Elias: "I hope that the city of Baltimore remembers this group for kind of reminding the world that this is Baltimore and we do baseball here"

More players arrived at Camden Yards this morning to pack their belongings. Others hopped in cars or boarded flights home. Félix Bautista arrived before 11 a.m. to get further instructions on rehabbing his right elbow, an arduous task that begins in a few days in Sarasota.

The Orioles’ offseason is in its infancy stages, which precludes executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias from offering specifics on targeted areas of improvement, payroll, handling arbitration-eligible players, the status of front office personnel and the coaching staff, replacing Bautista and roles for other pitchers.

Elias didn’t tap dance during today’s season-ending press conference, but he chose his words carefully and warned that he would be “kind of boring today with positional roster questions.”

It’s just too soon. The wounds are fresh after being swept by the Rangers in the Division Series.

“I just want to thank our players,” Elias said in opening remarks during his 30-minute session. “Just tremendous group of individuals I’ll never forget. Getting a chance to work with these guys, and luckily we’re going to be working with many, many, many of them going forward. We asked a lot of them and they delivered, so, any shortcomings that anyone perceives with the 2023 campaign should be directed towards me.

“Those guys did absolutely everything asked of them, which was a lot, and they’re a really special group of guys and they had a great season. Just didn’t have a good outcome in the Division Series. It’s a round bat and a round ball and a round earth that we live in, and sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way. And I think that happened for a lot of our guys. But they did everything we could to gear up and prepare for it, and I’m very, very proud of this group.”

Free agency doesn’t begin until five days after the World Series and the Orioles are expected to again seek upgrades in the rotation and bullpen, especially with Bautista missing the 2024 season following Tommy John surgery. A middle-of-the-order bat also could be appealing if there's a spot for it.

“Obviously, we’re looking to get better, and we also have to look to maintain. That’s part of the game, too,” Elias said.

“There’s areas where just maintaining takes effort, so we’re going to be doing all of that. I am looking forward to doing it in a professional way and sitting down and analyzing and talking to people, and one of the unwanted consolation prizes of getting eliminated early is you have a little bit more time to prepare for the offseason, so we are sprinting ahead with doing that as a baseball ops department. We’ve got people upstairs right now cranking on it, and I’m already going.

“I don’t have huge, specific answers about what we’re going to be out there looking for. Not ready for that yet. We’re going to start putting the thought and the work into those very important questions right now.”

The Orioles didn’t spend on a No. 1 starter over the winter, agreeing to terms on a $10 million contract with Kyle Gibson and trading for left-hander Cole Irvin. Elias wasn’t ready to share the team’s plans for the 2024 season and the probability of being more aggressive in free agency or trade discussions.

“All that stuff is swirling through my mind, and all the other professional baseball people we have working here, and we listen, we think, we self-reflect, but I’ve got to really sit down and look at things and see what’s out there in the market,” Elias said.

“You can’t force stuff, and sometimes the market is the market, and you need to know what’s there before you start picking and choosing your goals. This is very fresh. We just got off a plane. A lot more to say later.”

Speaking more in broad terms about the Orioles’ shortcomings, Elias said, “I wish we made a better playoff run.”

Posting the best record in the league suggested they would, but three straight defeats sent them home early.

“The regular season, 101 wins in the American League East, we were dreaming of that when we started the rebuild,” Elias said. “It seemed impossible. The people here pulled it together. I think it’s just an historic achievement. This group of players, regardless of where else they go in their careers and their lives, I hope that the city of Baltimore remembers this group for kind of reminding the world that this is Baltimore and we do baseball here, and that’s my goal going forward as long as I’m responsible for keeping that being the case. And it’s the guys in that room who really made it happen.”

The youngest of the group aren’t near free agency, but there’s an uncertainty over their long-term futures with the organization, especially after chairman and CEO John Angelos said in a New York Times article that the Orioles would be “financially underwater” if retaining its young stars.

“Look, speaking from personal experience, I think sometimes when you stand somewhere and talk to the media and try to say things and have them be interesting for 40 minutes, things don’t come out exactly how you meant them, or especially little snippets of what you said,” Elias said.

“We are very focused on keeping this organization as successful and healthy as possible within the constraints of reality. Obviously, we have players here that we love, and you look at it right now and you go, ‘Boy, I wish we had those guys under contract for longer than they currently are.’ And a big part of the calculus of keeping this franchise healthy is pursuing or examining opportunities to possibly keep some of these guys longer.”

Any discussions relating to this will be done behind closed doors and not shared with the public. The usual team stance.

“I’ve said it over and over, we quietly work on this in the background,” Elias said. “I don’t want to be the one out talking about it, but obviously that’s a part of our job as a front office to tackle that subject.”

Also kept quiet are contract terms below ownership.

Elias was hired in November 2018 and he chose Brandon Hyde a month later to manage the club through the rebuild and beyond. Hyde received a contract extension, the terms undisclosed.

“I approach this position that I’m in to maximize our ability to be successful and winning, and it comes sometimes at the expense of putting information out there or feeding public info,” Elias said. “I don’t see how it’s beneficial to the Orioles team for that knowledge to be out there for our leadership or for anyone – for our coaches, for our scouts.

