Getty Image / Thearon W. Henderson
The Baltimore Orioles are one of, if not, the hottest teams in baseball right now. However, owner John Angelos is kind of raining on the parade.
Although the organization is experiencing its most successful season since 2016, Angelos is being rather pessimistic about the future of the club.
During an interview with The New York Times, the Orioles owner talks about how difficult it is for small-market teams to succeed in the MLB. Especially considering there is no salary cap.
While discussing this topic, the Orioles owner lets it known that it’ll be incredibly difficult for the team to keep all of its young superstars on the roster long-term.
In fact, John Angelos claims that if the Orioles want to keep its young core together, “we’re going to have to raise prices here dramatically.”
If that’s the case, Orioles fans might be saying goodbye to guys like Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, and Grayson Rodriguez sooner, rather than later.
Here is what Angelos had to say about it.
“The hardest thing to do in sports is be a small-market team in baseball and be competitive because everything is stacked against you. Everything.”
The Orioles owner even provided a breakdown of the financial problems the club could face in a few years, per The New York Times.
“But 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 prices massively. Now, are people going to come and pay that? I don’t know if we’re at the limit, to your point. I don’t know if we’re in equilibrium elasticity, supply, and demand. Maybe we are. But really that’s just one team. What I’m trying to think about is macro.”
At the end of the day, these are real concerns Baltimore is facing. They have multiple young superstars on the roster who are playing lights out right now. If they continue their trajectory, they will be demanding huge contracts soon enough.
For a small-market team like the Orioles, it’ll be incredibly difficult for them to retain every young star.
Regardless, the timing of these quotes are insane. Baltimore is in first place in the AL East and is looking like legitimate World Series contenders.
Why raise concern about the future when your team is having its most exciting season in seven years? Like, couldn’t this be an issue for ownership and the front office to worry about internally?
Oh well. From the sounds of it, Baltimore could be on the verge of losing their young core within the next few years when their players hit arbitration.
But until then, the Orioles should just ride it out and hope for the best.