BALTIMORE—On Saturday, catcher Samuel Basallo, executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias, control owner David Rubenstein and vice president, international scouting and operations Koby Perez met with the media to discuss Basallo’s extension. The contract for the 21-year-old is eight years with an option for 2034 for $67 million.
Basallo’s remarks were through team translator Brandon Quinones.
Basallo on his reaction when the club reached out to him
“I feel extremely good, and I thank God that the organization believes in my talent and believes in me. To be willing to have this conversation and come to this agreement on a new contract with me. I think it means a lot to hear the organization feels that way about me and my talent.”
Elias on why Basallo was his first extension
“It was a lot of the same reasons we picked him as the first player to sign in a major way out of Latin America. We think he’s tremendously talented as he’s shown already at the major league level. He’s got the ability to catch. We also think he’s got the potential middle-of-the-order, run-producing bat. He’s got a lot of power, but he can really hit, too, and what he’s done at a young age has been really encouraging.
“We know the great family and support system that he comes from. We’ve seen the type of worker that he is, and we think he’s scratching the surface of a very bright future. We still have work left to do, but we’re going to do this together. We know it’s important for us to have these types of talents in the organization for as long as we’re able to, so we talked and we were able to find common ground, and we’re really pleased with where we’re at with this.”
Rubenstein on whether this is the first of many deals
“The Orioles’ ownership group is fairly well capitalized, and we have the resources to do these kinds of deals. It takes two to do deals, but we thought this was a perfect one for the first one of this type, not only because his last name begins with a B and we’re in Baltimore — we like the fact that he has a B. I wish I could talk to him in Spanish. I went to Baltimore City College and they had a choice between French and Spanish. They said French was easier, so I took French. I should have taken Spanish. But I’ll brush up on my Spanish at some point, I hope, and I can converse in Spanish better than I can in English at some point, I hope.
“The best players the Orioles have had over the years historically have been homegrown. So Jim Palmer, his entire career was here. Brooks Robinson, entire career, here. Cal Ripken, entire career, here. So obviously, you can get good players from time to time who come later in their career. I mean, I finished a career here. But we’ve had a tradition of having players who spent their entire career here, and we hope Samuel as well. We’ve got a lot of other talented people on the team who we hope will ultimately want to spend their entire career here or spend long-term arrangements with us, and we’re committed to doing more of these as soon as we can.”
Basallo on having teammates attend the press conference and the group’s potential
“It feels really good and really special to have all my teammates here, coaches, trainers. I know I just got here, but having them here really does mean a lot to me. I think over the next eight years, we’re all going to try to do our best as a group to give everything that we have to try and win as much as possible.”
Rubenstein on how important this is during a disappointing season
“Clearly disappointing for everyone. The players, the city, the ownership group, the management — everyone is disappointed. In my own life, like many of you, have had disappointments before, and you pick yourself up, you get back on your feet and you kind of do the best you can and move forward. So, we’re going to move forward. This is a great, important, symbolic first step as we move forward. We’re very pleased with this decision. But we hope we can have others like this at some point, and we’re going to work on that and we hope to build the team to the point it is the best team in baseball, not only on the field, but the back office. And we have the stadium renovations going forward, which I think should make it very exciting for people to come here next year, because we’ll have a lot of the renovations done. Not all of them, but most of them should be done by the beginning of next season. There’re are a lot of things going on in Baltimore, and we’re very happy with this decision. There are many other good things that are going to come, I think, as well. So, stay tuned.”
Elias on the Orioles’ plans and how the team’s depth factored into the extension
“The talent we have in this organization is really strong. Our record is not reflecting it right now, and we’re going to fix that. And we’ve been playing good baseball for a couple of months, but we need to get back into the playoffs that we were accustomed to the last couple years with this group. But we feel so confident in the group of guys here. From my point of view, the more, the merrier when it comes to good players. We’ve got a lot of guys here, Samuel included, who are really good athletes who can play multiple positions, and the fact we have multiple great catchers is a good thing, and we’re going to be able to put guys at DH and first base and share those at-bats. We’ve got a roster that has flexibility. We’ve got a lot of good hitters. And we’ll continue to figure out ways to include as many good players and great hitters into the lineup that we can.”