“Me and Brandon, we are 100 percent in on this. We’re giving our hearts and souls and minds and quite a bit of experience to this, and I hope that lasts forever.

“We’re back next season. I’ll give you that. Good work.”

Hyde’s message to his players, and they echoed it later, was that they’ll be back in the playoffs. The next steps will be taken to win a championship. They say and believe it.

“The only thing that tempers any kind of - I don’t know if ‘enthusiasm’ is the word - is our division’s hard, and I don’t take anything for granted,” Elias said. “Do we have the talent and the organization to have another regular season as successful as our regular season was? Absolutely. But there’s other organizations out there trying, too, and we’re going to have 162 games next year and a lot’s going to happen. But I am exceedingly confident we’re going to have another very competitive, entertaining, excellent season next year. What that results in wins and losses or division titles and that stuff, I’m humble about how hard it is and what this group achieves next year. But we’re going to pursue that stuff.

“We’ve had a couple really big milestones the last couple years. This one was huge, and I’m very proud of it, and we want to do it again.”

Likely on a firm budget that won’t allow for massive contracts in a smaller market. But there are mid-level deals, a term that fits in today’s game, like the one Nathan Eovaldi received from the Rangers at $34 million over two years with a vesting option. He’s already impacted two series, holding the Orioles to one run Tuesday night in seven innings.

“I look at everything on a case-by-case basis,” Elias said. “There are players and trade targets that we have pursued in the last 12 months and we didn’t get them. And we’re in the ranges that you’re alluding too. Those pursuits will be on the menu again.

“We’re trying to win, and those types of deals are obviously a part of that. It doesn’t mean you have to do them any given year, but we will be talking about them and doing what we’ve got to do to have another great season and an even better season. And also, seasons after that.”

The Orioles had the second-lowest payroll in baseball and Elias didn’t want to promise increases in 2024.

“Again, I’m in Day 1 of our offseason,” Elias said. “That’s my answer.”

Does Elias believe that enough was done at the trade deadline, acquiring reliever Shintaro Fujinami from the Athletics and starter Jack Flaherty from the Cardinals, to bolster the club?

“I lament that our outcomes at the trade deadline, I guess, didn’t propel us through the ALDS,” he said. “On the other hand, I was very focused on winning the division and we did that. We had some guys that came in and sort of helped fill some holes at the right time to rest our pitching staff, and I think that was helpful. We had all kinds of things going on at the trade deadline that just didn’t happen.”

More from today:

* John Means had his left elbow examined and tests didn’t show any structural damage, according to Elias. Means was left off the ALDS roster due to soreness that he felt after his simulated game.

“His elbow just kind of barked at an unfortunate time for him, but we’ve gotten it looked at and he’s going to be fine,” Elias said. “He’ll be a full-go in spring training, nothing needed for treatment with him other than just kind of time and rest.”

Elias conceded that the Orioles missed Means, who could have started against the Rangers or aided a bullpen that was stretched to the limits.

“I think there’s a good chance, whether he started one of those games in Texas or didn’t, that he was going to pitch a lot and pitch importantly. Obviously, that has some trickle-down effect on decisions on the rest of the staff.

“He’s one of our best pitchers, but the guy came out of nowhere and saved our division title in Cleveland, and I’ll never forget that.”

Said Hyde: “Our bullpen became a bunch of short-inning relievers.”

“We went in expecting that we were going to have John available to start one of the games, and it’s just one of those things that happens,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but it happened, and it didn’t allow us to have one of our starters go into the bullpen.”

* Hyde said he’ll unwind at home and tune into the playoffs.

“I’m gonna watch a little differently this year. I’m going to watch a little irritated,” he said.

“I’m still irritated, I’m still frustrated, I’m still pissed.”

Hyde also stayed away from the subject of his coaching staff beyond lauding their work.

“I haven’t even had those discussions with Mike,” he said. “Me and Mike are going to talk about that in the coming days. But I thought our guys did a great job, and a huge part of why we won 101 games.”

Hyde is the favorite to be named Manager of the Year in the American League in voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“That’s nice," he said. “I’m still pissed, to be honest with you.”

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I don’t really read a ton. When the season’s going on, all I’m worried about is that night’s game. What’s happening around me, sometimes I’m not aware of, I’m being told. But I’m just trying to get better every day and I’m trying to put our team in position to win as much as I possibly can. Whatever people say, they say, and if it’s nice things, that’s great.”

* Elias and his staff have built the top-rated farm system in baseball, which presents the challenge of fitting prospects onto the major league roster. A few of them appear to be blocked, and finding a solution is a chunk of the offseason business.

“It’s all I think about every day of my life,” Elias said.

“I’m not wanting to talk about it. I want to reflect on 2023, promise everybody and the fans that we’re getting our foot on the gas pedal for keeping Baltimore baseball great and having an even better season next year, and especially in the postseason, whatever degree we can control that. There’s a lot that goes into that and we have an amazing farm system, and there’s a lot of ways that benefits you. It’s a good thing. We’re going to do our jobs this winter.”