Orioles plan to select the contract of INF Manny Machado

I don’t see the point. By and large, I think these extensions are very overrated by fans. I think it gives you a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling that your favorite players are locked in but for the team, unless you are getting a big discount, they don’t make a ton of sense. For a pitcher, who you have for another 4 years after this one, I don’t see it making sense unless he’s signing for real cheap. (Ie, I’m getting 2 FA years for 25M a year or less) If I’m getting that, I do it. But I think GRod has TJ surgery sometime in the next 3 years, so I’m really wary about it.

It's going to take a market deal at minimum and maybe even a record deal to entice them given who the agent is. But PLENTY of other young stars have extended. The Witt deal would be the comp/starting point for Gunnar.

Exactly. I had this same internal dialogue today, actually. He could break over the next 5 years, or he could be worthy of extending. Either way, that's not a today problem. Just let him be for now.

This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts about him. Every start it's like a totally different pitch mix. Or he'll get a K on a 96 mph heater up in the zone and you never see that pitch again. Or he has a guy 0-2 and chucks a random cutter down the middle. Like... throw a curve in the dirt man! 

This is a good question. IMO - You try with all 4 and see who's interested. Gunnar is obviously a superstar talent who is ascending at age 22. He already owns a sliver slugger and a ROY award. He also has Scott Boras for an agent. So I doubt there would be any discount on their end. Which is fine by me because we have a bilionaire owner, a growing/more engaged fanbase, who hasn't paid ANYONE in years. I.e. we should definitely have the money. I would love it if we did everything we could to make Gunnar an Oriole for at least the next 10 years. Adley is older at 25, but he arrived first. (If that matters?) Obviously at his position, you don't want to go as long with the deal. But he is closer to FA and the price will continue to go up. As the team leader, you would like for him to stick around. Burnes is probably the most valuable/most irreplaceable, in that he is the most rare commodity, an actual game #1 type starter, where no matter the matchup/opposing pitcher, we are never at a competitive disadvantage (plus he has experience). This is not to say that Grayson is not a budding ace in his own right. But you would like a few top notch pitchers to give yourself the best odds to go all the way in October. Burnes, (a healthy Bradish if such a thing is realistic), and Grayson ALONG with this lineup is a good recipe for post season success against ANY opponent (including the Dodgers or Braves). I would love to extend Holliday, but again the agent is Boras and the dad is a very wealthy former big leaguer, so there wil be no discounts there. I don't think it would be the best for team morale if we pursued an extension for Holliday first and bypassed Henderson and Rutschman. They are more accomplished players to this point. And it would be likely for them (if they were open to an extension) to harbor feelings of resentment with the rationale of "what has he done (Holliday) compared to me?"

The way the blue chip FA contracts are going lately is that they're only 2-3 years at a time to keep up with market value. I'd spend our ownership's money at $50m/yr to keep Burnes for 2-3 more years. Let someone else pay him in 2027 or 2028.

Haha I guess I see what I want to see. They did put up like 9 runs on the Red Sox in one inning with basically all singles, FWIW.