Given the disappointment that’s hung over the 2025 Orioles for much of the season, the promotion and subsequent extension of Samuel Basallo is the best thing that has happened this year for much of Birdland.
For years, those who care about the Orioles have pleaded for the O’s front office to take a Braves-like approach to their young stars. En route to building their 2021 World Series-winning team, the Braves became synonymous with extending their budding stars long before they reached their arbitration
years.
As the Orioles developed their own homegrown core, the optimistic expectation of would-be GMs in Birdland called for similar extensions for the likes of Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and others. Instead, it took until the seventh season of the Mike Elias-led rebuild for the O’s to break the seal on their extension checkbook.
With Basallo taken care of through the 2033 season, the question now becomes “Who’s next?” During the press event when the Orioles officially announced Basallo’s extension, owner David Rubenstein said the organization is open to doing more extensions with their other young stars.
However, with every contract extension, there’s another contract out there as precedent, a contract that’s waiting to be one-upped. With those past deals in mind, let’s look at three possible extension candidates and what it might take to get these O’s to sign on the dotted line.
Gunnar Henderson
Comparable contract: Bobby Witt Jr. ($289M/11 years, $26.3M/yr)
Henderson is in a down year by his lofty standards, and he’s still on pace to post his second consecutive 20/20 season while leading the Orioles in hits, runs, home runs, RBIs, slugging percentage and stolen bases. The Orioles have graduated a lot of former top prospects in the last seven years, but none has managed to shine brighter than the Country Boy from Alabama.
The star SS’s start to his time in Baltimore has been so impressive that the only reasonable point of comparison among past Orioles is the greatest player in franchise history. In Cal Ripken Jr.’s first three full seasons, he managed to compile 564 hits, 314 runs, 82 HRs, 281 RBIs and 22.9 bWAR—while winning ROY and MVP.
With 30 games left in his third full season, Henderson’s already amassed 482 hits, 304 runs, 85 HRs, 251 RBIs and 20.7 bWAR. He hasn’t matched Cal’s individual accolades or early-career postseason success, but in just about every other category, Gunnar is neck-and-neck with the Iron Man.
However, if the Orioles wanted to open extension talks with their best player, another Jr. would quickly become the point of comparison. The Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. tied himself to Kansas City before the beginning of last season. The 2024 AL MVP finalist inked not only the largest contract in Royals’ history, but the 17th-largest active contract in the MLB.
Henderson is a year younger than Witt and carries the complicating factor of being a Scott Boras client. If Baltimore wanted to buy out the Boras factor, the negotiations would probably start at $300M/10 years. Even still, you may need to completely reset the SS market and top Francisco Lindor’s $34M/year contract with the Mets. And yet most will agree that Henderson is worth the investment as the closest thing to a superstar since No. 8.
Trevor Rogers
Comparable Contract: Robbie Ray ($115M/5 years, $23M/yr)
Rogers is currently in the middle of one of the best runs of any pitcher in Orioles history. The southpaw came into the month of August with a 1.49 ERA, and has somehow managed to lower the ERA after averaging 7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER and 7 K over his last five outings. Over the last eight decades, only three pitchers have a 1.40 ERA—Nolan Ryan in 1981, Greg Maddux in his 1994 Cy Young season and Trevor Rogers this year.
The Orioles’ new ace is the player on the roster in most need of an extension, as he has one year of arbitration left before potentially becoming a free agent prior to the 2027 season. However, determining what kind of money Rogers is worth on a potential extension is difficult. Based on his thirteen starts this season, he deserves top-of-the-market money. However, given that he came into the season with a 4.32 ERA, the O’s may be wary of truly breaking the bank for Rogers.
Still, we’ve seen a team reward a late 20s lefty on the basis of one season before. Coming into the 2021 season, Ray had a 4.26 career ERA with a lone All-Star appearance that seemed like an anomaly. The lefty then went out and racked up 248 Ks over 193.1 innings en route to an AL Cy Young award. The 29-year-old then parlayed that into a $23M/yr contract with the Mariners.
Rogers being two years younger might drive the value of a potential contract up, but the shorter track record might counterbalance that. A deal worth $80M/4 years is probably the starting point on a deal for Rogers, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him push for closer to $25M/yr.
Dylan Beavers
Comparable Contract: Roman Anthony ($130M/8 years, $16.25M M/yr)
Beavers made the jump to the majors just before Basallo and has so far produced better results in black and orange. The 24-year-old OF has been an on-base machine since joining the Orioles, reaching base 15 times in 8 games and posting a .441 OBP.
Going into 2026, Beavers seems to have one of the corner outfield positions locked up with Colton Cowser assuming the everyday CF role. The former Cal Golden Bear has an atypical offensive profile for a corner outfielder, as a hit-over-power outfielder. However, with the trades of Ramón Laureano and Cedric Mullins and the injury concerns facing Tyler O’Neill, the Orioles need an outfielder with some upside. The early returns on Beavers suggest he may have more upside than any OF in the Baltimore organization.
If the O’s wanted to preemptively extend Beavers like they did Basallo, it probably wouldn’t cost 16M+/yr like the deal Boston handed Roman Anthony. The Red Sox outfielder was the former No.1 prospect in baseball and overall a different tier of prospect than Beavers. However, his contract is structured such that he only averages $5.3M over the first three years of his deal. An extension that pays Beavers $5-6M/yr would likely be enough to get a deal done and keep him in Baltimore into the 2030s.
