Elias: 'Very Good Players' In Orioles System, Focus On June Draft

Baltimore Orioles general manager Mike Elias says it's been "invigorating" to get up to speed on the players, staff members and all the ins and outs of how his new team works.

Elias, who joined the team from the Houston Astros in November, said that despite losing stars like Manny Machado and Kevin Gausman to trades and Adam Jones to free agency, he has plenty to work with.

"Part of the attraction of our situation is that we have very good players in the system," Elias told Brett Hollander on Thursday.

He said he sees the Orioles as being "shrewd" on the free agent market. While the team has signed a handful of international players, the team has made little else in the way of moves, making some waiver claims and signing a few minor league contracts.

"The last thing that we want to do is block a talented young player that we have under control for a long period of time and cost him some opportunity to grow and ability to collect at-bats or innings at the major league level," Elias said.

One of Elias' first steps was hiring analytics guru Sig Mejdal, a colleague in Houston, and building the Orioles' analytics efforts all but from scratch.

While the eye test is important, the former scout Elias said, "just the ease with which we can get players' stats [is important], and now there's the data derived from technology."

That technology can also be used to help players already on the roster, including the elephant in the room, Chris Davis. Davis is entering the fourth season of a seven-year, $161 million contract and coming off a 2018 campaign in which he batted a paltry .168 with 16 home runs.

"He's excited for the fresh start, to have the 2018 season behind him, to have some new coaches and new people around him," Elias said. "We're going to give him every opportunity and every tool to get back into the form that we know he can be in."

Elias will field some questions from fans at Saturday's FanFest, but after that, much of his focus will turn to the No. 1 pick in this year's draft. Much rests on the Orioles getting the draft right. While in Houston, he helped pick Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman, who both contributed to the 2017 World Series championship victory.

"It's tricky in baseball, and when you take out the years when there was sort of a no-brainer, generational Ken Griffey, Bryce Harper pick, the returns on the No. 1 pick versus the No. 2 or 3 pick, it's not that dramatic when you take out those years," he said.