The Mike Elias Free Agency Situation
A history of Mike Elias's free agency signings w/ the Orioles
Mike Elias has done wonders for the Orioles organization since taking over from Dan Duquette after a disastrous 2018 trade deadline that saw a fire sale ending in a 47-115 record even though the payroll was nearly $150m.
Elias excelled early on with trades making shrewd moves like flipping a struggling starter, but recently converted reliever in Jorge Lopez for Yennier Cano, Cade Povich, Juan Rojas, and Juan Nunez. There were a number of these types of trades made during the rebuilding years. Additionally, he did a fantastic job piecing together a bullpen made nearly entirely of waiver wire claims, minor league contracts, or small trades. His team has done a fantastic job at drafting position players. And even though they haven’t seen the fruits of it yet, the team has flipped their international presence on its head…in a good way.
Under Andy MacPhail and Dan Duquette, the Orioles struggled to spend even 1/6 of their international allotment year in and year out, oftentimes trading their international bonus pool money. You flash forward under the Elias regime, and year in and year out, they are nearly spending every single dollar *and* they’re spending as much on one player as previous regimes spent on all of their signed international players for a year.
There are certainly two holes, however, when it comes to Mike Elias’s strategy. First and foremost, it is 2025. He’s had 6 drafts and there have been zero pitchers drafted that have made a major league appearance. The closest came this year in Brandon Young, who was signed as an undrafted free agent during the COVID shortened MLB amateur draft (which ended up being only 5 rounds).
The other issue? Free agency.
To me, there were 2 periods of the Mike Elias regime:
2019-2022: The Rebuild
2023-Present: Compete and Contend
To that end, I think it’s pretty evident that Elias and Angelos opted to “tank” by spending little to nothing in free agency, trading nearly all veterans, signing stop gaps, and drafting high in the process. This paid dividends for the club, as MLB hadn’t yet adopted the draft pick lottery (that was in 2023).
For the sake of this post, I’m only going to focus on major league FA signings and not minor league signings unless that minor league signing converted to a major league one (examples: Harvey, Suarez). And only if they were signed before the season started.
2019-2022: The Rebuild
We can look at those FA signings from 2019-2022:
2019 (-1.1 bWAR)
Nate Karns: 1 year, $800k, 0.3 bWAR
Dan Strailly: 1 year, $575k, -1.4 bWAR
2020 (+1.3 bWAR)
Kohl Stewart: 1 year, $800k split contract, but opted out prior to start of 2020 season (signed in December 2019)
Jose Iglesias: 1 year, $3m, 1.3 bWAR, team option for 2021 (picked up for $3m, then traded)
2021 (-1.3 bWAR)
Freddy Galvis: 1 year, $1.5m, 1.1 bWAR (traded)
Maikel Franco: 1 year, $800k, -1.4 bWAR
Matt Harvey: 1 year, $1m, -0.7 bWAR
Wade LeBlanc: 1 year, $700k, -0.3 bWAR
2022 (+0.8 bWAR)
Jordan Lyles: 1 year, $6m, 0.7 bWAR (team option for 2023, used $1m buyout)
Robinson Chirinos: 1 year, $900k, 0.1 bWAR
A total of $16.2m spent (removed Kohl Stewart’s, included Lyles buyout) for -0.3 bWAR. I did not include Iglesias’s contract pickup for 2021, as he was traded and salary assumed by the Angels.
2023-2025: Compete and Contend
2023 (+3.7 bWAR)
Kyle Gibson: 1 year, $10m, 0.7 bWAR
Adam Frazier: 1 year, $8m, 1.7 bWAR
Mychal Givens: 1 year, $3m, -0.4 bWAR (team option for 2024, used $2m buyout)
Austin Voth: 1 year, $1.875m, 1.7 bWAR
2024 (+3.3 bWAR)
Tucker Davidson: 1 year, $740k, 0.4 bWAR
Craig Kimbrel: 1 year, $12m, -1.1 bWAR (team option for 2025, used $1m buyout)
Tony Kemp: 1 year, $1m, -0.2 bWAR
Ryan O’Hearn: 1 year, $3.5m, 2.0 bWAR (originally cash trade with Royals, but then cut, assigned to minors, then major league contract)
Albert Suarez: $760k contract + $290k arb bonus pool (~$1m), 2.2 bWAR (originally minor league contract)
2025 (-0.6 bWAR)
Tomoyuki Sugano: 1 year, $13m, 1 bWAR
Tyler O’Neill: 3 year, $49.5m ($16.5/year), 0.3 bWAR
Gary Sanchez: 1 year, $8.5m, -0.5 bWAR
Kyle Gibson: 1 year, $5.25m, -0.5 bWAR
Charlie Morton: 1 year, $15m, -1.2 bWAR
Andrew Kittredge: 1 year, $9m, 0.0 bWAR (hurt, team option w/ $1m buyout for 2026)
Ramon Laureano: 1 year, $4m, 0.3 bWAR
2023 netted a positive 3.7 bWAR for nearly $25m (including buyout for Givens).
2024 was a major letdown via free agency by Elias after a 101-61 record. His major acquisitions came via trade (Burnes) or minor league/cash trade turned major league contracts (Albert Suarez and Ryan O’Hearn). Either way, because of some shrewd minor league signings, he ended up with a positive 3.3 bWAR for $18m.
2025 so far has been a disaster. Only Sugano, Laureano, and O’Neill have netted a positive bWAR (1.6 total) whereas Sanchez (hurt), Gibson, Morton, Kittredge (hurt, hasn’t played) have totaled -2.2 bWAR. Right now, the 2025 FA class is underwater -0.6 but costing the club nearly $70m. The book isn’t closed on this season so far. Notably, I have not included O’Hearn or Suarez in 2025 as they didn’t have a multi-year contract.
2019-Present
So far, Mike Elias has put together a +6.1 bWAR in 7 years of FA, mostly coming from Ryan O’Hearn and Albert Suarez in 2024 (+4.2 bWAR). Over that time, he has spent nearly $134m with over half coming in 2025. This nets out to roughly $22m/bWAR. However, if we look at pure FA signings that didn’t start out as minor league contracts, Elias will have spent nearly $127m for +1.9 bWAR, which is a staggering $67m/bWAR.
Yes, 2025 isn’t over, yet. We could see Elias end up in the black for the season, and us O’s fans are hoping tremendously so. But if we remove this season, that’s nearly $60m for 2.5 bWAR. Even though that’s a positive bWAR, there weren’t many truly, excellent signings.
I think it’s pretty easy to say that Elias tries to find most of his value in trades, waiver pickups, the draft, and he has to be banking on the international signings starting to pay dividends in the future.
But if you aren’t going to draft starting pitchers high, you absolutely need to start doing a better job in free agency and the international market. And right now, those haven’t entirely worked out for a team that should be contending.