Last week, a catcher viewed as a fixture of a rebuild and one of baseball’s top prospects both received long-term deals. Neither were Orioles.
Washington Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz and Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll agreed to eight-year contracts, but it seems unlikely either establishes a point of comparison for hypothetical agreements between the Orioles and their young star duo of Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson.
Coming off his first full season in the majors, Ruiz, 24, signed an eight-year, $50 million contract with Washington, establishing him as a player the Nationals will hold onto as they endure their rebuild. The Orioles believe they are on the other side of theirs, with Rutschman’s selection atop the 2019 draft making him the face of the project and his May 2021 arrival marking the organization’s turn toward competitiveness.
The centerpiece of the trade package Washington received from the Los Angeles Dodgers for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, Ruiz hit .251 with a .673 OPS in 2022 after entering the year ranked as Baseball America’s No. 11 prospect. Rutschman, 25, was 10 spots in front of him, considered the sport’s top prospect before largely living up to that status.
From June 11 on, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge was the only position player considered more valuable by FanGraphs’ version of wins above replacement, and Rutschman finished second in American League Rookie of the Year voting; of the four players who came in the top two in each league, Rutschman is the only one without a long-term deal.
He’s again forecast to be one of the game’s top talents in 2023, and his earning potential makes Ruiz’s agreement look paltry. The Nationals will pay Ruiz $25 million total over the three years of free agency he’s forgoing, according to The Washington Post. That might be the starting annual rate for the Orioles to buy out any of Rutschman’s seasons beyond the five they still have him under team control.
Carroll, 22, is widely regarded as baseball’s No. 2 prospect, with Henderson, 21, occupying the space in front of him. Arizona signed Carroll for eight years and $111 million, the largest contract given to a player with fewer than 100 days of major league service time, excluding those who played in leagues overseas. Both drafted out of high school in 2019, Carroll (16th overall) and Henderson (42nd overall) reached the majors within days of each other, and they enter this year as the Rookie of the Year favorites in their respective leagues.
But for those similarities, the pair has two notable differences. Henderson is an infielder, though that might not affect his or Corbin’s relative value; outfielders have received the three largest contracts in the sport’s history, but nine of the next 12 went to shortstops or third basemen, Henderson’s positions. Coming off his rookie season with the Tampa Bay Rays, Wander Franco, then a 20-year-old shortstop who had been the sport’s top overall prospect, received an 11-year, $182 million extension.
More significant than the difference in position is the fact Henderson’s agent is Scott Boras, whose clients tend to reach free agency and test the market. Locking him up long-term might demand further investment than the Diamondbacks needed with Carroll.
Because of where Rutschman finished in Rookie of the Year voting, he’ll be a free agent heading into 2028, his age-30 season. Unless Henderson unexpectedly opens this year in the minors, his six years of team control will conclude after that campaign; he’ll be 27. The pressure on the Orioles to sign both players will increase as those deadlines creep closer, as the pair would also boost their values as they continue to establish themselves among baseball’s young stars.
Playing the sport’s most demanding and physically dangerous position could incentivize Rutschman to ensure a significant payday before reaching that point, but whether the Orioles would be willing to pay the requisite salary for his free agent years, especially given they’ll come on the wrong side of 30, is unknown. The club also could look at the talented players it has coming at both players’ positions and decide it can weather losing them, though that would rip the scar tissue for a fan base that also saw star third baseman Manny Machado get traded after failing to get a long-term deal with Baltimore.
In more than four years under executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias, Baltimore has given out only one guaranteed multi-year contract — left-hander John Means signed a two-year deal to set his salary coming off Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery. The longest and largest contract the franchise has given out is, of course, Chris Davis’ ill-fated seven-year, $162 million contract, which ate up much of the Orioles’ payroll throughout the recent lean years.
Even in 2023, with the final year of that contract split over three seasons when Davis retired, he is the Orioles’ fourth highest-paid player on a payroll that’s 29th of the league’s 30 teams. An extension for Rutschman or Henderson likely wouldn’t change that; they would still be underpaid relative to production in the years covering their pre-arbitration seasons, with the most significant aspect of any deal being how many free agent years are covered and how much they are paid during them.
The extensions for Carroll and Ruiz seemingly do little to show what those figures might be.
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Source: Berkshire mont
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