Baseball executives seek big hit in cultural shift

Changing an organization’s culture, a pair of professional baseball executives are learning, requires a steadfast ability to remain patient — without missing fast-moving opportunities.

By Mark Gordon
| 6:00 a.m. March 13, 2020
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Mark Wemple. Mike Elias and Bandon Hyde, general manager and manager of the Baltimore Orioles, hope to lead the team back to winning ways.

Leadership

Major league baseball team leaders Mike Elias and Bandon Hyde, starting in Sarasota, are attacking the business equivalent of a corporate turnaround — taking an underperforming asset and building it back into a winner.

The stakes are high: The team they oversee, the Baltimore Orioles, is a top-tier brand that’s hit a rough patch. The team finished last place in its division last year, 49 games behind the New York Yankees. It finished last in 2018 too, 61 games behind the Boston Red Sox. Yet this is also a team that’s won three World Series and has had some all-time great players and managers, from Frank Robinson to Earl Weaver to Cal Ripken.