When the news was first reported by Puck’s John Ourand on Jan. 30, I admit I was cautious. Preparing to do live radio in the immediacy of such a potentially consequential sports story for our city, I acknowledged the significance of an ownership change for the Baltimore Orioles but guided against overreaction because the list of what we didn’t know was far more significant than the list of what we knew.
Less than a week later, I’m not sure overreaction is possible.
Perhaps general manager Mike Elias is telling a full version of the truth when he says he worked with John Angelos during the process of acquiring superstar starting pitcher Corbin Burnes from the Brewers. I’m not sure it matters. It’s too far of a reach to think that soon-to-be control person David Rubenstein wasn’t in some way involved with the final result. Rubenstein’s ownership group is expected to be in place perhaps before the start of the season, meaning they will likely foot the $15 million-plus bill for the player.
This was the first test for Rubenstein and his team to show they would prioritize competition and not merely profits. And while on a small level (most total contract obligations for quality players will go far beyond $15 million), they aced it. It really doesn’t matter whether they pushed for it or not. They just needed to be supportive of the concept.
That’s the biggest story of this ownership change. Perhaps some Orioles fans are hopeful that the Rubenstein group will prove to be spend-happy and will have an impact similar to when the late Peter Seidler took over as Padres chairman a few years ago. But for most reasonable folks in town, the realistic hope isn’t that the Orioles are about to become the next Yankees or Dodgers but instead a team that trends just the teensiest bit closer to the league average.
Don’t get me wrong. If the group wants to spend like the Texas Rangers did last offseason, no one here is going to fight back about that. It just still seems impractical to believe that a smaller-market team is going to end up spending at that level. A happy medium doesn’t seem so impossible.
However you feel about John Angelos and the Angelos family, there can be no argument about the direction of the baseball team in recent years. The choice of Mike Elias to run the baseball end has proven quite fruitful. Not only has his team hit with No. 1 draft picks (Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday), it has also found later gems (Gunnar Henderson, Coby Mayo) and made significant strides in the international markets (Samuel Basallo). It’s also proven capable of further developing talent that isn’t quite as highly regarded (Félix Bautista). There’s a special sauce here.
Wealthy, successful people have a bit of a history of not being terribly concerned about how things were working before their involvement. When they take control of something, they tend to want to do things their way with their people. The simple path forward for the Orioles with new ownership is to make sure this doesn’t happen on the baseball front. The baseball side is working. It just needs a little more (financial) support. It needs external fortification and internal extensions.
Corbin Burnes represents fortification. Time will tell how we view the trade long term, but in the short term, it is the move to make. It is reasonable, does not break the bank and provides the necessary reinforcement for the pitching staff to truly have the opportunity to be special. It couldn’t have been a “no-brainer” because DL Hall and Joey Ortiz are very legitimate baseball players, but it was something fairly close to that.
And that’s exactly the type of acquisition this front office needs to be emboldened to be able to make. Elias and his team don’t need to be reckless. They don’t need to spend for the sake of spending. They just need to be able to make the obviously smart moves without having to fear what the repercussions might be. Signing Chris Davis was a smart move in 2016. But every move that’s made has potentially negative consequences. Davis’ downfall shouldn’t have been the downfall of the franchise. The team should have been able to survive one bad contract.
That’s what this front office needs from this ownership group. They need support to continue on a successful path. We’re only days into the concept of new ownership. The group isn’t even actually in place yet. But so far, so good. That’s the significance of the Burnes acquisition. The micro is important. The macro is potentially overwhelming.
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