Between the announcement of the team selling and the Corbin Burnes trade this past week was one of the best weeks to be an Orioles fan in many years. So I wanted to take a quick break from all the NBA blogs to dive into what the sale means for the O’s and why the Corbin Burnes trade is so exciting.
The Sale
John Angelos hung over the Orioles like an anvil held up by a fraying rope. As a fan you would try to imagine a good future for the team but it always felt like that anvil was about to come crashing down. And why did it feel like that? Because the Anvil wouldn’t stop telling you that it was going to fall and crush you.
In August of this past season with the Orioles sitting in first place in the American League Angelos spoke to the New York Times where he made comment after comment about how the fans shouldn’t get their hopes up that the Orioles would be spending any money extending their young stars. It was like his spidey senses went off that people were excited about the team and he made it his mission to crush that enthusiasm by any means possible.
He gave the New York Times a number of sad, whiny and disingenuous quotes about how the Orioles were too poor to pay their players like other teams but the quote that stood out the most was this one:
“Let’s say we sat down and showed you the financials for the Orioles. You will quickly see that 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.”
This quote is unbelievably lame for a number of reasons.
Reason number 1 is that he throws out 200 million as if that is a crazy amount to have to pay your best players when there are over 20 players in the MLB making more than that and the truly great players make more like 300 million. For example 2 years ago at the age of 28 Corey Seager signed a 10 year 325 Million Dollar Contract. Gunnar Henderson is a pretty good comp to Corey Seager except he’s younger and less injury prone so I can assure you when Henderson and his agent (does anyone know if Scott Boras is good at getting his guys paid?) sit down with Mike Elias they are going to be asking for 325 Million and maybe even more. So if you are an Orioles fan and you hear the owner crying poor at the prospect of handing out a 200 Million dollar contract and you know what players like Gunnar Henderson get paid you can connect the dots and arrive at the conclusion that there is no way that we are going to extend him and now you have to start the countdown to when the O’s have to trade him in his final year of arbitration and that is a miserable way for a fanbase to exist.
Reason number 2 it’s annoying is that while yes Adley and Gunnar and maybe some of the O’s other upcoming stars like Jackson Holliday will eventually command hundreds of millions of dollars there are parts of this Orioles core that could easily be extended on much more reasonable deals. Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander, Austin Hays and Ryan Mountcastle are all players you could get on short term and reasonable AAV deals if that was something you were interested in doing. Angelos’ complaint that he’s being asked to spend money on stars would make sense if he was instead focused on signing some of the Orioles just plain good players but he’s not spending any money on anybody. The O’s are going to arbitration with relief pitchers to try to save 500,000 dollars, every player on the roster is being paid the least they could possibly be paid. If Angelos was forced to sign a free agent to a 1 year 100 Million dollar deal the Orioles still wouldn’t crack the top 10 MLB payrolls.
Reason number 3 is his comment about having to raise the prices. For the past few years the Orioles have maintained an incredibly low payroll like a truly embarrassingly criminally low payroll and as a result they have been one of the most profitable teams in the MLB and this is despite the fact that for years the product on the field was so poor that attendance and jersey sales plummeted. According to Forbes in 2022 the Orioles generated over 60 million dollars in profit for John Angelos which means that The Orioles profited almost double what they spent on players which is pathetic. When you own a major sports team you make money mostly because over time the value of the franchise increases and since you own it your net worth increases along with it, you are not supposed to run a cost cutting operation to extract as much spending money as you possibly can from your team’s fanbase. I’m sure when John is doing the mental math of what a couple of 9 figure contract means he’s picturing those contracts cutting into his 60 million in profit but here’s an idea John profit = revenue – expenses (I’m putting my business degree to good use here) and if you invest in the roster put a good team on the field then more people will attend the games, more people will buy jerseys, more people will stay later at the games and buy more food and drinks and whatever. So yes if you sign some big contracts that is a greater expense but you’ll find that you spend on the team so will the fans meaning if you increase the expenses the fans will help you increase the revenue and you’ll still be able to turn a profit.
Anyway I kind of used that quote to explain why John Angelos was such a frustrating owner, basically it felt like with him at the helm the Orioles would always be operating like a 2nd class citizen in the MLB. Even if you felt like Mike Elias and his front office were the most brilliant minds in baseball at a certain point if the owner isn’t willing to invest in the team you are going to be a disadvantage to the teams that do and if you want to see that in action just go rewatch the Orioles Rangers ALDS.
Angelos was always talking about how he wanted the Orioles to operate like the Rays or the Guardians and I’m sure he thought that was a good thing to say because those 2 teams are generally good (what the fans want) and they don’t spend money (what he wants) but the Rays have never won a world series and Guardians haven’t won since 1948. Also you literally hired the Astros front office, why wouldn’t you say we want to operate like the Astros? Because the Astros are smart AND they spend money. So when you tell me that your goal is to be like 2 teams that never win the world series it feels like you are more concerned with not spending money than actually trying to win a World Series.
