diverse backgrounds, from former general managers Ben Cherington and Ned Colletti to top deputies of progressive front offices like Elias and Philadelphia Phillies assistant general manager Ned Rice, as well as former team executives now with MLB in Peter Woodfork and Tyrone Brooks.
Such varied backgrounds allowed the Angelos brothers to get a full view inside how many of the top teams in the league operate, from integrating analytics into on-field instruction and philosophy to building an international operation and hitting on the premium draft picks they'll have in 2019 and beyond.
Elias has his work cut out for him on all those fronts.
The major-league roster is thin on young talent, with Dylan Bundy, Mychal Givens and Trey Mancini the only established, homegrown players around for fans to connect to. Free agent contracts to veterans Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo, Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner haven't yielded the return the club has hoped.
Their farm system, while improved some by the July trades that sent out former All-Stars Manny Machado, Zach Britton, Brad Brach, Jonathan Schoop and Darren O'Day, plus former first-round pick Kevin Gausman, it's lacking in true up-the-middle talent and has much more depth than impact potential. Several improved drafts in recent years under amateur scouting director Gary Rajsich, with analytically inspired selections, have contributed to some improvement as well, but the overall system is lacking.
Internationally, the team spent just south of $1 million on international amateurs since this signing period began July 2, but still lag far behind in scouting and facilities in Latin American markets because of what Duquette called an ownership decision.
But after watching the team devote much of its resources to the major-league roster with the rest of the operation skimped on, John and Louis Angelos have identified several of these aspects as targets for improvement.
In terms of staffing, Elias has several tasks to help fill out the rest of the organization. The team has vice president Brady Anderson, who took on a larger role amid the turmoil of the end of the Duquette-Showalter era, still under contract. Director of player development Brian Graham has been operating as the interim general manager since Duquette's dismissal, and Rajsich has remained on as well, though his staff has been hit by departures. Elias will decide on whether they all continue and in what capacity, as the team announcement that Duquette was out specified the new outside hire would have final say on all baseball matters.
New hires could also include a high-ranking No. 2 to help carry out the day-to-day execution of Elias' plan, and will also require a new manager to take over for Buck Showalter, who was also let go Oct. 3.
Showalter's coaches are also all out of a contract as of Oct. 31, though a new manager will have the option to bring them all back.
