Orioles finishing second for top free agents isn't good enough

Late Tuesday night, lefty Blake Snell signed a monster contract with the LA Dodgers. On its face, the deal is worth 5 years and $182 million, but as we've come to expect from the Dodgers it's a bit more convoluted than that.

Snell will get a massive $52 million signing bonus to negate some of the deferred money in his deal. In terms of the tax number, the Dodgers will face an annual $32.7 million cap hit but the real dollars paid in each season will vary.

At some point, it becomes difficult for other teams to compete against the behemoth the Dodgers have become. They'll be well beyond the CBT threshold for the fifth straight year, and will likely pay more in tax penalties in 2025 than some teams spend on their entire player payroll for the season.

That's all well and good, but the Orioles still need to make moves to improve the roster heading into next year. The two main areas of focus are obvious - they need a top tier starting pitcher and a big right handed bat that they can insert into the middle of the lineup.

The Orioles can't come out of this winter empty handed

The Orioles seem to be out of the running for Juan Soto, so the options on the hitting side are a bit limited. They're not seen as suitors for Alex Bregman or Willy Adames and it seems unlikely that they'll target someone like Pete Alonso when they could get a Christian Walker at a significantly reduced price.

But on the pitching side, there are options. Both Corbin Burnes and Max Fried are still out there. While there are arguments against signing pitchers at the top of a free agent class, those two guys represent exactly the type of starting pitcher that the O's need.

The expected contracts for Burnes and Fried are scary, especially when we've seen Mike Elias and the Orioles be successful over the past two years without spending anywhere close to the kind of money those guys will ask for. But that can't stop the Orioles from making a move that'll put the team in a better spot for 2025 and beyond.

David Rubenstein has expressed a willingness to give Elias the budget space he needs to make decisions like this. And while we can't expect the O's to outspend teams like the Dodgers or the Mets in terms of total payroll, they can certainly swing that extra budget space around and make a top tier signing this winter.

Rumors about them finishing second or being in the mix for top free agents, like the report we got from Mark Feinsand about the Orioles being close on Snell, aren't good enough. There are no benefits to finishing second or being in on guys late in the process if you aren't able to close the deal. The Orioles have clear needs, and will reportedly have the ability to address those needs with money.

If Elias has a plan and targets guys in the middle and lower tiers, that is what it is. At this point, we still need to trust his judgement in terms of roster construction, and they're definitely smarter than we are regarding this stuff. But if we repeatedly get reports that the Orioles were close on guys but failed to win those deals, that's a problem in and of itself that will need to be solved in the future.