The Orioles were already following Mike Elias’ lead, but the baseball executive has taken on a more expansive role than the team was letting on.
Before they began the 2025 season, the Orioles quietly promoted then-executive vice president and general manager Elias to president of baseball operations, a source with direct knowledge of the move confirmed to The Baltimore Sun. The club is exploring all options to expand the front office beneath him, which could include hiring a new GM this offseason.
The Orioles (68-77) didn’t announce the move because the ballclub was still deciding how to piece together its front office, the source said. They’ve already gotten a head start on the process ahead of this offseason by re-hiring Danny Haas from the Washington Nationals, with whom he was the vice president of amateur scouting, a source told The Sun last week.
Elias, 42, took over as GM in 2019 under previous ownership after rising through the ranks with the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros. He led the Orioles through a lengthy rebuild and revamped their farm system with the MLB draft and implementation of an international scouting and player development program.
His promotion came one season after David Rubenstein’s ownership group purchased the team from the Angelos family, signaling the billionaire private equity investor’s confidence in Elias’ ability to lead the team moving forward. It’s in line with a common trend across MLB of other clubs moving their GMs into president roles after five or so successful years and hiring someone else to manage daily roster moves so that they can focus on the bigger picture.
However, while Baltimore was active in free agency last winter and increased its year-over-year payroll more than any other team, the season has largely been a disaster. The Orioles fired manager Brandon Hyde in May and traded nine players away at the Aug. 1 deadline, leaving them on the outside of the playoff picture looking in with three weeks left to go after making the postseason each of the past two years.
“I’m very much evaluating the way that I and my department do business on all facets, and I think we should be doing that all the time,” Elias told The Sun in June. “This has been a very unusual situation where the organization was pointing up and up for a good bit of time, and then very suddenly, we find ourselves in the position of being really behind in the standings.
“I don’t think I’m doing my job if you’re not using those negative experiences to turn over rocks a little bit and in baseball ops we’re having meetings, we’re talking through things. I’m sure it’s going to affect the way that we do things in the future.”
The Orioles’ front office currently includes Elias, two assistant GMs — Sig Mejdal and Eve Rosenbaum — a 22-person analytics department, 15 people on the player development staff, 44 employees working in scouting and 19 in operations. It’s unclear what role Haas will have with the club, which has yet to announce his hire.
But front office additions can be added to what’s already a lengthy offseason shopping list for the Orioles, who are also expected to conduct a managerial search if they don’t retain interim skipper Tony Mansolino.
Baltimore has several roster holes to fill with Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano set to hit free agency, Ramón Laureano and Andrew Kittredge traded at the deadline despite having an extra year of control and closer Félix Bautista out for at least the first half of next season with a shoulder injury. Though the club has plenty of payroll space to work with and their deadline moves helped restock what was a thinning farm system, this offseason is shaping up to be their most pivotal winter in a decade.
With a potential GM hire now on the table as well, the decisions the Orioles make the next few months could shape the entire trajectory of the organization.
The Athletic was first to report Elias’ promotion.
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