The Orioles are heading into the All-Star break with some momentum, but not much peace.
Their four-game winning streak is the longest they’ve put together all season, and at 39-44 they’re at least close enough to the wild-card picture to keep the conversation alive. But the noise around the club hasn’t softened much, because a big chunk of the fan base still wants president of baseball operations Mike Elias out.
That anger is real, and it’s not coming from nowhere. The Orioles have won in chunks under Elias - a surprise 2022 season, a 101-win run in 2023 and another playoff berth in 2024 - but they still haven’t won a postseason game. For a fan base that sat through two full seasons plus a pandemic-shortened one of rough baseball from 2019-2021, that’s a hard sell.
The frustration has also been fueled by the team’s young players not consistently delivering at the level many expected, along with a draft approach that has drawn plenty of criticism. The Orioles have passed on pitching in the early rounds of the draft and instead leaned on veteran starters with plenty of mileage for short-term help, and most of those bets haven’t paid off.
Still, Elias’ résumé is more complicated than the boos suggest. He has made some sharp trades, landing starter Kyle Bradish, reliever Yennier Cano and utility player Blaze Alexander at low cost. He’s also found value in players who were overlooked or had stalled elsewhere, including relievers Rico Garcia, Albert Suárez, Tyler Wells and Grant Wolfram, plus utility player Jeremiah Jackson.
He’s also helped reshape the organization in ways that go beyond the major league roster. The Orioles had almost no footprint in Latin America before Elias; now they have a real one, with catcher Samuel Basallo emerging as a budding star and more talent coming. And the analytics department, once tiny, has grown into something far more substantial, even if its work has been heavily criticized.
That’s the knot Orioles ownership has to untangle. David Rubenstein and Mike Arougheti will have to weigh all of it, and Rubenstein has already put out supportive statements about Elias. But the decision isn’t simple, and changing the person running baseball operations is a much bigger job than firing a manager.
Elias himself has already shown how quickly a manager can be replaced. He dismissed one in May 2025, and the Orioles hired Craig Albernaz in less than a month. Replacing the head of baseball operations is a different animal entirely, especially when that person has spent nearly eight years building the department, replacing nearly everyone he inherited from Dan Duquette and accumulating major organizational power along the way.
There’s also the question of timing. Elias’ last public comments on June 27 made clear where his focus is now:
“ First of all, and I emphasize ‘first of all,’ we want to make the playoffs. That’s the gateway to winning championships. Winning a division title is great, but right now, we’re not even in the wild card, so I think step one is to get ourselves into the wild-card position.
“And I think if we get into the playoffs and have a good playoff run, we’ll feel very good about this season. You can’t specify exactly what you’re going to do in the playoffs.
It’s very hard to do that. But this is a team, if we get in, it means we had a strong second half and I think, if we can be relatively healthy going in, it’s going to be a pretty strong team in the playoffs with the players we have.”
If the Orioles somehow get in, that could change the tone around everything. If they fall short and become sellers before the August 3 deadline, the pressure on Elias will only grow.
But even then, a change at the top would come with complications. Any replacement would have to move fast, build a staff they trust and work through a labor landscape that could get ugly.
A lockout is widely expected to begin in early December, which would leave a new head of baseball operations with only about a month to reshape the roster before trades and signings freeze. If the shutdown plays out like the one in 2022, there could be only a few days after it ends before a shortened spring training starts. That’s a rough setup for anyone trying to take over, especially with Albernaz already in place.
So while the calls for Elias’ removal are loud, the reality is messier. The Orioles still have games to play, a deadline to navigate and a possible postseason chase in front of them. The guess here is that Elias stays, and the real discussion gets pushed down the road to 2027 or beyond.
Notes: High-A Frederick outfielder Vance Honeycutt is on the 7-day injured list with a strained left oblique muscle. … Minor league right-hander Zach Fruit had a right shoulder arthroscopic debridement procedure with Dr.
Keith Meister in Arlington, Texas. The Orioles say it was successful.
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