GM says lawsuit won’t affect team
Elias vows that everyone in organization focused on rebuilding effort
When Mike Elias was first introduced as the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager in November 2018, he sat between brothers John and Louis Angelos as he promised to bring an “elite talent pipeline” to Baltimore. Now, that process again finds itself in the middle of the sons of principal owner Peter Angelos.
On Saturday, Elias said he didn’t believe the lawsuit Louis Angelos filed last week against John Angelos and their mother, Georgia, partly regarding John’s handling of the club as the Orioles’ chairman and CEO, will have any impact on the team’s baseball operations department as it continues to oversee a rebuild now in its fifth season.
“It’s unfortunate and definitely not something that you like to see,” Elias told reporters gathered in the Orioles’ dugout at Camden Yards. “But, you know, this is a tough business. There’s always kind of crazy stuff going on in this business. We’ve had our challenges the last few years. We’re going to stay focused on the task at hand, work diligently, work smartly and keepdoingtherightthingfortheOrioles.AndI don’t think that this is going to have any impact ontheplayonthefieldortheteamthatyousee.”
Inhissuit,LouisF.Angelos,52,claimedJohn P. Angelos, 54, went against their 92-year-old father’s wishes in how he’s handled the family’sfortune,includingownershipoftheOrioles. Louis Angelos’ suit claims Peter Angelos, who has been in declining health for several years, wantedhissonstoruntheteamequallybutthat JohnAngeloshasseizedcontroloftheorganization. The suit also claims that Georgia Angelos suggested selling the team, with John Angelos preventing a sale on at least one occasion.
The legal action brought the club’s future in Baltimore into question, though John Angelos has previously said, and reiterated in a statementfollowingthesuit,thattheOrioleswillplay in the city “as long as Fort McHenry is standing watchovertheInnerHarbor.”Theteam’slease atCamdenYards,whichincludesanon-relocation clause, goes through the 2023 season.
Elias is named in the suit, with Louis Angelos claiming that his brother directed Elias to fire then-club executive and former Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson because of Anderson’s
loyalty to their father. On Saturday, Elias noted how vital John Angelos was in his decision to join the Orioles almost four years ago, citing the respect he had for the owners he had previously worked under in Bill DeWitt as a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals and Jim Crane as a scouting director and assistant general manager for the Houston Astros.
“When I came here, I had other options, and John was a big part of why I came,” Elias said. “I think that we’ve got things moving in the right direction. Like I said, it’s been a tough couple of years. We’ve had a lot to navigate. There were a lot of unique challenges to the Orioles, and we’ve still got a lot of challenges ahead of us, but I look at the shape that we’re in in terms of being set up for the future and still continue to feel very bullish about that and excited about the way that this team is playing and what’s going on in the farm system and what’s going on in the Warehouse. We’re just gonna power through this, as you do in this industry for a lot of different stuff.”
Under Elias, the Orioles have dramatically reformatted their front office, building out an analytics department and diving into international amateur scouting at a far steeper level than the organization had previously. Those investments have come as the major league team has had diminutive payrolls; Elias’ first threeseasonsleadingthefrontofficehaveeach resulted in a top-five draft pick, based on the standings of the previous year.
Although the Orioles (29-37) again have a
losing record more than a third of the way into the 2022 season, they are improved in many areas and have one of the best minor league systems in the sport, the products of which are beginning to reach the majors. Adley Rutschman, baseball’s top prospect, was called up last month, and Grayson Rodriguez, the sport’s top pitching prospect, was excelling in Triple-A before a lat muscle strain shut him down.
Another top pick, another tough choice
Elias said Saturday the Orioles’ pool of candidates for the first overall pick in next month’s Major League Baseball draft is down to a group of “five, maybe six, but probably five players.”
He declined to name the candidates, but that tally aligns with much of what has been reported publicly about the Orioles’ thinking. The presumed options are Georgia high school outfielder Druw Jones, Oklahoma high school infielder Jackson Holliday, Florida high school outfielder Elijah Green, Georgia high school infielder Termarr Johnson and Cal Poly shortstop Brooks Lee, with LSU infielder Jacob Berry also considered in the mix.
“I do expect to probably carry that group all the way into the draft meetings,” Elias said. “There’s a lot of information that comes in late leading up to draft, and so it’s not responsible to pare the list down until you get all that, and also, I think we’re gonna have advocates in our scouting department and in our front office for each of those players, so we’re gonna have a nice lively debate.
“It’s a very good group of players. I’m very excited about the candidate pool for the draft this year, but that does not make the decision any easier. In fact, it makes it harder. It’s always a high-stakes decision. A lot of unknowns and luck involved. And it’s a tough thing, but it’s a huge opportunity for us, and I think we’re gonna do well.”
Elias returned to Baltimore late Friday night from the MLB draft combine in San Diego, where several of the draft’s top prospects were participating. Among the 11 years the draft has featured a bonus pool system, this year’s No. 1 pick will mark the ninth time Elias has been involved with a top-five selection, including five first overall picks. With five of the draft’s first 81 picks, the Orioles hold the second-largest pool of any organization since the format’s introduction in 2012.
Elias compared this year’s group of top players to 2019, when he felt there were three deserving of being the top selection in a given year in Adley Rutschman, Bobby Witt Jr. and Andrew Vaughn. The Orioles went with Rutschman, who was publicly considered the best of the three and has since become baseball’s top prospect. Jones, son of 10-time Gold Glover Andruw Jones, is regarded as the top prospect this year, but Elias said “there’s not a slam dunk” choice.
In the past two drafts, the Orioles have used their first pick to take players considered early first-round talents slightly higher than they were expected to go, signing them to deals beneath their bonus pool slot and using the savings to sign high-ceiling players to larger bonuses later in the draft. There’s perception that selecting a player other than Jones would allow the Orioles to deploy a similar strategy in 2022.
“[The bonus pool] comes into play, and we look at maximizing our entire draft,” Elias said. “But ultimately, we’re looking for the right player for us and kind of picking a favorite player that we want to take home, and you only get one of them. You can’t take more than one, and it’s just always a tough decision. But I’m excited that the draft’s coming around and the group that we have to choose from and the group of people that we have working on the draft, very confident about where it’s at.”