How the Baltimore Orioles Pulled Off an Astronomical Turnaround
The Orioles followed the
Astros’ playbook in their rise from laughingstock to championship contender.
Now, with Houston faltering, the students have become the masters
By Jared Diamond Wall Street Journal May 8, 2024 12:07 pm ET
The Houston Astros have stood alone as the undisputed kings of
baseball for much of the last decade. They have reached the American League
Championship Series in seven straight seasons, claiming four pennants over that
span and winning the franchise’s first two championships.
But now the Astros’ reign appears to be over. They have been
dismal so far in 2024, plummeting into last place in their division and
seemingly on the verge of ceding control to a new powerhouse.
It turns out the perfect candidate has emerged, and for anybody
who has followed the Astros’ ascent to prominence, the blueprint looks
suspiciously familiar. That’s because the Baltimore Orioles followed a simple
strategy to rise from laughingstock to title contender: They copied the Astros.
The Orioles entered Wednesday’s action with the best record in the
AL, and their parallels to the Astros are impossible to ignore. Their rebuild
began when they hired two progressive Houston executives, Mike Elias and Sig
Mejdal, to run their front office. Their mission was to take a decrepit
organization stuck in the past and transform it into a modern, cutting-edge
operation, just as they did with the Astros under former general
manager Jeff Luhnow.
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Adley Rutschman is a
key part of the Orioles success. PHOTO MITCHELL LAYTON/GETTY IMAGES
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Like with the Astros, that involved tearing down the Orioles’
roster to studs and enduring a stretch of abject futility in an effort to
stockpile prospects. That approach led to a lot of losses—and a horde of
transcendent young talents, like catcher Adley Rutschman, infielder Gunnar
Henderson, outfielder Colton Cowser and more.
The Orioles accept that comparisons to the Astros are inevitable,
given who is in charge and the model they have followed. So it’s not lost on
them that the Astros won the World Series in the sixth season after they began
their rebuild. The 2024 season is the Orioles’ sixth with Elias and Mejdal at
the helm.
“What we have been doing is perfectly smooth and what’s been
called for in terms of growing this team,” Elias said during spring training.
The Orioles’ strategy, which the Astros perfected, is popular
because when it works, it results in remarkable success for remarkably little
money. Young players typically make close to the league minimum in salary,
which explains why the Orioles are paying their entire starting lineup less
than half of the $70 million that the Los Angeles Dodgers owe Shohei Ohtani
this season. Henderson, Rutschman and Cowser are earning roughly $2.3 million
combined.
The only problem is that young players eventually grow up and
start commanding enormous sums. The Astros learned that lesson the hard way,
seeing key contributors like Gerrit Cole, George Springer and Carlos Correa all
depart in free agency. The Orioles currently have a payroll near the bottom of
baseball. That won’t work forever if they expect to sustain their success.
That’s where David Rubenstein comes in. Rubenstein, the
private-equity billionaire who co-founded Carlyle, officially took control of the Orioles as
their new owner at the end of March. His arrival has given Orioles fans hope
that he will use his vast resources to expand the team’s payroll after years of
retrenchment under his predecessor, the Angelos family.
Only then will the Orioles be able to truly reap the benefits of
following in the Astros’ footsteps.
“Obviously we don’t get involved in the books,” Orioles pitcher
Dean Kremer said, “but that’s kind of our hope.”
Rubenstein, a Baltimore native who grew up rooting for the
Orioles, has said all the right things so far. He insists that he intends to
defer to Elias when it comes to roster decisions and that he bought the team to
give back to his hometown.
One of the best ways to do that would be to use his riches to help
the Orioles return to the World Series for the first time since 1983. In
February, the Orioles traded for ace pitcher Corbin Burnes despite his $15.6
million salary, a sign that the pursestrings are already beginning to loosen.
The move was another one straight out of the Astros’ playbook: Right before
winning its first title in 2017, Houston made a splash by acquiring star
pitcher Justin Verlander.
In some ways, what Elias has done in Baltimore was even more
difficult than what happened in Houston. The Astros already had Jose Altuve
when their rebuild began. Until Elias showed up, the Orioles lacked anything
resembling modern analytics or international scouting departments, a sign of
just how far behind they were relative to their peers. Then they lost a full
year of development for their prospects when the pandemic resulted in the
cancellation of the minor leagues in 2020.
“The concrete achievements thus far are different and shifted a
little bit down from what the Astros did in Year 4 and Year 5,” Elias said.
“But considering the context and also the pandemic, I’m proud of it.”
He said those words in the middle of February, at the Orioles’
training facility in Sarasota, Fla. Nearly three months later, the Orioles have
lived up to every expectation, while the Astros have faltered.
In other words, the Orioles aren’t just copying the Astros
anymore—they have surpassed them.
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Adley Rutschman is a key part of the Orioles success. PHOTO MITCHELL LAYTON/GETTY IMAGES
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