Was Orioles Rebuild Undone By Mike Elias's 1st Ever Draft Pick? Buck Showalter Makes The Case

The Orioles have made repeated and perpetual mistakes in every avenue of talent acquisition and development since hiring Mike Elias atop baseball operations in 2018. And his first critical decision – whom to select first overall in 2019 – was a perfect prism into the failure that was to come.

It’s was clear to smart baseball people, honestly, by the time Adley Rutschman and Bobby Witt Jr. were in AA that one had far superior superstar upside than the other – and Witt was three years younger and already en route to MLB faster because Elias is also inept at having any feel for when to promote prospects despite hording them for nine years. This was a portal into how Elias thought – “safe” over dynamic, numbers based over what scouts would say about body types and comps and intangibles (Orioles top scout Dean Albany banged the drum Witt according to numerous sources with knowledge of the situation and got fired for it).

Overly pragmatic and lacking any emotion and computer-generated to a fault. The Elias Way.

Coupling that with Elias’s inability to develop players, and him building years of pathetic clubhouses devoid of leadership and accountability as he coddled and propped up and overhyped players like Rutschman to then watch them crumble at the first sign of real expectations, turned out to be disastrous. Many saw it coming, including, well, yours truly, who pinpointed the day on the radio at length it would all come tumbling down (June 21, 2024 after crushing the Yankees in New York), and, well, my man Buck Showalter, who Elias’s regime replaced and who actually won playoff games here, saw it coming too.

"I won't name names," Showalter said on "The Daily Flock" this week, "but there's a couple guys they drafted high that you can tell they want no part of the spotlight on them."

And it just goes on and on. With Orioles former first-overall pick Jackson Holliday not only proving he couldn't even be a AAA shortstop (Elias proclaimed him a five-tool MLB SS) but now he’s not even a competent MLB second baseman, and with Elias’s second ever draft pick, Gunnar Henderson, likely to be packaged for trade in 2027 and in need of a move to third base, the ineptitude is staggering.

“You always look at players and you make them play their way off the premium position if they're a bat,” Showalter explained. “You know, you want them to fail at shortstop. Let's fail at center field. Let's fail at catcher because we can find a lot of guys, you know, first base, left field, DH, whatever. But you want him to fail there.

“And that's what was so intriguing about Bobby Wit coming out of the draft. This guy could play seven positions. And wherever you had a guy who couldn't play … Bobby could play there. Even the guy CJ Abrams (taken sixth overall by the Padres and now an All Star shortstop with the Nats), you know, he could play multiple places.

“But when you draft somebody that can only play one place, you better be right because you’ve got nowhere to go in a different direction. And I think we all know what we're talking about.”

Mistakes Early, Mistakes Always, Mistakes Late

Of course, the Orioles did try to make Rutschman a DH, and no one served in that role more for them from June 21, 2024 until he was dealt in early August at the deadline. And he was the arguably the worst regular DH in all of MLB in that span and they also preferred veteran journeyman back-up James McCann catching instead of him in the first game of a best-of-three playoff series, and Baltimore hasn't sniffed the playoffs since.

Yeah, that happened. While Witt led the Royals to a quick sweep, Rutschman did nothing but batted atop the lineup anyway..

Oh, and since June 21, 2024, the Orioles have the 9th-worst record in MLB – tied with the Marlins (multiple GM changes since 2019)- at 192-211. And Elias is very likely keeping his job while casting aside over-promoted hacks to save himself, and Buck can see though all the BS, as was made pretty clear throughout our chat.

Elias’s regime will be longer that Showalter’s here. Because we aren’t allowed to have nice things in Birdland.

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