So the Orioles have now stepped out from under the anvil so now it’s time to ask who is David Rubenstien?
Rubenstein is a Baltimore native who made his fortune in Private Equity. His net worth is 3.8 billion which would put him right on par with some of the richest owners in the MLB. Joining him as investors and part owners is a fun group that includes Cal Ripken Jr, Grant Hill and Mike Bloomberg as well as several more of not so famous but still incredibly wealthy people. The agreement is to buy 40% of the team now and then get the rest once Peter Angelos has passed away.
Rubenstien has not said much since it was announced that he would be purchasing the team but he did put out this statement on Twitter:
“I am grateful to the Angelos family for the opportunity to join the team I have been a fan of my entire life. I look forward to working with all the Orioles owners, players and staff to build upon the incredible success the team has achieved in recent seasons. Our collective goal will be to bring a World Series Trophy back to the City of Baltimore. To the fans I say: we do it for you and can’t do it without you. Thank you for your support.
Importantly, the impact of the Orioles extends far beyond the baseball diamond. The opportunity for the team to catalyze development around Camden Yards and in downtown Baltimore will provide generations of fans with lifelong memories and create additional economic opportunities for our community.”
Being a better owner than the Angelos is a low bar to clear but just based on that quote as well the decision to bring Cal in as part of the ownership group makes me feel like Rubenstien really gets it. He’s from Baltimore, he wants to win a World Series, and he wants Camden Yards and downtown Baltimore to thrive. I think it is going to be great to have an owner who truly wants the team to win and is willing to invest in making not only the team better but making Camden Yards and downtown Baltimore better. I think we are going to see a big difference and I’d say we are off to a great start.
I am excited to see what Rubenstien does in his first years as the team’s owner, it is a pretty common trend for owners to take over a team and want to make a big splash immediately what Bill Simmons calls new owner syndrom. A recent example would be Matt Ishbia buying the Suns and then immediately getting on the phone and making the KD trade happening. Or in Baseball Steve Cohen taking over the Mets and making splash signing after splash signing.
We already got the Corbin Burnes trade which was awesome but according to Elias that was going to happen under Angelos already. So will Rubenstein come in guns blazing looking to win what is left of the offseason? Has Mike Elias been biding his time under Angelos and now with an owner willing to be aggressive start dealing his precious prospects left and right for win now pieces? Will we see a massive Adley or Gunnar extension? If you want to be pessimistic, what if Rubenstien doesn’t like Elias’ vision for the team and fires him and brings in a new front office that proceeds to overplay their hand like the Mets did?
All of these options are possible, personally I hope that Rubenstein’s first big splash after this Burnes trade is a big extension for one of our core guys. I don’t know if it will happen but it feels like it could happen which is a big improvement compared to how I felt just a week ago.
The Corbin Burnes Trade
This is a massive trade for the Orioles. All year last year fans and media pointed to the Orioles rotation as the glaring weakness that would keep them from ultimately contending and as much as I didn’t want to believe that to be true when game 3 against the Rangers came up and our options were Dean Kremer or Kyle Gibson it felt like everyone had been right all along.
Before making this trade we were looking at running it back with the exact same rotation minus Kyle Gibson which would have felt like a classic we are happy being pretty good Orioles move. So it feel awesome that instead of being complacent the O’s went out and traded for maybe the best pitcher that was available to be traded for. (I can’t think of a better pitcher whose team is listening to trade offers but maybe there is a price for which the Braves would part with Spencer Strider you never know)
So just how good is Corbin Burnes.
What first comes to mind when you think of Corbin Burnes is that that dude won a Cy Young just 2 season ago.
That 2021 season Burnes pitched 167 innings and led the league with a 2.43 ERA, a 1.63 FIP, a 12.6 K/9 and a 6.88 K/BB ratio. He was in the 90th percentile or better in the following stats: expected ERA, expected BA, fastball velo, average exit velo, chase rate, whiff rate, K rate, walk rate, Barrel rate, and Hard hit rate. Just a dominant all around awesome pitcher.
Now over the past few years those numbers have declined a little bit which is to be expected as 2021 was his first year as a full time starter and so with time hitters can try to find a way to hit you stuff. But anyway last year he was still an allstar, finished 8th in Cy Young voting and his stuff still measures out very well. What stands out is that he led the league in WHIP and the advanced stats still say he does a great job avoiding hard contact.
He also has thrown over 190 innings in back to back years which is great because we have seen from Lyles and Gibson the past few years how valuable it is to have a guy that is that reliable and can absorb that much work and now instead of our innings eater being a guy with an ERA just under 5 it will be a perennial Cy Young candidate whose career ERA is 3.26.
As far as the specifics of what he throws you can expect to see a lot of cutters at around 94-95 MPH, Burnes throws the cutter 55% of the time. The cutter sets up his offspeed stuff, the curveball that drops out of the zone and the changeup on the corner to lefties as well as the sinker and slider for righties.
