On August 22nd, the Baltimore Orioles reached a major milestone for the Mike Elias era: an extension.
Samuel Basallo, the team’s top prospect, became the first Oriole promoted by Elias to make a commitment to the team’s future by signing an extension for eight years and 67 million dollars.
Basallo’s extension would be great news regardless of the cost, but it’s an especially welcome development for the team’s future when you put his contract in context.
As of today, Basallo will only have the eighth-highest average annual value among catchers, with a figure that rounds out to 8.4 million dollars per year. Basallo’s yearly money is almost a third of J.T. Realmuto’s contract and nearly half of what Cal Raleigh gets per year.
Basallo’s total money is also outside the top five for catchers. His contract is worth less than the deals for Realmuto and Raleigh, as well as Will Smith, Salvador Perez and Sean Murphy.
Among all position players, Basallo’s contract ranks 68th in total money, making slightly more than Teoscar Hernandez and Eugenio Suarez while making just a smidge less than Ke’Bryan Hayes and Ryan McMahon.
Meanwhile, Basallo’s contract also looks quite favorable compared to other recent extensions signed by players in their early 20s or younger.
Basallo’s total value and AAV is significantly lower than the mega deals signed by players like Fernando Tatis Jr. in 2021 and Bobby Witt Jr. during last February, as well as more modestly priced extensions like Jackson Chourio’s agreement with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2023.
For another way to put Basallo’s deal in context: his AAV as an Oriole will be lower than what Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Kittredge, Charlie Morton and Kyle Gibson (the first time) got from their short-term deals. Basallo’s AAV is also less than a million dollars more than what Adam Frazier got.
If Basallo comes anywhere close to his potential, his deal with be an absolute bargain, especially relative to his position and when he was signed.
The value the Orioles could potentially get from Basallo’s deal is wonderful, but only if they’re able to really take advantage of it by making other major financial commitments.
The most obvious candidate for such an offer is Gunnar Henderson.
Henderson is quite notably represented by Scott Boras, an agent with a reputation for clients who very rarely take extensions before reaching free agency. It seems quite likely Henderson will spend three more seasons in Baltimore before hitting the open market. Trying to make
Henderson an Oriole for life will certainly take a lot of financial muscle, but it’s not as if Basallo’s contract should serve as any sort of obstacle towards keeping Henderson.
Even if Henderson takes a jaw-dropping offer from someone like the Los Angeles Dodgers or New York Mets, the principle remains the same for any other member of the team’s core they’d like to keep for longer than six years. No one is expecting the Orioles to retain every member of their core, but you’d certainly hope someone besides Basallo is interested in staying in Baltimore.
This thought process also applies for looking at external additions to the pitching staff. The Orioles have quite notably avoided any real commitments for free agent starting pitching, failing to sign anyone to a multi-year deal in the Elias era. If there’s a solid free agent pitcher looking for something like three years and 60 million dollars, then Basallo’s money also shouldn’t make a difference there.
The excellent value of Basallo’s deal is also intriguing for how much, or how little, it’ll serve as a data point for how the team approaches negotiations with other members of the core in a different situation than Basallo. Offering about eight million dollars per year for a top prospect until they turn 30 is a smart, low-risk move, but it’s also an entirely different animal from what they’d need to do keep Henderson as a free agent.
I’m not here to make an estimate on Henderson’s contract demands, but I am quite confident it will include an AAV above eight million dollars and a length that will pay him into at least his mid-30s. Just about any front office and owner worth a damn would make this kind of offer to Basallo, but many fewer would be willing to undertake the cost and risk that comes the kind of deal Henderson is likely to get.
The Basallo extension is a very welcome first step for the Orioles demonstrating they’re serious about making commitments to the team’s future. However, a long-term deal with Basallo certainly loses its luster if the Orioles stick to their conservative spending elsewhere.
Perhaps they won’t be able to afford Henderson, but they still need to show us something beyond Basallo for this extension to really become meaningful.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).