Ever since the Orioles hired Mike Elias away from the Astros to be the new general manager in Baltimore, an O’s fan looking to believe that things would be better eventually has had the path of the Astros own rebuild sitting right there to dream about. The fact that Houston was able to turn three 100+ loss seasons from 2011-13 into good baseball in 2015 and a championship in 2017 is no guarantee the O’s under Elias will be able to do the same, but the thought has been powerful even for this pessimist.
Up until this week’s trades of Jonathan Villar and Dylan Bundy, the Orioles rebuilding project has mostly consisted of doing a lot of behind the scenes improvements while not making any effort towards moves that bring in players from outside the organization with the aim of significantly and immediately improving problem areas.