When they hired Elias prior to the 2019 season, he was pretty much their Jeff Luhnow. Brandon Hyde has been so far both their Bo Porter and their A.J. Hinch.
My impression was that they committed themselves to a fairly strict timeline for their rebuild, and didn't intend to let early success or failure derail it. They've been pretty rigid at keeping on script.
Leaving aside the coof year, they went from 54-108 in 2019 and 52-110 in 2021, the beginning of the rebuild, to an 83-79 winning season in 2022. They didn't make any premature moves that season to sacrifice the young talent for a slim playoff chance.
Even with the 101-61 record in 2023, they didn't really do that much to change the plan. The only trade deadline move was getting Jack Flaherty for a few no-names. For 2024, their big moves were signing Craig Kimbrel and trading for Corbin Burnes. This July was really the first time since the rebuild began that they were active at the trade deadline, but other than Zack Eflin, most weren't particularly big names (Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Eloy Jiménez, Austin Slater, Liván Soto, Trevor Rogers).
Though they still had a losing record, Houston improved by 19 wins in Bo Porter's second season, and then had winning seasons in 2015 and 2016 under Hinch before the WS win in 2017. Since then they've gone to the postseason every year, though we don't know how many wins were due to less savory methods.
So, I guess for the future of Elias and Hyde, the question is where the Orioles see themselves in their redevelopment plan and whether they see any reason to change horses just yet. I've also no idea how committed Rubenstein is to a plan that was developed under prior ownership.
