Can Baltimore Orioles Convince Superstar Infielder To Sign Extension Early?

Despite the Baltimore Orioles offseason being viewed in a negative light by some analysts and fans, the front office and ownership do deserve some credit for upping the payroll heading into 2025 as much as they did.

They had one of the largest increases in the MLB of 67%, going from $92.9 million in 2024 all the way up to $155.8 million this year.

An argument could be made that the money wasn’t well spent in some regard, as their biggest offseason commitment went to outfielder Tyler O’Neill, who already has received the dubious title of worst contract on the team.

The Orioles didn’t bring in a prototypical ace to anchor their staff and replace Corbin Burnes, who signed a six-year, $210 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. But, they did spend a combined $28 million on Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano on one-year deals.

Baltimore has so much wiggle room under the tax threshold because their roster is made up of so many homegrown players who aren’t even arbitration eligible yet.

That means they do have some spending power now to upgrade the roster, but in the near future, things are going to get incredibly expensive if they want to keep this emerging core together for the foreseeable future.

Working out extensions with a few of their young stars would be an ideal way to control costs moving forward and maximizing their spending potential on players outside of the organization.

One of the players who they should be aggressively pursuing a long-term deal with is superstar shortstop Gunnar Henderson.

The 2023 American League Rookie of the Year has already ascended to MVP-level performer, beating out even the most optimistic of projections. The Orioles knew he would be good, but reaching superstardom this quickly wasn’t even something the franchise could have seen coming.

Negotiating with a Scott Boras client is notoriously tricky, since he pushes his players to reach the open market to earn as much money as possible.

Given his trajectory, that is something Henderson could look to do as well.

“It’s hard to imagine another player catching Juan Soto in terms of total value in a contract. But Henderson might be the active player with the best chance of approaching Soto’s $51 million average annual value. Another MVP-caliber season from the shortstop, and this price will go up yet again,” wrote Tim Britton of The Athletic (paid subscription required).

His extension projection is currently a 12-year, $375 million deal. That would put him under contract through 35 years old with an AAV of $31.25 million.

Certainly not chump change by any means, but after seeing how much money Juan Soto received from the New York Mets and what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was seeking from the Toronto Blue Jays and projected to receive in free agency, Baltimore is going to have to bring more to the table to convince a Boras client to not hit the open market.