DALLAS — The Orioles this week spent four days at the Hilton Anatole Hotel for the winter meetings, the apex of MLB’s offseason. They made the signings of outfielder Tyler O’Neill and catcher Gary Sánchez official, shopped around for starting pitching and had their farm system plundered in the Rule 5 draft.
Here are five things we learned.
The free agent market is on fire
Last year, free agency was so slow and the billionaire owners were so frugal that it caused many in baseball to wonder whether Scott Boras, regarded as the sport’s best agent, had lost his fastball because a few of his clients received less-then-favorable deals.
What a difference a year makes.
Most free agents, including those represented by Boras, are hitting it big this winter, virtually all of them getting more than they were projected by MLB Trade Rumors.
“It’s moving fast, and it’s keeping us on our toes,” Orioles general manager Mike Elias said during the winter meetings. “I think one of the main things that stands out to me this year is we don’t have that many teams right now that are announcing that they’re in a rebuilding mode. There are a lot of teams going for it at the same time. That ratchets up demand quite a bit, and that’s why we’re seeing some fast moves right now.”
Juan Soto received a whopping $765 million contract from the New York Mets. Blake Snell got $182 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers. The New York Yankees signed Max Fried for $218 million. Corbin Burnes, the top starter remaining on the market, is expected to receive more than both Snell and Fried. Even mid-tier starters — Nathan Eovaldi ($75 million), Luis Severino ($67 million), Yusei Kikuchi ($63 million) and others — got solid paydays.
This leaves the Orioles in a position to either fight for one of the last remaining quality starters on the free agent market, or do what they did last year and acquire one via trade.
“The competition has been enormous,” Elias said. “I’m going to do my best to figure it out. We’ll make sure we have a really good team at the end of this offseason, and I think that’s the main goal here.”
The Orioles are more aggressive under David Rubenstein …
There was really no way but up when David Rubenstein purchased the ballclub, but it appears the Orioles expect to be players in the free agent market moving forward — even if the club hasn’t made a splash yet this winter.
Elias didn’t sign a single free agent to a multiyear contract in his first six years under former CEO and Chairman John Angelos. In his first under Rubenstein, he inked O’Neill to a three-year, $49.5 million contract.
Boras said during his annual winter meetings scrum Wednesday that the Orioles have been more aggressive so far this offseason.
“With O’Neill, they kind of jumped the market in that regard,” Boras said in the lobby of the Hilton Anatole Hotel. “We’ve been in very close contact with [general manager] Mike Elias, talking to him regularly. He’s made it very clear that under this ownership they’re going to take steps forward that they haven’t taken in the past.”
Elias spoke glowingly about Rubenstein and the direction of the franchise. The executive has repeatedly made clear he will continue to make what he sees as sound baseball decisions, but he now has the financial backing he didn’t have before.
“He’s extremely passionate about making this franchise as good as it can be,” Elias said. “He wants to do everything we can do within our power and within our skill set to approach that correctly.”
… but payroll is going to increase steadily, not rapidly
After the 2022 trade deadline when Elias said “it’s liftoff from here,” some imagined a rocket ship straight to the moon. In reality, it was a plane lifting off the ground, taking a slightly upward trajectory over a longer period of time.
That doesn’t appear to be changing under Rubenstein.
While the Orioles could still sign Burnes, it’s more likely he signs with the Giants or Toronto Blue Jays. But that doesn’t mean Baltimore’s payroll won’t continue to increase.
It’s possible that — with the O’Neill signing, raises through arbitration and an expected addition of a starting pitcher later this offseason — the Orioles will enter 2025 with a payroll double what it was in 2023 when they entered the season with a $60.9 million payroll. That jumped to $95.3 million in 2024, and it’s possible a similar jump is coming next year.
For better or worse, Elias doesn’t want to rush the process to build up his payroll and perhaps regret doing so in a few years when Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and others hit free agency.
“We’ve done a lot of things leading to increased spending, and it’s been pretty continual the last few years, but this is another step forward,” Elias said of the O’Neill signing. “The rebuild, emerging from that, having all the infrastructure in place, the farm system in place — now we’re focusing on the major league payroll. We’re having winning seasons, the fans are coming back. But, obviously, the robust, new ownership group that’s taken over are extremely supportive.”
The trade market makes more sense for a starting pitcher upgrade
The Orioles left last year’s winter meetings with only Craig Kimbrel, $13 million fewer dollars and no additional starting pitcher.
Spring training was only two weeks away, and it appeared Elias was comfortable entering the season without adding an ace to headline his rotation. But Kyle Bradish injured his elbow in January, and Elias swung a trade for Burnes — one of the splashiest moves of last offseason.
With how player-friendly the free agent market is for starting pitchers, the Orioles upgrading their rotation could be more sensible through a trade. There are more of such pitchers reportedly available via trade than there are in free agency, and Baltimore still has the excess bats and prospect depth to entice another club.
The following pitchers are reportedly on the trade market: San Diego Padres right-hander Dylan Cease; Houston Astros left-hander Framber Valdez; Pittsburgh Pirates right-handers Mitch Keller and Jared Jones; Seattle Mariners ace Luis Castillo and right-hander Bryce Miller; Arizona Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery; St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Sonny Gray; Miami Marlins left-hander Jesús Luzardo; and Chicago Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon.
There’s still plenty of offseason left, and a trade for one of the above names could very well be in the cards.
Hope has brought optimism for some Orioles fans, angst for others
When Rubenstein purchased the team in the spring, it breathed new life into a starved fan base that had been taken advantage of by the organization for decades.
With change comes new possibilities. Rubenstein made his money in private equity, sure, but he’s also a philanthropist and a Baltimorean. His purchase of the Magna Carta for $21.3 million was used as an example from optimistic fans that he’d flood the ballclub with his cash. His deep bench of fellow billionaires, especially the uber-wealthy Michael Bloomberg, only exacerbated that belief. His genuine, yet tactful, rhetoric about wanting to win a World Series was such a stark juxtaposition with Angelos that it put excitement about the Orioles’ future the highest it had been this century.
That hope has given many Baltimore fans a sense of optimism that, after years of mismanagement under the Angelos family, the Orioles might actually develop a sustainable, winning product and win a championship for the first time since 1983. This offseason, though, an understandably impatient fan base that waited too long for competence is frustrated at the thought of having to wait even longer. The Yankees signed Fried, the Red Sox traded for Garrett Crochet, the Blue Jays might get Burnes. Why can’t the Orioles get those guys?
In this way, Rubenstein is rightfully being held to a much higher standard than his predecessor, and Elias is, too, compared against himself during the rebuild. But the offseason isn’t even halfway over. When it is, that will be the time to judge Rubenstein’s first winter as Orioles owner and Elias’ first with a true financier.
Rubenstein said earlier this offseason he wanted to “speed up the effort” to get to a World Series. Orioles fans want them to go faster.
Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at [email protected], 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.
