Series loss to Nationals proves firing Brandon Hyde was a half measure

A year ago today, the Baltimore Orioles fired Brandon Hyde following a 4-3 loss to the Washington Nationals, which sank the Orioles to 15-28 on the season. The 2025 Orioles being as bad as they were had a lot more to do with the roster construction than anything that Hyde was doing, but managers exist to absorb criticism and be the fall guy when the team underperforms, so he was the one who got the boot.

A few days later, President of Baseball Operations (though nobody at the time knew that was his title), Mike Elias, finally found time to speak to the media and offered a range of platitudes about being disappointed and doing everything possible to fix the team's issues. One quote from his press availability does stand out as particularly interesting. When asked about the issues with the roster, Elias said:

"Our starting pitching staff has been a huge problem, and I put that on myself and the front office in terms of roster construction."

The Baltimore Orioles need to address the real reason they're perennially disappointing

Yesterday, the Orioles got blown out by the Washington Nationals, a team that traded away its best pitcher in the offseason in anticipation of being one of the worst teams in the league. As of today, they have the worst run differential in all of baseball.

They currently sit at 20-26, a whopping two games better in the loss column than they were exactly a year ago when they decided things were so bad that somebody had to be fired. Their only saving grace is that somehow the entire American League is playing just as poorly as they are, and despite their slow start, they're still just 1.5 games out of a playoff spot.

However, watching the team on the field and seeing where their lineup, pitching, and defense rank compared to the rest of the league, this looks much more like a team destined for the top of the draft than a playoff spot. Does the fact that other teams are struggling justify the Orioles turning a blind eye to the fact that they are statistically, maybe the worst team in the league?

No, it does not.

Last year, the Orioles got off to a terrible start because Elias and his front office did not put together a major league-caliber starting rotation. Elias fired Hyde and promised to fix the problem. A year later, the team is almost in the exact same position because the front office made the exact same mistake again.

They cheaped out on the rotation again. They didn't make the big signing. They didn't make the big trade. They played it safe with one-year deals for aging veterans Chris Bassitt and Zach Eflin and targeted an "undervalued" starter in Shane Baz in a trade. At every turn, they took the cheaper, safer option, and now, once again, find themselves with an underwhelming product.

If the Orioles want to change the results they're getting on the field, they need to address the source of the problem, which is that their front office has proven incapable of building a quality major league rotation.

There are things that Elias and his front office are good at. They are pretty good at finding quality relievers on the waiver wire, they have a decent track record in the draft, and they deserve a lot of credit for building up the organizational infrastructure that the Orioles now have. But for whatever reason, they can't figure out starting pitching. That weakness has already sunk one season and is now threatening to sink another.

This is the choice Orioles ownership faces: Allow this front office to rest on its laurels and give them a pass for a second year in a row, or finish what they started last year when they fired Hyde and replace them with a group capable of building a pitching staff.

It's been eight years, and the team is going backward. To quote Mike Elias: "In pro sports and team sports, there come times when the go forward look at things involve a different voice."

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