Oriole fans clearly want the new owners of the team to spend more money. They’d like to see key players extended. Some, like the team’s top starter, Corbin Burnes, and leading slugger, outfielder Anthony Santander, will become free agents at the end of the World Series.
Others, including star shortstop Gunnar Henderson and catcher Adley Rutschman, aren’t eligible for free agency for a few years, but there’s an eagerness on the part of the fan base to keep some of them.
“I think my read of this ownership group is they have the wherewithal to allow us to run this franchise optimally,” executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said on a New York Post podcast last week.
“And there is a lot that goes into that. You look at teams from around the league in various market sizes, and there are different ways to run the team, but you just can’t do everything that you want to do. And it requires some measurement at times. All of that being said, you look at our group of young players right now, we do have an impressive young group that’s been drafted here, homegrown, with good heads on their shoulders, and there are many of them where you look at them and go, ‘Man, I wish we had these guys longer than they’re currently contracted for.’
“And that’s a big part of the equation. We know that. It’s something we work on quietly in the background and I don’t talk about what we’re doing or not doing, but it would certainly be front and center for a front office to be working on those things. But they’re not easy to line up on, and effort doesn’t always equate to results. But we very much love a lot of these players that we have and we will be making every responsible attempt to examine ways to keep them, if we think that’s in the best interest of building the team long term.”
Elias completed his first season working for David Rubenstein, and the owner, who set the World Series as his goal in his introductory press conference on March 28th, is undeterred by the disappointing end to the season in a two-game Wild Card loss to the Kansas City Royals.
“Well, success means you win a championship,” Rubenstein said in an interview this week on NPR.
“Everybody wants to win a championship. I don’t think any owner’s bought a team and the first year won a World Series. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I was told. And so I recognize it takes some time before you kind of get to a World Series. But clearly, without winning a World Series or a championship, it won’t be satisfying. So I’m trying to do everything I can with my partners to make sure that the team has everything it needs to win a championship. It may take time. Some people own teams for 10 or 15 or 20 years and don’t win a World Series.
“So I have to recognize that it may not happen. I’m now 75 years old. It’s unlikely that I’ll be, you know, doing this for 20 more years. So I’ve got to speed up the effort to get [to] a World Series a lot sooner than maybe some younger owners would.”
Most professional sports teams sold are in tumult. The Orioles are not, and it’s also unusual that Rubenstein bought the team from a younger man, John Angelos, who is 57.
Rubenstein isn’t going to have endless patience and his vow to “speed up the effort” for a World Series should convince the fans that he’s serious about competing.
Rubenstein realizes how difficult it is to win a championship, but as someone who’s been successful in investing, he’s competitive, but realistic.
“Obviously, I would have wished we went further into the playoffs, and obviously, I was hoping that we would,” he said in the NPR interview. “But the baseball gods did not want a new owner to get to the World Series, I guess, and you have to rack up some experience in losing before you get to the World Series. So on the whole, it was a satisfying experience for me. I learned a lot. I think I connected with the fans, but I’m just disappointed we didn’t do better.”
At his season-ending press conference, Elias indicated that the Orioles’ payroll would rise. According to Cot’s Contracts, the Orioles ended the season with a payroll of just under $103 million, 24th in the major leagues.
Rubenstein has said that he knows Baltimore, his hometown, is not New York or Los Angeles. The Mets’ payroll of $341.5 million is more than three times the Orioles’ while the Yankees and Dodgers spend just under three times as much.
The Cleveland Guardians, with a payroll of $106.1 million, are the team just ahead of the Orioles in dollars spent, and the guess here is that the Orioles aren’t going to be among the top spenders, but they’ll no longer be close to the bottom.
Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com.