At his end-of-the-season news conference last month, Mike Elias made sure to recognize the “historic achievement” that was the Orioles’ turnaround.

“I hope that the city of Baltimore remembers this group for kind of reminding the world that this is Baltimore and we do baseball here,” Elias said.

Among those the Orioles reminded of that officially include Elias’ peers, who voted the Orioles general manager as MLB Executive of the Year, as announced Tuesday morning.

In 2021, the Orioles won just 52 games. Two years later, they were the American League’s best team and won 101 games, hitting the century mark in more than four decades. That 49-win difference over a two-year span is the greatest such turnaround in MLB history.

When Elias was hired in November 2018, he was taking over an organization that just lost a franchise-worst 115 games. While also having baseball’s worst big league club, the Orioles didn’t sport a healthy farm system and were seen as outdated in analytics and international scouting.

“This organization has in its history and in its DNA having at one time been considered as the smartest, most forward-thinking, most progressive organization in baseball,” Elias said during his introductory news conference five years ago. “The fact that it has been the case here before means it’s possible for that to be the case here again.”

Elias, who also received the top executive honor from The Sporting News, was brought in to shepherd an overhaul, and the rebuild he initiated produced 100-loss seasons in 2019 and 2021. The reboot started to bear fruit in 2022 when Baltimore emerged out of the cellar and into playoff contention. The Orioles won 31 more games in 2022 than the year before and finished the season as the AL’s best team not to make the playoffs.

Almost every team in MLB history to break the glass ceiling as fiercely as Baltimore did in 2022 regress the following year, but not Elias’ Orioles.

Behind a collection of youngsters, veterans, castoffs and rebuild survivors, the Orioles won 18 more games in 2023 against the best division in baseball. The AL East title was the club’s first since 2014 and just third in the past 40 seasons, although that success was halted in the playoffs by the Texas Rangers, who swept the Orioles in the AL Division Series en route to a World Series title.

The main focus during the rebuild was on drafting and development. Elias’ first draft produced miraculous results, with his first two picks — Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson — spending the 2023 season as Baltimore’s best players. Rutschman was an All-Star, a Gold Glove runner-up and Silver Slugger finalist, while Henderson was voted by local media as Most Valuable Oriole and is the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year award.

Other draft picks by Elias — top prospects Colton Cowser, Heston Kjerstad, Jordan Westburg and Joey Ortiz — reached Baltimore in 2023, while others — such as Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo and Enrique Bradfield Jr. — are why the Orioles still boast the sport’s top farm system, according to Baseball America.

That infrastructure is why Elias believes the Orioles’ 2023 wasn’t an anomaly but rather the first of more to come.

“I am exceedingly confident we’re gonna have another very competitive, entertaining, excellent season next year,” Elias said last month. “We’ve had a couple of really big milestones the last couple of years. This one was huge, and I’m very proud of it, and we want to do it again.”

Around the horn

Last week, the Orioles claimed outfielder Sam Hilliard off waivers and designated right-hander Joey Krehbiel for assignment. Hilliard, a left-handed hitter, is a career .215 hitter in 254 games with the Colorado Rockies and Atlanta Braves over the past five seasons.
The MLB Players Association named right-hander Kyle Gibson, who led the Orioles in innings and wins in 2023, as one of its three Most Valuable Philanthropists this year. Gibson, the Orioles’ Roberto Clemente Award nominee, was awarded $5,000 to go to his selected charity, Big League Impact.

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