Basallo\u2019s Statcast profile.<\/a> He is swinging the bat fast and hitting the ball hard, though he doesn\u2019t yet have much to show for it. Although he\u2019s chasing a lot of pitches out of the zone, he\u2019s also drawing a lot of walks. This is a 21-year-old player who should be given some allowance for growing pains as a player. That doesn\u2019t mean the Orioles have to bat him 4th or 5th every game while he sorts it out. I blame Elias for that one.<\/p>\nAm I worried? No, if only because there\u2019s no point worrying about a player like thisShould Elias be blamed? Yes<\/p>\n
Alexander played in 135 games with the Diamondbacks across the previous two seasons and gave indications that he would be a guy whose bat is just on the right side of \u201cnot bad\u201d as long as he is able to provide decent defensive value at multiple positions. With his .542 OPS so far this year, he\u2019s hitting much worse than that. This was the guy Elias went out and got once the injuries started to mount in his infield before spring training even began. Expected batting stats point to a turnaround coming for Alexander. Hopefully that bears out.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? Yes<\/p>\n
Pretty much nothing is going right for Beavers so far other than that he isn\u2019t swinging out of the strike zone much or swinging and missing much. He isn\u2019t hitting the ball well, or hard. Maybe the most disheartening to me is how bad he\u2019s looked in the field, coming in at 4th percentile in range despite also having 96th percentile sprint speed. This is a fast player who is getting no defensive value even with that speed. Elias went out of his way to call up Beavers later last year to preserve his rookie eligibility and maybe have a shot at contending for Rookie of the Year this year. So far, that looks like a joke.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? Yes<\/p>\n
The thing with Cowser and swinging and missing at nearly every changeup that he sees is beyond parody. That\u2019s a comic second-tier character in a Major League-type movie, except in the movie he would actually overcome the flaw as the team improves thanks to some absurd training regimen. Maybe Cowser should try to figure out if he can break his changeup curse by building a very specific Lego set while blindfolded or with one hand tied behind his back.<\/p>\n
Cowser is also Elias\u2019s guy. The Orioles reached to draft him in the first round in 2021. We saw in his rookie season some signs of a perennial pretty good player. He has not been able to follow up on this. I don\u2019t blame Elias entirely for this, but I do think he needed a better \u201cwhat if Cowser keeps struggling\u201d backup plan ready and he didn\u2019t have one.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? Not reallyShould Elias be blamed? If the problems continue<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t feel good that the Orioles gave up four prospects plus a draft pick for this guy, then gave him a $68 million extension before he\u2019d ever thrown a pitch for the team, and after four starts he has a 4.91 ERA. He\u2019s having rotten batted ball luck (.364 BABIP) that may be real bad luck or may be about the defense behind him. I\u2019m willing to believe that things may still click for him. I understand the frustrations in the meantime. It\u2019s one more Elias move from the offseason that\u2019s bearing no immediate fruit.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? NoShould Elias be blamed? No<\/p>\n
Bradish looked like he would be able to pick up close to where he left off before his Tommy John surgery in six starts after returning last year. That hasn\u2019t carried forward into 2026; Bradish has battled command problems and he\u2019s getting rocked in a way we haven\u2019t seen from him since the bad days of his early career.<\/p>\n
Even moreso than Baz, I think you can point to the defense behind him costing him a lot. Take away the two earned runs from Weston Wilson\u2019s botch being scored a triple on Sunday and Bradish\u2019s ERA shaves down to 4.58. That still doesn\u2019t feel good, but it would feel better than 5.49. The Fielding Independent Pitching metric, an ERA analogue that tries to take defense out of the equation, has Bradish at 3.22 so far. We could live with Bradish at a 3.22 ERA.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? Yes<\/p>\n
Elias could have invested real money in a starting pitcher in free agency this offseason and instead he went for two one-year guys, Bassitt and Zach Eflin. Obviously, Eflin is done already and that sucks; I don\u2019t blame Elias for an elbow injury. That could have happened to any other pitcher he signed.<\/p>\n
Bassitt, through three starts, is on the Charlie Morton path. When you have to try to feel good about, \u201cWell, he only gave up one earned run in 4.2 innings,\u201d that\u2019s a bad place to be. It\u2019s early and he\u2019s only got to make like two good starts in a row to quiet some of the doubters. He\u2019s got to actually do it. If he never does, this is a big strike against Elias. Building a consistently good rotation has proved elusive for him.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? Yes<\/p>\n
One of my observations about the Orioles over the years is that just about every season, there\u2019s one reliever who you don\u2019t expect to suck who suddenly is no good. The year-to-year volatility of relievers is one of those trends of the modern game. It looks a lot like Wells is that guy this year. I think the Orioles constructed their roster assuming that Wells would be able to take the eighth or ninth inning. If he flames out spectacularly, that\u2019s a big evaluation failure.<\/p>\n
