Three takeaways from Orioles GM Mike Elias’ pre-trade deadline news conference – The Denver Post

Tuesday’s trade deadline is fast approaching, and the Orioles are buyers for the first time in six years.

It’s uncharted territory for Mike Elias as the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager. He considered buying at last year’s deadline but ultimately maintained the status quo of the Orioles’ rebuild rather than make a push for a playoff spot. A year later, Baltimore owns the best record in the American League and is atop an AL East that is on pace to be one of the best divisions in the history of the sport.

When Elias took over a rebuilding club in November 2018 coming off a 115-loss season, he didn’t envision less than five years later he’d be leading a club on pace to win nearly 100 games.

“I’d like to say I set out to be in first place five years from starting, especially with everything that we went through, but I did not. I never sat down and wrote that out,” Elias said during a news conference four days before MLB’s trade deadline Tuesday at 6 p.m. “I’m very happy with the spot that this organization’s in right now. … But it’s very clear to me that this season’s not over, and we have a lot of work left to do. We haven’t won anything yet.”

Elias touched on a wide range of topics Friday, from the evolving deadline to what he could add to the Orioles’ roster to his willingness to trade prospects. Here are three takeaways:

A delicate balance

When asked if the Orioles, as currently constructed, are good enough to compete for a World Series in 2023, Elias had a simple response: “Yes, I do,” he said.

However, that doesn’t mean the fifth-year general manager is automatically going to rest on his club’s laurels and sit on his hands as the circuit’s other top teams gobble up the top players on the market.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t want to improve,” Elias continued. “The [Los Angeles] Dodgers are pretty good, too, and they’re bringing some extra help in [trading for Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Lance Lynn and reliever Joe Kelly and Cleveland Guardians shortstop Amed Rosario], so obviously we’re looking at that. I think very clearly this team has revealed itself to be as capable as anyone in arguably all of baseball right now to make a playoff run.

“We’re right there with anyone I think.”

But there’s a delicate balance Elias and executives of other deadline buyers are attempting to strike, calculating what is the right amount to give up to bolster the 2023 club. The Orioles entered the season with a 10.4% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs. Those odds are now 82.9%, with a 3.4% chance to win the World Series.

“We’re trying to win, we’re in first place, it’s awesome,” Elias said. “We want to make a deep playoff run, we want to get in the World Series. Whatever you want to call it, we want to do that. But unless we have information that the world is ending in November, a big part of my job is worrying about the overall health of the team over the next several years.”

Baltimore owns the sport’s No. 1 farm system, according to Baseball America, with seven players inside the publication’s top 100 prospects. How many of those players — and, even more difficult to discern, whom to part ways with — is the question for Elias in the coming days.

“I think with the position that our players have put us in right here and how well things are going so far and where we are, I think it’s fair to say that if we get within reach of something, we’re going to reach for it a little bit to help this team,” Elias said.

With that said, though, Elias added: “We can’t set the minor league system on fire just because we’re in first place. It’s just our job to balance all that.”

A push for pitching

The Orioles have already made one trade this month, acquiring right-handed reliever Shintaro Fujinami from the Oakland Athletics. Fujinami’s potential is perhaps as high as anyone in the Orioles’ bullpen not named Félix Bautista, but the Japan native has mostly struggled in his first MLB season.

Elias, whose news conference Friday was his first since the club acquired Fujinami, said he hopes the hard-throwing pitcher becomes a high-leverage reliever for the Orioles, joining All-Stars Yennier Cano and Bautista.

Elias said he “would bet heavily” that any additions the Orioles make at the deadline would be for another pitcher — whether that’s a starter or a reliever.

“I think it’s no secret that that would be the areas of the team where we could, A, either use more depth, or B, look for upgrades. So we’re working on that right now,” he said.

While the Orioles lack a top-line starting pitcher like most of the best teams have, the price for one is much higher than for another bullpen arm. Elias said he views Baltimore’s middle relief as an area for improvement.

“We’ve got a great back half of the bullpen, but there’s a couple of spots that are in flux,” Elias said. “Any team can improve the middle part of their part of their bullpen. … Obviously, we’ve got the best closer in the game right now, and relative to him, the middle spots are an area that we can look around for and we’re doing that in addition to the Fujinami trade.”

The Orioles’ potential need for a starting pitcher could also be greater considering three of the members of their rotation — Tyler Wells, Dean Kremer and Grayson Rodriguez — are within 20 innings of their single-season highs for innings pitched at any level. Elias said those starters’ workloads are a consideration, but added that there isn’t “any science” that proves innings limits keep pitchers healthy.

A plethora of prospects

An argument for the Orioles to make a splash at the deadline is based on the fact that they have such a rich farm system to pull from. After left-hander Cade Povich’s promotion to Triple-A, 10 of the Orioles’ top 17 prospects, according to Baseball America, are with the Norfolk Tides. That list includes third baseman Coby Mayo, outfielder-first baseman Heston Kjerstad, shortstop Joey Ortiz and second baseman Connor Norby — all of whom are or were ranked among the sport’s top 100 prospects.

Much of Elias’ first four years were spent on talent acquisition, and that system has worked in developing a potent pipeline. That hard work, though, doesn’t make it harder to part ways with those players if that’s what it takes to get a deal done at the deadline, Elias said.

“That’s not going to make us hug those guys more than we should because we did a good job scouting and developing them,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s going to make us any more reluctant to make a trade. I think we’re making trades because we feel that the value that we’re getting back in a different way, shape and form is worth the value that we’re losing.”

“It’s tough trading away young players,” he later added. “But I think what’s nice for us is we have some players that we rate really, really highly in our system and they’re also on the top 100 lists and stuff. It’s not like us overrating our own guys.”

Elias described the state of the deadline as “thin” with few “pure sellers,” creating a “seller’s market.” However, that could change this weekend.

“There’s a couple really interesting teams right now that still haven’t declared what they’re doing,” Elias said. “We’re talking to a lot of them and kind of have some eyes on some stuff. We’ll see what they end up doing. We may end up having waited and they don’t sell.”

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