Steven Kwan is the anti-Oriole.

There are few players in all of MLB who are more the antithesis of everything Mike Elias has prized and overvalued in running a rudderless and endless rebuild that’s now entering its ninth season with him atop Orioles’ baseball operations. He is an old-school, prototype leadoff hitter who doesn’t care about launch angle or pull-side homers at all. He wants to put the ball in play and get on base, and, get this – score runs as much as possible.

He could be a strong defensive option at two premium positions in Camden Yards (the park Elias butchered, not once but twice) in leftfield and centerfield. He excels in all the little things, has a superior baseball IQ (low-IQ players and managers has been another Elias specialty, and Kwan has been a part of overachieving rosters for basically all of his career in Cleveland.

He may or not be very available or quasi-untouchable, but let’s be real.

Like the Orioles, the Guardians have not extended many of their regulars and Kwan is 29 and entering his final year of team control and he is going to solicit a lot of trade interest and he already has going back two trade deadlines. Found it very interesting that a name we connected the O’s to before the season ended has started popping up on the in-house media MASN is propagating (that $11M projected salary would be a stea)  … so they at least want you to think Kwan is a possibility, whether Elias could actually execute this move or not.

Cleveland excels at developing pitchers but far less so with position players, so they would want young assets there primarily and probably players who can help out in MLB right now or by the end of the summer. Kwan checks more boxes than pretty much anyone you could think of (I’d still prefer dealing Gunnar Henderson for this centerfielder) and could transform several things for Baltimore.

Oh, and he also has real playoff experience which is sorely lacking around here.

Batting First

Leadoff has been a wasteland and CF has been a wasteland since Cedric Mullins was at his peak as a 30/30 guy. Rather than sell high on that, Elias ran the team into the ground systemically over a number of years because he still has no feel for this job and especially how to know when to move players or juggle a roster in-season. Kwan could a long rut.

Here’s where the Orioles leadoff guys ranked last year and in recent years:

2026 AVG/OBP/SLG: .226 (30th) / .310 (27th) / .345 (30th), .655 OPS (30th)

2024-26:  20th AVG (.246), 20th OBP (.321), 21st SB

 O’s leadoff guys ranked 27th in runs scored and 24th in stolen bases (12) last season. There are no viable options from within, with Blaze Alexander being the “best” option. Over the last three seasons, Kwan ranks tied for 22nd in OBP (.359) and tied for 14th in batting average (.281). He fits everything they need at the very top of their lineup.

And the Orioles' overall outfield production at the plate needs a total reversal, too, especially in the whole putting-the-ball-in-play thing and getting on base.

Changing The Offensive Profile

Swing and miss kills the Orioles year after year and Elias, seemingly, would have it no other way. Kwan would cure some of that, for sure, and lead by example and show these guys what a quality at bat looks like over and over and over again.

Kwan works counts and makes sure a pitcher has to unload his full arsenal – he’s not out to ambush a first-pitch fastball and see how far he can hit it. He is top 10 in MLB the last three years in not swinging outside the zone (O-Zone in statcast parlance) and he trails only Luis Arrraez in all of MLB in swinging strike percentage (2.8%) and in contract percentage (92.8%!!).’

Where have the O’s ranked in those metrics the last three years?

O-Zone: 31.8% (21st)               Swinging Strike %: 11.3% (20th)           Contact%: 76.3% (22nd)  

Superior Defense

The Orioles have had a grossly deficient outfield defense for nearly all of Elias’s tenure here except for a few years with Mullins in center and Austin Hays in left (but even then usually the right fielder was bad). He doesn’t value it and has shunned it at every turn, but last year was a disaster even by his failure standards and it simply must be addressed.

Kwan is elite in left and would be fine in center. He’s Gold Glove in left and excels in every way. He is so fundamentally sound and so good reading the ball off the bat that, even without a cannon arm, he controls runners taking the extra base and is special with his accuracy (the opposite of Colton Cowser in this regard, with his lack of understanding and accuracy undermining the power of his throws).

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