If other players are able to step up, maybe Elias won\u2019t have to shoulder too much blame for this. Indeed, as far as the bullpen goes, there\u2019s not a lot of blame to shoulder so far: The Orioles bullpen is ninth in ERA at 3.52, even with Wells plus a couple of clunkers in Yaramil Hiraldo and Nick Raquet.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? YES<\/p>\n
You will probably not be surprised to learn that the Orioles are a bottom five defense in the league so far, as measured by Statcast\u2019s Outs Above Average. Quite unexpectedly, the only places they\u2019ve been okay are the infield corners, first and third base. The whole outfield is in the negatives. Second base and shortstop are negative.<\/p>\n
This was one area of the roster where anyone should have been concerned heading into the season. A regular outfield alignment of Taylor Ward, Cowser, and Tyler O\u2019Neill was always going to be bad. Ward has made people happy with his hitting so far, but he showed his poor defense on Opening Day and that\u2019s not changed. He\u2019s slow and he can\u2019t make plays an average left fielder would make. Beavers struggling in the field early on was an unexpected problem.<\/p>\n
If you wrangled a genie and used up one of your wishes on having the opportunity to ask Mike Elias questions to which he must give truthful answers, I think that genie-compelled Elias would admit that he always expected some defensive problems this year. There were supposed to be other trade-offs to make up for that defensive weakness, particularly guys hitting dingers. The bad defenders who are annoying you the most are not hitting dingers. Nor is anyone other than Gunnar Henderson and Jeremiah Jackson. Other than Ward, the offenders for bad defense aren\u2019t hitting much at all.<\/p>\n
Am I worried? YesShould Elias be blamed? Eh<\/p>\n
The Orioles are once again among the league leaders in players who are on the injured list. That feels like a problem, and if a problem exists then someone should be blamed for it. Whether the Orioles are doing something problematic in their strength and conditioning that is leading to being a more injury-prone team is beyond the knowledge of any fan.<\/p>\n
There are some real freak injuries in the assortment. Dietrich Enns with a foot infection? Tyler O\u2019Neill gave himself a concussion from passing out from dehydration while sick? Ryan Mountcastle broke a bone in his foot while running the bases? Jackson Holliday broke his hamate bone while swinging just before spring training even started?<\/p>\n
It is up to a general manager to assemble depth that is competent to handle some unexpected problems. Elias probably thought he had this. I\u2019m sure he knew O\u2019Neill would hit the IL some time this year: That would have meant easier playing time for Beavers, and Leody Taveras is around to back things up too. Taveras has been great so far. Beavers has not.<\/p>\n
Elias went and got Alexander when he learned about Jordan Westburg\u2019s injury, and Jeremiah Jackson was around when Holliday was hurt. Mayo was in the mix. Even the Adley Rutschman injury, theoretically that would mean, okay, it\u2019s Basallo\u2019s time to shine. Which isn\u2019t happening yet. Elias has two of his projected bullpen guys on the IL in Keegan Akin and Andrew Kittredge.<\/p>\n
I think the Orioles should have probably signed another real reliever other than Helsley, probably instead of re-acquiring Kittredge, but guys are stepping up in the bullpen so far. Anthony Nunez has looked great. Rico Garcia is also off to a strong start. Even Yennier Cano has rediscovered something positive in the early results.<\/p>\n
If the Orioles don\u2019t make the playoffs this year, I think that\u2019s a sign that Elias\u2019s plan has failed and he should be fired. In that event, it would be clear that he does not have it in him to build a sustained talent pipeline and supplement that internal pipeline with useful players from outside the organization.<\/p>\n
We are 19 games into the season and there is no certainty that the Orioles will remain on their current path. All of this feels worse because many of their problems do feel like they\u2019re carrying over from last year, this despite having a new manager, new hitting coaches, and a decent amount of roster turnover. It should have been better than this, and so far it\u2019s not. That\u2019s not fun. Elias at the top is the big constant here.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s early to give up on the team. The 2014 Orioles were below .500 as late as May 30, 53 games into their season. They finished 96-66. There is plenty of time for things to still come together for the 2026 Orioles. Of course, there was plenty of time for things to come together for the 2025 Orioles at this time a year ago, and we know that they never did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through the first 19 games of the 2026 Orioles season, they are once again disappointing us. It is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,3357,2538,5,4,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-677711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles-analysis","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116420747389849125","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}