Seeking more confirmations on Hyde

LAS VEGAS - Today marks the last full day of the 2018 Winter Meetings, with the Rule 5 draft on Thursday morning providing the final buzzer.

Executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said the Orioles won't leave Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino with a new manager, a press conference or "introduction" coming to Baltimore at a later date. If that's the case, they're going to maintain their streak of not getting to the podium.

This is why I don't bother to dress up.

An announcement should be coming real soon if only a signature is needed on a contract. Of course, Elias insisted yesterday that he hadn't made a decision or extended an offer to anyone, including Cubs bench coach Brandon Hyde, who's going to become the 20th manager in club history.

Elias is adhering to the policy of secrecy in the organization, saying that he fails to see the benefits in not keeping things close to the vest. And he'd certainly like to reach out to the other candidates.

He'd also like to reach for the remote and turn off the big screen TV in his suite.

I'm guessing that if it remains on for this afternoon's session, HGTV will be the network of choice. Seems appropriate if you're rebuilding.

News breaking of the Elias hiring, at whatever stage of the process, was followed by denials from multiple people in the organization who insisted that nothing was final, and executives and personnel throughout baseball saying that the Cubs confirmed it.

If I had a nickel for every "is it true?" that I heard last night as I walked through the hotel, I'd be able to buy my own team. Or pay Bryce Harper.

Someone might have jumped the gun, but it's out there.

Hyde never played in the majors and he managed only one game on an interim basis, for the Marlins on June 19, 2011. But he's got the necessary experience for Elias, including his background in scouting, and industry folks really like him, reacting as if the Orioles struck gold.

Elias completed a 16-minute media session yesterday with barely a mention of anything pertaining to the roster. We usually obsess over meetings with agents and executives, but nothing much about this week has felt normal.

Steering away from the manager reports, Elias was asked about interest in veteran starters Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner in trade discussions.

"We're having ongoing conversations," he replied, speaking in general terms regarding deals. "I personally have been very focused on this managerial hire, but our staff here has been in continuous conversations with every team in the league. That's just really the norm. That's par for the course.

"Front offices now are constantly dialoging with each other, sharing information, making sure they're not missing out on anything, just keeping in constant communication. The Winter Meetings, in particular, take that up a notch. People are sitting around. Their whole staff is in the same room and everyone's got talks on their mind, trade talks. It's kind of in the air.

"A lot of this stuff is very casual. It doesn't lead anywhere. We're constantly monitoring all the player markets."

Elias keeps stating that the new manager will have the most influence on the coaching staff, making it hard to ascertain whether the Orioles will hire a quality control coach, which is gaining in popularity in baseball.

"I don't know right now," Elias said. "It's more about the number of coaches that you have, and most teams are using seven coaches now and that seventh coach is titled very differently across the league. Some of them are quality control coaches, some of them are a second hitting coach. It's just depending on the specifics of the situation, the people involved, the staff."

Everyone is in the process of trying to get a feel for Elias as the head of baseball operations, the highest level that he's climbed in the industry. How he's going to handle various situations, like yesterday's awkward moment as the Hyde news played on his television. How he's going to communicate with his manager. Whether he's going to be hands-on and a regular presence on road trips.

"There's a lot that goes into the general manager job in this day and age, and a lot of our time is spent on topics like player development, the draft, international scouting, so we're out and about doing other things during the major league season quite a bit. And when that's the case, we'll have somebody from the higher levels of our front office available and traveling with the team," Elias said.

"I think that's the norm around the industry right now. Certainly, I'll be continuously available, and one of my goals and expectations for this relationship is that there will be a lot of communication back and forth. I view this, not just as a dugout manager, but a part of our organization, a part of our front office, an extension of our front office, and we want that level of communication and rapport."

Astros manager A.J. Hinch spoke yesterday of the ways that Elias and assistant Sig Mejdal should impact the Orioles.

"They're really good and certainly are going to do great things in Baltimore over the course of time. And I know them well. I work closely with both of them," he said.

"They did a good job of coming and getting one of the best young GMs possible in Mike Elias. And Mike's filled out his cabinet, starting to fill out his cabinet with a guy like Sig. Sig and I worked very closely together in this age of information where he helped me see things a little bit differently, strategically on the bench - how to combine baseball instinct with baseball information and where that balance is and where that breaking point is and some of the in-game decisions are made.

"They're going to be patient, but they're going to have a game plan. And certainly they have the blueprint of how this has been done before. But once they get their feet on the ground ... It's probably a rough time right now for them, having just gotten started right before the Winter Meetings. But I learned a lot from them.

"They made me better. They made me think about progressive baseball a little bit differently and a little more rapidly than I even anticipated when I went to the interview process. That certainly bodes well for the future of the Orioles."

Replicating the blueprint in Baltimore can be more of a challenge without the same level of young talent that lifted the Astros out of last place and into the World Series, which they won in 2017. There's concepts and then there's having a roster stocked with elite players.

"I just think when developing a plan, that has to be ... you have to combine being opportunistic but also being patient. And it comes with, you've got to have good players to be a good organization, and they have good players sprinkled throughout their organization and they're going to add more," Hinch said.

"So certainly the personnel side, if they can find themselves a (Carlos) Correa and a (Alex) Bregman, that will help them. And I know that they will do a lot to speed the process up as fast as they can, because the Orioles tradition is right up there with anybody's in baseball."