ESPN’s Buster Olney suggests that the David Rubenstein-led group’s pending purchase of the majority stake of the Orioles represents “an incredible opportunity for the franchise,” giving Baltimore a better chance to lock up its enviable young core of talent and augment that core with outside additions.
The Orioles announced on Jan. 31 that the Angelos family had agreed to sell the control stake of the club to Rubenstein’s group for $1.725 billion. A day later, the team added the top-of-the-rotation starter it sought by trading for Milwaukee Brewers ace Corbin Burnes. It marked one of the most eventful weeks in the history of the franchise.
The sale to Rubenstein’s group will be reviewed by MLB’s ownership committee and must be approved by owners. Once that occurs, Rubenstein will take control of the club, while John Angelos will serve as a senior adviser.
A Baltimore native, Rubenstein is the co-founder of The Carlyle Group. Ares Management co-founder Michael Arougheti, former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. are among those in Rubenstein’s investment group.
Olney, who can be seen on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” and heard on the “Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney” podcast, covered the Orioles for The Baltimore Sun from 1995-1996. He is excited about the direction of baseball in Baltimore.
“What an incredible opportunity for the franchise. Great days, you would assume, are ahead for the fans,” Olney said on Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 1. “There’s been just so much frustration. For the incoming owners, what an incredible opportunity to be heroes riding in, right? You take over a team that has the best group of young players in baseball. They have no payroll obligations. They have a fan base that’s getting juiced, with a passionate group of fans that are going to support this team as they go forward.”
Several years ago, as longtime managing general partner Peter Angelos’ health declined, sons John and Lou Angelos took the club in a new direction. They hired Houston Astros executive Mike Elias as general manager with an eye toward modernizing the organization’s approach to scouting, player development and analytics while rebuilding a major league team that had bottomed out. Those plans have been executed as well as any observer could have realistically hoped.
John Angelos officially became the club’s control person in 2019, and though the on-field product has gotten better and better, his tenure has been marked by a fair number of well-documented controversies, including when he told The New York Times last summer that extending the Orioles’ young stars would be difficult.
“When people talk about giving this player $200 million, that player $150 million, we would be so financially underwater that you’d have to raise the prices massively,” Angelos said.
Now there’s hope that the Orioles will be able to hold on to their core, namely catcher Adley Rutschman and infielders Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday. Rutschman and Henderson, the club’s top two draft picks in 2019, led the Orioles to 101 regular-season wins and an American League East championship in 2023.
That doesn’t mean keeping them around long term will be easy. Rutschman, who turns 26 in February, gained a full year of service time by finishing second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2022. That means he is scheduled to hit arbitration in 2025 and free agency following the 2027 season. Rutschman, who already signed for $8.1 million out of Oregon State, is represented by Beverly Hills Sports Council’s Dan Vertlieb.
Henderson and Holliday, meanwhile, are represented by Scott Boras, who typically steers his clients toward free agency to establish their true value on the open market. Henderson, who turns 23 in June, is scheduled to hit free agency following the 2028 season. It’s unclear when Holliday will hit free agency because he hasn’t made his major league debut yet, but baseball’s top prospect signed for $8.19 million after being taken with the top pick in the 2022 draft.
“At some point, maybe there could be a price point. I don’t know,” Olney said. “That comes down to what Gunnar Henderson wants. It comes down to what Jackson Holliday wants. It just is going to go player by player. You could, if you’re the Orioles, go to Adley Rutschman and basically say, ‘What’s it going to take?’ If you’re going to make a heavy bet like that, those are three guys that you’d want to bet on.”
Olney mentioned that the connection between Baltimore and Orioles players has historically been strong, rattling off legends like Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell and Cal Ripken Jr. The Orioles can build that connection again by extending Rutschman, according to Olney — even if it takes giving the catcher $20 million more than the team is comfortable with.
The signal sent to the fan base by signing the catcher would make it worthwhile, the analyst said.
“If you sign Adley Rutschman, then maybe Gunnar Henderson begins to look at it and says, ‘You know what? Maybe we’re all building something here with my great friend Adley,'” Olney said. “And then maybe Jackson Holliday is saying, ‘I want to be part of this. This is a great organization, this is a great baseball community and we can go forward.’ I think there’s tremendous power in that in beginning to turn around that perception.”
Olney is also hopeful that the payroll will rise significantly in the short term. The Orioles’ Opening Day payroll in 2023 was a shade above $60 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and through organic raises in arbitration and the additions of ace Corbin Burnes and closer Craig Kimbrel, the 2024 payroll is expected to fall around $90 million.
Olney is excited thinking about what could be in store in 2025 and beyond. He even mentioned diving into free agency prior to the 2024 season, but that was before the Burnes deal was completed.
“I can’t tell you what their payroll is going to be next year,” Olney said. “Is it going to be $120 million? Is it going to be $140 million, $180 million? … Let’s say they take the payroll to $160 million. Good lord, where would that take this team if you were to spend the money to augment it for this year, for 2025? It would create so much opportunity for the front office. I don’t know where it’s going to be, but even a little bit more is going to be better than where they’ve been.”
For more from Olney, listen to the full interview here:
Photo credit: Robert Severi