The Baltimore Orioles have handed out their fair share of mega-deals throughout the history of their franchise.
The most recent of those deals went to slugging first baseman Chris Davis, though it did not work out that well for the Orioles in the long run.
Davis was always an interesting case, striking out way too often and not getting on base near enough to make up for it, but the home run power was ever-present, that is until Baltimore handed the slugger a 7-year, $161 million contract.
Prior to the deal, Davis was a career .255/.330/.506 batter with 203 home runs, 549 RBI, and a 122 OPS+ from 2008 through 2015.
From 2016 through 2020, his last season in the Majors, Davis batted only .196/.291/.379 with 92 home runs, 231 RBI, and an 80 OPS+.
The Orioles now have no players on their roster making $20 million or more a year, with the closest being Zach Eflin who makes $18 million a year.
They do have an ace, however, in Corbin Burnes who is entering free agency for the first time in his career, and he is expected to surpass both Eflin and Davis’s AAV’s easily.
In a recent article for The Athletic, Tim Britton took a crack at projecting the salaries the top free agents on the market would garner this winter.
For Burnes, the top available pitcher, Britton projects a 7-year, $217 million deal to come the ace’s way.
Baltimore has never had a player on their payroll making north of $25 million a year, much less north of $30 million a year, and this projection has Burnes at a $31 million AAV.
It is a safe projection for the ace, who is only a few years removed from a National League Cy Young Award, and has continued to pitch spectacularly of late.
This year, his first with the Orioles, Burnes pitched to a 2.92 ERA across 194 1/3 innings with 181 strikeouts and a 128 ERA+.
Baltimore has the flexibility in their payroll necessary to bring the ace back, with a projected payroll of less than $100 million once arbitration is accounted for, but with their history of big-contract duds and an aversion to spending big, it will be out of the ordinary for them to open the pursestrings this winter.
With the way their pitching staff is constructed, they are in dire need of an ace, and Burnes has shown them he is capable of doing the job.
Whether they sign him or not is a different story, and I would not hold my breath in waiting for Burnes to don an Orioles jersey once again.
