Former MLB GM Dan O'Dowd Baffled By Orioles Player Development Failures And Deeply Concerned For Future

O'Dowd, of MLB Network, a former Orioles exec and fan, believes Gunnar Henderson's regression is central to front office's impotence

Jul 1, 2026; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson (2) removes his batting glove after lining out to second base to end the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

There is a strong case to be made that Orioles baseball czar Mike Elias has no clue how to get shortstop Gunnar Henderson back to anything close to what he appeared to be on the cusp of becoming as a potential generation superstar.

MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd is among the growing chorus of experts to join me on “The Daily Flock Show,” and express how dumbfounded they are by Henderson’s collapse for over a calendar year and their strong supposition that he joins former first-overall pick Adley Rutschman in playing elsewhere in 2027.

“If I own the team right now,” O’Dowd pointed out, “or I am in Rip’s position (minority owner Cal Ripken, Jr.), where he is in the organization, I’m asking some like really hard questions – like what the heck is going on in development, you know? Why aren’t these players turning out as good as their projection should be?

“Why aren’t we making players better at the big league level … And now they’re boxed in with Gunnar Henderson, and you are probably right – they’re going to have to move him.”

Ciritical Failures With Their Most Important Player

Henderson has become a problem at shortstop in all aspects, he is no longer a factor on the basepaths after a 30 steal season in the past and his hitting profile is a mess. Since the All-Star break in 2025, Henderson has a .235/.318/.405 slash for a modest .723 OPS. In terms of wRC+, his 103 is just three percent higher than the average MLB hitter over that span of 192 games.

Henderson is far from alone, as Elias has made this a specialty of his and one of a legion or truly inept qualities he brings to a job he should have been fired from years ago.

If someone who was looked like a five-tool juggernaut like Henderson isn’t immune to their rot at the MLB level, than is anyone safe? What does O’Dowd see from afar with the former All Star?

“There are great players that understand how they’re great and why they’re great,” O’Dowd explained, “and there are great players who have no clue about what actually makes him good. So it could be an aptitude issue on his part, or it could be that they’ve never taught him what him special as a player.

“Defensively, there is absolutely no reason – he fundamentally at times does not actually field the ground ball the right way. That’s a lack of fundamental teaching … Hitting-wise, if you look at how he moves as a player in the box, from when he first came up … and got over the hump, he’s not moving the same way. He’s just not putting himself into the same positions to get his swing off as he did when he first came up, which tells me he didn’t know what he was doing.”

Gulp.

O’Dowd is hopeful that bringing Ripken’s brother, Bill, into he fold could help immensely at the minor-league level as an infield coordinator and he endorsed Cal Ripken and Mike Schildt, a former manager, as being able to help clean things up if fully empowered throughout the organization in a major way by Elias.

O'Dowd was hired by his mentor, Hank Peters, in Baltimore in 1983, just in time for the last parade here. He was running the Orioles' farm system in his 20s and departed in 1987, when Peters and the entire management team were run out by ownership. They went to Cleveland and turned that sad-sack fracnhise into a machine that would blossom in the 1990s and then O'Dowd spent 15 years running the Rockies.

(He would be a genius hire atop baseball operations moving forward, if they are intent to keeping Elias make him report to O'Dowd before getting to ownership).

Like me, O'Dowd believes this organization would be far better off if former manager Buck Showalter was back in some capacity, and his candor and insight was quite compelling overall. While O’Dowd stopped short of demanding Elias’s job, the reality is this industry has known for years this front office was horribly over its skies.

They need to go.

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