Zrebiec wrote a more detailed story about DeCostas GM journey. I can copy the entire story if you want.
But here's an interesting paragraph:
Thinking out of the box
Orioles center fielder Adam Jones hits the first home run. Two batters later, Manny Machado connects. Chris Davis homers, and when Mark Trumbo deposits a pitch over the wall against the Houston Astros, the 2016 Orioles become the first baseball team since 1900 to hit four homers before recording an out.
Eric DeCosta shifts uncomfortably in his Camden Yards seat. He’d reached out to the Astros’ front office because of his deep respect for the forward-thinking organization and their approach to team-building. He wanted to trade ideas. He’d spent time earlier in the day with Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and Sig Mejdal, the former NASA engineer who led Houston’s analytical team, and then joined them later for the game.
DeCosta doesn’t deal with losing well. Never has. As a kid, he’d go on 10-mile runs to blow off steam when the Cowboys didn’t play well. He broke countless rackets during matches with his sister, even though Joey doesn’t ever recall winning one.
As ball after ball leaves the yard, DeCosta observes the Astros’ GM and his assistant with awe. He doesn’t know them well at this point, and DeCosta imagines how he’d act if his team was the one on the wrong end of that type of record. “Gosh,” he thinks, “I’d be going crazy. I’d be punching holes in the wall.”
“It’s baseball,” they assure him. “Don’t worry about it.”
The Astros come back to win the game, leaving DeCosta with one lasting thought: “This is a different sport. It’s totally different.”
DeCosta’s curiosity and desire to always be on the cutting edge led to a relationship between the Ravens and Astros that both sides say has been beneficial. DeCosta has grown especially close with Mejdal, who is now the Orioles assistant GM under another former Houston executive, Mike Elias.
“It didn’t take long to realize that he has a growth mindset,” Mejdal said of DeCosta. “He has an incessant desire to learn, explore, get ideas from outside of football. That’s a wonderful person to talk to and exchange ideas with.
“When you can find a modern, open-minded (coach or executive) searching for innovations and when you can have a conversation with them, it cannot not help. There was ideas related to the draft, to scouting, to the traits of a scout that were very illuminating to us that we put to use with the Astros and now with the Orioles, too.”