Elias, Mejdal reportedly heading to Baltimore

Mike Elias, Houston Astros assistant general manager in charge of scouting, will be the new general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, according to multiple reports. Interestingly, reports also indicate that Sig Mejdal, the Astros analytics guru who departed the organization last month, may join Elias in Baltimore — Keith Law says that Mejdal will be joining the Orioles to “build an R&D department in Baltimore.”

The Orioles have been one of the more dysfunctional organizations in MLB for a number of years, as owner Peter Angelos reportedly vetoed various deals while general manager Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter vied for power. With Angelos reportedly allowing his sons the authority to oversee the organization, Duquette and Showalter are both now gone, and the younger Angeloses appear to be poaching talent from the Astros as they look to revitalize the franchise.

Meanwhile, the departures of Elias and Mejdal will be a loss for the Astros, and we will have to wait and see how the organization replaces them and recovers from their absence. The Rangers, you may recall, had four key figures — A.J. Preller, Don Welke, Thad Levine and Scott Servais — as the “inner circle” around g.m. Jon Daniels when the Rangers went to back-to-back World Series. All four have departed, and the organization arguably hasn’t recovered from losing those guys.

Successful organizations inevitably see top lieutenants get poached, and how the Astros handle the losses of some of their top people will significantly impact the A.L. West in the coming years.