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Astros assistant GM and scouting director Mike Elias is expected to be named to the Orioles’ vacant head of baseball operations position, as USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale first reported late Tuesday night and MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli confirmed on Wednesday. According to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, Elias is expected to be joined in Baltimore’s front office by former NASA engineer and analytics guru Sig Mejdal, who he has worked alongside in both St. Louis and Houston:
Houston #Astros assistant GM Mike Elias, barring a sudden change of heart,will be the new GM of the Baltimore #Orioles
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 14, 2018
If Mike Elias does indeed land the Orioles GM job as @BNightengale is reporting, it is expected that Sig Mejdal would join Elias in Baltimore. Mejdal, who was a special assistant to GM Jeff Luhnow and was one of Houston's key analysts, left the Astros earlier this month. https://t.co/35WGOxrGw3
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) November 14, 2018
Elias, like a large chunk of major-league GMs and front-office figureheads these days, is an Ivy League grad who is under 40 years old and never played professional baseball. He’ll turn 36 years old next month and pitched from 2002-06 at Yale, joining the Cardinals’ front office the year after his graduation. He eventually rose to St. Louis’ manager of amateur scouting position before following Jeff Luhnow to Houston, where he started off as special assistant to the GM, following the 2012 season. He was immediately a key player in their draft efforts and rose to the scouting director position in 2013, playing a major role in the selections of players such as Alex Bregman, Tony Kemp, Tyler White, Kyle Tucker, and Forrest Whitley. Elias would remain in that role throughout the remainder of his Astros tenure, having the assistant GM tag added to his title in August of 2016.
With Baltimore apparently settling on Elias to head its baseball operations department, which has lacked leadership since Dan Duquette was let go in early October, all of the front-office figurehead positions across the league are filled for the moment, though the Dodgers and Giants are searching for general managers to supplement their respective presidents of baseball operations.
According to MASN’s Roch Kubatko, other candidates for the position included former major-league GMs Ned Colletti and Ben Cherington, current MLB employees Peter Woodford and Tyrone Brooks, Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp, Phillies assistant GM Ned Rice, and Tigers assistant GM David Chadd, who removed himself from consideration prior to the final decision. MLB senior VP Kim Ng did not interview for the job, despite numerous reports indicating otherwise.