The answer was so obvious to Mike Elias he didn’t first give a yes or no to the question.

When asked about Brandon Hyde’s performance as Orioles manager and whether he’d be back next season, Elias spoke about his close relationship with Hyde dating to 2019, the turnaround they shepherded together and their shared optimism for the future in the wake of another playoff failure.

But, will Hyde return as Orioles manager in 2025?

“Yes,” Elias said definitively.

Whether Hyde would be back for his seventh season in Baltimore wasn’t in much doubt, but 2024 was a disappointing season for the Orioles. They played mediocre baseball in the second half, ended the regular season with 10 fewer wins than the year before and were swept out of the postseason for a second straight season.Still, Elias believes Hyde is the right man for the job.

“You go back to the end of 2018, the organization was at a morass — 115 losses,” Baltimore’s general manager said Thursday during his end-of-season news conference. “We have been working extraordinarily closely and successfully to bring this organization out of a very dreary spot and have produced a team that won 100 games, won the [American League] East, won 91 this year. Kind of a rare back-to-back Oriole playoff team and one that I believe is positioned for continued success the next several years going forward.

“Now that we’re done, we’re going to spend a lot of time together self-assessing, readjusting, coming up with a plan for the offseason. He and I are going to be in on that together in the next season.”

Hyde went 131-253 — a .341 winning percentage — in his first three seasons as manager during the Orioles’ painful rebuild. Most of those losses were through no fault of his own, as the club he managed was not crafted to compete, but instead to set the team up for success in the future.

That future arrived sooner than anticipated in 2022 when the Orioles caught fire in the summer, chased a wild-card spot and ended the year with 83 victories — a winning record and 31 more than the previous year. The Orioles followed up their historic 2022 campaign with another one in 2023, winning 18 more games to eclipse the century mark for the organization’s most in a season since 1979.

They won the AL East for the first time since 2014, and Hyde was named AL Manager of the Year for his ability to lead a clubhouse filled with young stars, rebuild survivors and castoffs. This year, as the team toiled in the summer because of crippling injuries, he spoke about the importance of remaining even-keeled and consistent, hoping that would rub off on his players.

They said it did, as team leaders Cedric Mullins, Ryan O’Hearn and James McCann all spoke highly about Hyde’s leadership.

“He’s very steady,” O’Hearn said before the AL wild-card series versus the Kansas City Royals began. “Just we had a few meetings every now and then that was like, ‘Hey, guys, we’re not cutting it as a group. We’re better than the way we’re playing right now.’ I think he said all the right things. He came in and talked to us and had words of wisdom whenever things seemed bleak in the clubhouse and we were going through a losing stretch.

“Hyder is a great leader, great manager and everybody in that clubhouse wants to go out and play hard for him.”

Still, though, a manager’s job is never secure, especially after five straight postseason losses.

Hyde said Thursday he was appreciative of Elias’ support.

“I love this organization,” Hyde said. “I love working with Mike, I love our players. It was heartbreaking last night to say goodbye to a lot of guys. I’m going to have a cup of coffee and relax for a little bit, and I’m looking forward to next year.”

Elias, however, did not commit to anyone else leaving or being back from Hyde’s coaching staff, saying it wouldn’t be “fair to me [or] fair to anybody” to discuss that Thursday. The team’s crew of hitting coaches — Matt Borgschulte, Ryan Fuller and Cody Asche — drew criticism from some fans as the Orioles’ offense flailed for the final two months of the season.

Elias said he does not want to let the sting of Wednesday’s season-ending 2-1 loss to the Royals cloud his decision-making in the coming weeks. He admitted he needs time to “examine striking the right balance between” the positive aspects of the organization with “our apparent shortcomings” in the second half and postseason.

“We’re going to examine things,” Elias said. “Things did not go the way that we wanted this year. We did not meet expectations. There were a lot of positives this year, and I don’t want to lose sight of there are probably a lot of other more difficult press conferences than this one going on around the league. But it feels bad to us, and it was a bad outcome at the end of the season. So we had a lot of success with this group. One of the winningest teams going back more than two calendar years in baseball, and the achievements that this group have made together to pull the organization up into a spot where it’s one of the most admired organizations in baseball, there are a lot of people that have had a lot of contributions to that.

“So as I try to look this offseason about what we can adjust in many different ways — whether that’s staffing, all the stuff I just mentioned, processes, information, all the things that we do around here — I need to find the appropriate balance.”

Around the horn

Elias said injured players Félix Bautista (right elbow surgery), Jorge Mateo (left elbow surgery) and Grayson Rodriguez (right shoulder muscle strain) are expected to be “full go” during spring training, which begins in February.

Elias said moving corner infield prospect Coby Mayo to right field “has come up” and that he “wouldn’t pull it off the table.” However, Elias said the easiest position — the one Mayo is best-equipped to play — is actually first base, not his primary spot at third, because of the youngster’s 6-foot-5 stature. “But as we saw even in the big leagues, he can play third base,” Elias said.