New Baltimore Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias was part of the front office in Houston that revitalized the Astros and brought home a World Series championship in 2017. The Orioles added another former Houston executive Nov. 21 in Sig Mejdal to assist Elias.
The rebuilding process in Houston is detailed in Sports Illustrated senior writer Ben Reiter's book, "Astroball." Reiter believes Elias was misconstrued during the interview process as a numbers-oriented executive coming from an analytics-heavy organization.
"He was often pigeonholed as an analytics guy," Reiter said on Glenn Clark Radio Nov. 19. "Yes, he has a full command of how to use analytics, which as he just said in his press conference are essentially table stakes for any organization in modern baseball. He knows how to properly use them, how to incorporate them into an organization's processes, but Mike Elias is a scout."
