Next week is the first anniversary of the announcement of David Rubenstein’s acquisition of the Orioles. He and his partners bought the team for $1.725 billion, a sale that was completed on March 28th.
Under Rubenstein, the payroll has increased to 15th in Major League Baseball, $155.8 million, and renovations to 33-year-old Oriole Park at Camden Yards have begun.
Rubenstein spoke about the Orioles this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to Yahoo Finance.
Here are excerpts from his interview:
Question: What’s the state of the Orioles?
David Rubenstein: “I think the team’s in pretty good shape. Clearly, we’ve gotten some free agents now on the team. Some people who have been with us may not be with us in the future, but I think the team’s in pretty good shape. We’ll start spring training [games] in a month.”
Question: How do you grow a sports franchise? I’ve seen you in the stadium. I’ve seen you in ways I never thought I’ve seen you before.
Rubenstein: “I’ve seen myself in ways I never thought I’ve seen myself before. I’ve gotten excited about it and tried to rally the fans, throwing out hats and baseballs, and go to all parts of the stadium, and do what I can. Obviously, how much can an owner really do?
“He could put up money to help get players. In the end, I can’t coach people. I can’t teach them how to be a better player, so I just try to rally the fans the best I can.”
Question: What do you think about the payroll? Look at the Dodgers. What do you think about that?
Rubenstein: “I wish it would be the case that we would have a salary cap in baseball the way other sports do and maybe eventually we will, but we don’t have that now, so what we have is a luxury tax … so that if you go over your payroll with a higher payroll, you have to pay a penalty in effect, or something that goes to other teams. It’s not a perfect system. It’s better than nothing, but at some point, I think we’ll have something closer to what the NFL and NBA have, but there’s no guarantee of that.”
Question: How come luxury taxes aren’t taken seriously?
Rubenstein: “There are two types of luxury taxes, soft and hard, and we have, I guess, a soft one, but there’s no doubt that right now the big city teams have some advantages.
“In Los Angeles’ case, they have another advantage. That have Japanese players, a number of them. They’ve got Shohei Ohtani, and the people in Japan really love watching the Dodgers and they sell a lot of merchandise in Japan for Dodgers players, but in addition a lot of people in Japan will fly over because it’s not a long flight relatively speaking, and they’ll come to the games. It’s a big advantage to the Los Angeles Dodgers to have these Japanese players.”
Question: Where does your payroll rank?
Rubenstein: “I don’t want to give any specific numbers, but it’s higher than when we took over the team and so we have a payroll that we think is consistent with our needs. I don’t think anybody is not playing with the Orioles because of money reasons.”
Question: Do you feel the need to spend more money and keep up with the Dodgers?
Rubenstein: “There’s no doubt that LA has spent a lot more money. So have the New York Mets, but spending the most money doesn’t always guarantee a World Series championship, and in fact many people with smaller payrolls have won the World Series.
“Clearly, there’s an advantage for the bigger cities in some respects, not all respects, but I think our team has good morale. We’ve got a good manager, a good general manager, good facilities. We’re fixing up Camden Yards, one of the most famous stadiums. We’re going to fix it up and make it better.
“I’m reasonably optimistic we’re going to do well this year. I’ll be in spring training in a few weeks, and I’ll give them my Little League hitting tips.”
Question: What are you doing to Camden Yards?
Rubenstein: “Camden is now [33] years old. The state of Maryland is providing initially $400 million and maybe an additional $200 million to rehabilitate it.
“We’ll have a bigger scoreboard, better sound system, we’ll have better food, better facilities for the players, better equipment for the players in some respects, easier parking for the players in some respects, many different things. We’ll probably shrink the stadium a little bit and use the seats that we had for other facilities and make the fan experience better.”
Question: Do you want to make Camden Yards like Yankee Stadium?
Rubenstein: “Baltimore can not really do what the Yankees do. New York is the center of the capital system in the United States, and therefore they have a lot of wealthy corporations headquartered there. We don’t have that in Baltimore. We don’t have as much wealth in Baltimore, so we wouldn’t do something like the Yankees or Mets have done or the Dodgers, but we can do some things that are good, and I think we’ll see a lot of improvements that will take about two more years to get done.”
Note: Right-handed pitcher Roansy Contreras was claimed off waivers by the New York Yankees. Contreras, who was claimed by the Orioles from Cincinnati on January 10th, was designated for assignment on January 16th when the Orioles claimed infielder Jacob Amaya.
Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com.