The birds that lost their wings

On November 16, 2018, the world changed forever. Actually, it didn’t. The Orioles hired Mike Elias, then the Astros’ assistant general manager. The birds hoped he would be the guy to lead the rebuild. Throughout the 2023-2024 season, he was a fan favorite. They had great players waiting to get pulled up from the minor leagues, and players he had signed were producing. So, how are we finished with the 2025 season, no playoffs, and fans are wishing he would get fired?

Well, in the 2025 offseason, the fans were ready to make another run into the playoffs and hopefully score more than one run through the first two games. Sadly, the Orioles had to let go of Anthony Santander, who had a major contribution to their success. Then Corbin Burnes decided he wanted to stay close to home and signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. So, our number one pitcher and our leader in home runs with 44, the third most in the league, were gone. 

Fans were devastated but were hopeful that Elias would go out and spend the money on a great player. The Orioles’ first move was to fill Santander’s role at right field. They signed Tyler Oneil, who looked great for the Red Sox. Not so great for the Orioles in 2025. Moving on to the pitchers they signed, for a reason that people have no clue why, they signed Charlie Morton, a 41-year-old pitcher who was meh. Definitely not the guy to replace Corbin Burnes. 

The Orioles took a risk and signed a veteran pitcher from Japan, Tomoyuki Sugano. He played decently, but again, he didn’t replicate what Corbin Burnes did for us. Elias kept signing players, but none of them could fill the roles of the former players. Gary Sanchez, Ramon Laureno, and Andrew Kitteredge, none of them were star players coming into the organization with a big impact. 

A failure to plan is planning to fail. That is what the Orioles did. They cheaped out and didn’t want to sign players to big-money contracts. Going into the season, they had everything they needed: star players, young talent, and money. You can’t get a great player for $ 10 million. There was no reason why the Orioles shouldn’t have gotten at least one of the pitchers in free agency. There was Dylan Cease, Max Scherzer, Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander, and the list goes on and on. So why did Mike Elias settle with 41-year-old Charlie Morton, a veteran from Japan, and other pitchers that had no impact? We will never know what his thought process was, but hopefully, he realized he was a reason the Birds were not successful.

Flowers are given to Elias’s ability to draft. That is something he is good at. He was a significant help to the Orioles’ rebuild. Drafted players like Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Grayson Rodriguez, and Jackson Holiday, who are the leaders for the team.

With that being said, draft picks can’t make up the whole team. Mike Elias’ job is too important for one slip-up to ruin the team’s season. The Orioles didn’t make the playoffs for several reasons. Some say it was injuries, others say it was coaching. But at the end of the day, if Elias had signed that star pitcher to be our ace, if Elias signed a better replacement for Santander, then this wouldn’t be a conversation. It’s a simple fix, and I hope he learns from his mistakes this offseason.

Nicholas Gardiner is a member of the Multimedia Journalism class.

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Nicholas Gardiner

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