There are a couple of Orioles specific advantages that Burnes will enjoy as well. Burnes is a reverse splits player so even though he is right handed he pitches better to lefties than he does righties, against Burnes righties slug a whole 130 points higher than lefties. Fortunately for Burnes the Orioles moved their leftfield wall back further than anyone has pushed a leftfield wall so Burnes will enjoy a lot of would be homeruns falling gently into the left fielders glove. Another advantage Burnes will enjoy is pitching to Adley Rutschman, the best catcher in baseball. Adley has a great relationship with all his pitchers, he calls a great game and he is excellent defensively behind the plate it is no coincidence that the Orioles pitching staff started to improve so much ever since Adley got called up in 2022. I think Burnes will really enjoy having a reliable everyday backstop who he can trust to call good pitches and get down and block those curveballs in the dirt.
The 1-2-3 punch of Burnes, Bradish and Rodriguez will be one of the best in the league this year and between Kremer, Means, Wells and Irvin they should be able to fill in those 4 and 5 spots in the rotation nicely. I’m excited to go into a season with starting pitching as a strength instead of question mark and hey why not go and get Dylan Cease and make it the best Orioles rotation since the 4 20 game winners?
What did the Orioles give up
I was worried that the Orioles would have to pay a “good system tax” on any trade they made where the teams they were working with would demand an extremely high price just because the Orioles could probably afford to give away more top prospects than anyone else and based on what we were hearing about trying to trade for Dylan Cease it seemed like that may be the case but this package they gave up for Burns is super reasonable. I saw the word fleece kind of circulating around the internet as well as a weird quote from an anonymous executive about how what the Orioles did to the Brewers isn’t legal in most states but I wouldn’t say that the Orioles fleeced the Brewers here.
Burnes was in his last year of team control and sometimes what you get for a 1 year rental is disappointing. The Brewers got a top 100 prospect, a former top 100 prospect who fell out of the top 100 because of injuries and is now healthy again and the 34th pick in this year’s draft. With all due respect to Dean Kremer who has absorbed a couple strays in this one I’d say there is a pretty good chance that one of Ortiz, Hall and that pick become better than anyone the Orioles got for Manny Machado in his walk year for example.
Ortiz
I wrote about how Ortiz was the first prospect to get caught in the Orioles position player prospect logjam last year. Ortiz’s number 1 skill is elite shortstop defense but the Orioles already have a star shortstop in Gunnar Henderson and another star shortstop on the way in Jackson Holiday so it seemed like Ortiz was going to be the odd man out on that side of the infield. Now he could slide over to second base but it seems like the Orioles like Jordan Westburg for that spot. So his options for the team were to keep him a utility man or trade him and I would say by trading him for Burnes the O’s have maximized the value the O’s could have gotten from Ortiz.
As sad as it is to see a talented player like Ortiz leave the team I am happy for him because on the Brewers he will get a chance to be an everyday starting infielder in a way he just wasn’t going to be able to in Baltimore. I think when you look at the Orioles prospects there are obviously more infielders that are nearing ready to be called up than there are positions to call them up. Last year I believe Connor Norby made a comment about how you can’t help but look and realize that you are blocked as a prospect and feel like it would be better for you if you got traded somewhere where they might give you a shot at the big leagues. I’m not saying that the O’s should trade away all their infield prospects just because it looks like Henderson Holliday and Westburg looks like the infield of the future after all injuries happen and development isn’t always linear but when you can trade a guy that’s blocked for one of the best pitchers in the league you make that deal.
Hall
I’m sure that the Orioles fought like Hell to keep Hall out of this deal. Hall has had a weird career since he was briefly called up in 2022 and then had some mysterious injuries in 2023 where his velocity was way down before coming back and being one of the O’s more reliable relievers going into the postseason. The main thing with Hall is that he’s got nasty stuff, he’s a lefty with a high nineties fastball and tantalizing offspeed stuff. He’s got the kind of stuff that teams are always looking for. His main weakness coming up through the minors was that he walked a lot of people which I think was more of a trying to strike guys out too much a nibbling around the corners a la Blake Snell problem than a I can’t control where the ball is going problem and in 2023 his walk rate was much improved. I think that on the Brewers Hall will make a push to be starter and if he can be efficient as a starter he’s got the kind of stuff that makes for a great starter. If that doesn’t work he’s already shown he can be a good reliever and I believe if he decides it’s his fate to be a reliever he could be a great reliever to pair with Devin Williams. What the Brewers got with Hall is a high ceiling and high floor type of player which is great player to get which is why it hurts so much for the Orioles to lose him after having in the system for 7 years. Similar to Ortiz a part of me is happy for DL because I don’t think he was going to get a shot to be a starter on the O’s this year so if being on the Brewers means he can chase that dream then good for him.
Just writing all of this has me excited for baseball season to be back. Go O’s!
The Dishwasher 
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