Elias on Orioles’ ownership, Sasaki, Mateo at Winter Meetings

DALLAS–What happened? The reported contracts with free-agent outfielder Tyler O’Neill and catcher Gary Sánchez have not been made official. Perhaps they will be on the second day of the Winter Meetings.

The Orioles will continue to pursue starting pitching, and there are a lot of competitors.

“One of the main things that stands out to me this year is we don’t have that many teams right now that are announcing that they’re in a rebuilding mode,” Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said.

After the Orioles were swept out of the playoffs for the second straight year, first-year owner David Rubenstein said that at age 75, he wanted to see the team “speed up the effort” to get to a World Series.

“He’s extremely passionate about making this franchise as good as it can be,” Elias said. “We’re in a really good mode right now. We’re coming off back-to-back playoff years so we have a really good chance over the next few years, we think, to continue to be a playoff team and with that, we hope deep playoff runs are part of it.

“He wants to do everything we can do within our power and within our skill set to approach that correctly. There’s measurement to how you go about this business. There’s give-and-take. You can’t do everything that you want to do all the time in a lot of cases.

“We’re making together to figure out what the right recipe is, but the support from him and his group for our baseball operations department and just for investing in the franchise is as good as it can be. It’s excellent.”

Waiting on Sasaki: Theoretically, the Orioles have as good a chance as any team to sign Roki Sasaki, the Japanese right-hander who was posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines. Sasaki must reach a deal with a major league club by January 23^rd or he’ll return to Japan for 2025.

The Orioles’ international player pool for 2025 is $6,908,800, and that’s the most they can offer Sasaki.

Elias wasn’t commenting specifically on Sasaki but said the Orioles have a lot to offer.

“Winning team, great defense, young and athletic defense, great fanbase, great ballpark,” he said. “We’ve got an exciting window ahead of us, I believe with this group of players and this ownership group and the people we have running the organization.

“We have good pitching development. We use the best technology and the best resources to keep our players healthy and make them better.

“I think it’s as good an organization as any to develop yourself, have a great chance to win, and also you’re in a big stage in the American League East. There’s something exciting about that, something special about the American League East.”

What does it mean? Elias reiterated his comments last about Jorge Mateo, indicating that it’s possible that he’ll play much more outfield than he has in his first four seasons with the Orioles.

“I think a lot of that depends on what the roster looks like. The offseason is nowhere close to being over,” Elias said. “There’s things that could influence that in one direction or another, but a big part of his value is that he’s a plus-defender in the infield and the outfield. Now that we have some more young infielders joining the mix, it gives us an opportunity to utilize his outfield play, perhaps.

“It’s something we’ll sit down with him and talk about in spring training once we have a full roster picture, but he’s really good at it.

“That’s part of what makes him so exciting is his ability to plug-and-play him in so many different areas and then have him be an above-average defenders in those areas, but there are also many scenarios just as he has been, he’s getting the lion’s share of reps around the infield as one of our primary infielders, too.

“That’s what versatility brings you is it gets you in the lineup because you’re able to get in there in all kinds of scenarios. We just have to see what the whole context looks like.”

What’s the word? “There are a lot of teams going for it at the same time. That rachets up demand quite a bit. I think we’re seeing some fast moves so far.”-Elias on why the free-agent market is intense.

What’s the stat of the day? $765 million. That’s the reported value of Juan Soto’s contract with the New York Mets, and while Elias declined to comment on the deal because it’s not official, he did talk about the free-agent market.

“It looks like there’s a lot of activity in the market,” he said. “I think it’s good for the sport to see a lot of teams trying to compete against one another. We’ve got a lot of good teams in baseball right now. It seems like it’s been a competitive bull market and it’s been moving fast, and it’s keeping us on our toes, but I think it’s good to see the excitement for the sport, and especially around this event.”

What’s next? Manager Brandon Hyde speaks for the first time since October 3^rd, the day after the Wild Card Series ended. Elias will also brief the media on Day 2 of the Winter Meetings.