The Orioles Director of Player Development Dismissed
The Orioles made a huge decision today regarding player development personnel.
Brian Graham, the Orioles Director of player development, will not be returning for the 2019 season.
Graham was informed today by the newly hired Mike Elias that he will not be returning. Graham, who had just finished his 6th season as the Orioles farm director and 11th in the Orioles organization overall, served as the interim general manager in the time between Dan Duquette’s dismissal and Mike Elias’ hiring. The 58 year old longtime baseball executive, coach, manager, and player, held the same position of farm director for the Pirates from 2001-2007 and was also briefly the interim General Manager for Pittsburgh.
In a statement after he was informed, Brian Graham had nothing but pleasant things to say about the Orioles: “I’m thankful to the Orioles organization and the Angelos family for the opportunities I was given. We did a great job in a lot of areas. There’s a lot of really good people in the organization, and working with Buck Showalter was a great experience. Hopefully something good is on the horizon, and I hope nothing but the best for Orioles.”
While the Orioles haven’t had a top farm system in Graham’s time as the farm director, there still have been some success stories, such as Trey Mancini, Cedric Mullins, Mychal Givens, to name a few. The minor league system has also improved in the past couple years from where it was 5 years ago. During Graham’s tenure as the director of player development, the focus was on the success of the major league product and not really on the minor league system. Brian Graham did a respectable job for what he had to work with.
Elias supposedly wants to bring almost entirely his own assistants in to help along this rebuild, the executives Elias will bring in will most likely be former colleagues from when he was the Scouting Director of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Assistant GM of the Houston Astros. Sig Mejdal, who came along with Elias, from Houston, is the first example of this change in the Orioles Front Office.
Brian Graham, Gary Rasijch, and Brady Anderson were the 3 remaining most powerful executives in the Orioles front office from the previous regime. Graham and Rasijch were both dismissed this week, the word is still out on Brady Anderson.
The Athletic was the first on this news.
