Gunnar Henderson

The Orioles officially announced Samuel Basallo’s contract extension at a press conference yesterday, with several players in attendance along with Basallo, GM Mike Elias, and team chairman/CEO David Rubenstein.  Among the many topics addressed was Rubenstein’s desire to make such events a fairly regular occurrence, as the owner showed interest in extending more members of the Orioles’ young core.

“The Orioles’ ownership group is really well capitalized and we have the resources to do these kind of deals,” Rubenstein told Steve Melewski and other reporters.  “It takes two to do deals, but we thought this was a perfect one, for the first one of this type….We have a lot of other talented people on the team who we hope will ultimately want to spend their entire career here or want to spend long-term arrangements with us.  We’re committed to doing more of these as soon as we can.”

Basallo’s deal represents an intriguing turning point for an organization that more or less eschewed long-term extensions for years under previous owner Peter Angelos.  As MLBTR’s Contract Tracker indicates, Adam Jones’ six-year extension from May 2012 was the last long-term extension signed by the Orioles.  Other multi-year deals within the last 13 years were short-term pacts to cover arbitration years, plus there was the unusual circumstance of the three-year extension signed by J.J. Hardy just a few weeks before he was set to hit free agency in the 2014-15 offseason.

Even as the Orioles amassed a wealth of young talent in their recent rebuild, extensions didn’t follow.  This naturally could’ve been a product of the ownership turmoil the organization was going through for much of that period, and Rubenstein’s group only bought the team in early 2024.  It should also be noted that such O’s building blocks as Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and Jackson Holliday are all represented by Scott Boras, whose clients have traditionally passed on signing early-career extensions.

Still, it was noteworthy that the Orioles didn’t lock up even any of the non-Boras clients until Basallo (who is repped by CAA) this week.  The fact that the O’s didn’t spend much overall during the first full offseason of Rubenstein’s tenure also created concern amongst Baltimore fans that things weren’t going to change under the new regime, and the discontent only grew when the Orioles stumbled to a losing record after two seasons in the playoffs.

Management can now point to Basallo’s extension as proof that the club is willing to both keep its cornerstone players in place, and to spend the money necessary to make those deals happen.  The catcher’s deal is also an example of how quickly contract talks can escalate, as Elias said negotiations began exactly a week ago, on the same day Basallo was called up from Triple-A to make his MLB debut.

Could more extensions be coming soon?  Henderson didn’t comment on whether or not his camp had already had any talks with the O’s, but expressed a willingness to consider any offer and stated that “the No. 1 thing for me is being on winning teams.”

Henderson’s price tag is about to jump considerably, as the shortstop will enter the first of three arbitration years this coming offseason.  His pro career has already seen Henderson bank a little over $8MM, counting his MLB minimum salaries, his $2.3MM signing bonus from the draft, and roughly $3.4MM from the pre-arbitration bonus pool.  Between this bit of financial security already and escalating arb salaries, Henderson may have already made enough to feel comfortable in betting on himself all the way to free agency, like so many Boras clients.  While the three years of remaining control mean that the Orioles aren’t exactly under the gun to extend Henderson, he’ll only get more expensive the closer he gets to the open market.

Adley Rutschman also declined to comment on any extension talks between his reps at Wasserman and the Orioles, simply telling the Baltimore Banner’s Danielle Allentuck and other reporters today that he was happy to see Basallo rewarded.  The fact that the O’s made such a hefty commitment to a young catcher like Basallo naturally led to speculation about Rutschman’s future, and whether or not Basallo has now supplanted Rutschman as the team’s long-term choice behind the plate.

As one might expect, right now the Orioles believe there’s plenty of room for Rutschman and Basallo to operate in tandem.  Yesterday, interim manager Tony Mansolino told reporters (including Matt Weyrich of the Baltimore Sun) that the O’s could have both players in the lineup in a catcher/DH capacity, or Basallo could play first base.  “The fact that Sammy is so versatile, that’s going to help that a lot…Any time you have two guys that can catch at a high level, on a big league team, you have a massive advantage over teams that don’t,” Mansolino noted.

Rutschman has two arbitration years remaining before he is scheduled to hit free agency following the 2027 season.  As Weyrich notes, extending a player who has had some Major League success is much trickier than extending a player like Basallo right at the start of his career, so locking up Rutschman would represent another spending frontier for the Rubenstein ownership group.  There’s also the question of whether or not the Orioles still view Rutschman as worthy of a long-term investment, considering how his numbers have declined at the plate over the last two seasons.