Not literally everybody. Just 71% of everybody who voted.
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You could fairly say of the 2025 Orioles to date that not only is Cedric Mullins the best Oriole this season, but also that he’s the only good Oriole up to this point. Close to a month into the season, Mullins is on pace to equal his 30 home run/30 stolen base triumph from his 2021 All-Star campaign. The team has swooned so far. Mullins is as good as ever.
It’s not lost on anybody that all of this is happening as the 30-year-old Mullins is in the final year before he gains the right to hit the free agent market. General manager Mike Elias has let one long-tenured Oriole after another walk right out the door, that is, if he didn’t hasten the departure by trading them away at the midseason deadline. The sentiment that it would be nice to have another career-long Oriole to root for is not part of his thought process.
In this week’s survey question, I asked whether you think that the Orioles should sign Mullins to a contract extension to avoid him being the latest player to go elsewhere. Here’s how you answered:
That’s a big number! You can hardly get 71% of a particular group of people to agree about much of anything. When it comes to the question of making Mullins a lifetime Oriole or as close to it as can be managed, the result is clear about what fans hope to see happen.
There were points last season where it might have felt just as good to think about the Orioles giving this treatment to Anthony Santander. The outfielder, now with the Blue Jays, repeatedly showed that he was capable of carrying the team for months at a time. He was a fun Oriole too and the idea of him ending up as a career Oriole had some appeal. He signed a five-year contract guaranteeing $92.5 million with the Blue Jays and is currently batting .189/.264/.295.
Until this past offseason, when Elias signed Tyler O’Neill, he hadn’t given out a multi-year free agent contract. (And he’s probably hoping O’Neill plays well enough to opt out after just one year.) He’s never given any incumbent player a contract extension. A Mullins contract at this point might be something in the ballpark of doubling up O’Neill’s guaranteed money, spread over four or five years. It would be a surprise if Elias does this since he’s never done it before. There’s a first time for everything, right?
This week’s survey brought to you by FanDuel.