I agree fully with most of Orioles fan Paul Bledsoe’s recent commentary, but I’ll go one step farther (“Orioles need a new strategy to win again,” May 21). Our players play very hard, some are very talented and some are lucky to play on a Major League Baseball team, but they need leadership and direction from team management — all the way from the general manager to position coaches.
If you look at the American League, every team toward the top of their division is led by a manager with MLB playing experience except Toronto, but Blue Jays manager John Schneider played in more than 1,100 minor league games. The Orioles coaching staff is 80% composed of guys who never played professionally and were only average to below average college players. How can you coach MLB players if you were never one of them?
The O’s coaching staff was hired by Mike Elias who was a marginally effective pitcher at Yale University. In the draft, Elias has had a couple of good years, but he was picking very early and able to get what he wanted.
I love Adley Rutschman but would have gone with Bobby Witt Jr. who is three years younger and an everyday player versus a catcher who might play 125 games a year. Owner David Rubenstein needs to get rid of Elias (maybe Cal Ripken Jr. would agree to the job) and get baseball people instead of computer geeks to run the team.
— Bill Spencer, Ruxton
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