Immediately after the news conference ended, David Rubenstein rose from his chair and walked over to a few of his younger employees.
He first chatted with Adley Rutschman. He then talked with Colton Cowser and Gunnar Henderson.
Rubenstein speaking with members of the Orioles’ young core isn’t particularly notable. It coming just moments after a news conference about the franchise signing Samuel Basallo to an eight-year, $67 million contract extension was.
This spring, Rubenstein expressed confidence in his ownership group’s ability to invest in a winning product. “I don’t have a financial limit,” the private equity billionaire said.
He maintained that Saturday.
“The Orioles’ ownership group is fairly well capitalized, and we have the resources to do these kinds of deals,” Rubenstein said.
The deal for Basallo is the first long-term extension the Orioles have handed out during Mike Elias’ tenure as general manager. The last time the franchise has handed out an extension of at least four guaranteed years was in 2012 to Adam Jones.
Basallo is only 21 years old and less than a week into his big league career, but he’s already set for life because of the extension.
“It takes two to do deals, but we thought this was a perfect one for the first one of this type,” Rubenstein said.
Basallo is now under contract until at least 2033, but other franchise cornerstones are set to hit free agency much sooner: Rutschman in 2027, Henderson in 2028, Jordan Westburg and Cowser in 2029 and Jackson Holliday in 2030.
Could one of them be next to sign an extension?
“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,” Rubenstein said.
He added: “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.”
Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson wants ‘winning culture’ for potential long-term deal
The excitement of the past week — two prospect debuts and an extension — is far from what most of this season has been like. The Orioles, who entered Saturday with a 59-69 record, were so bad early in the season that they fired their manager in May and dealt nine players at the July 31 trade deadline.
Rubenstein said that Basallo’s extension is a “great, important, symbolic first step” toward a better future for the organization.
“Clearly disappointing for everyone. The players, the city, the ownership group, the management — everyone is disappointed,” he said. “In my own life, like many of you, [I’ve] 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.”
Rubenstein pointed to “bad luck” and injury issues that were “more severe than anybody could have ever predicted.” The Orioles have placed 28 players on the MLB injured list this season — two more than a club’s active roster.
“Our players, when we have our best team on the field and they’re healthy, I think we’re as good as anybody in baseball,” Rubenstein said. “We just need to stay healthy, and hopefully we can be healthier next year. We’ve got some really good other projects under way. I think people are going to be really happy in Baltimore with what we field next year.”
Elias credited Rubenstein and his ownership group for the ability to make the move to extend Basallo. Payroll also increased dramatically in 2025, up 76.9% over last year, the largest increase in MLB.
“They’ve put us in a position to run this franchise optimally in a way that I don’t know it’s been executed here over the long history of the team for a while,” Elias said. “Again, this season has had a lot of misfortune, and it hasn’t gone to plan. … But this group has put us in a position where a lot of these things are much more possible and that we have the ability to make an investment like this, to build new facilities across the minor leagues and in Sarasota, [Florida], to raising the payroll like we did over the winter, to continue to explore these type of contracts, either with our own homegrown players or with free agents. This is all on the table thanks to this group.”
Elias has a tall task this offseason to make the Orioles contenders once again. His moves this past winter played a significant role in the club’s slow start, and both he and the Orioles can’t afford a repeat next year. Elias’ to-do list likely includes adding several starting pitchers, rebuilding the bullpen and supplementing the young core of position players.
“We will continue to try to make shrewd investments and run the franchise responsibly, but we want to win,” Elias said. “We know that requires the whole spectrum of investments, moves that you make as an organization, and we hope we’re just getting started.”
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