Orioles taught Yankees lesson in free agency as Cody Bellinger talks get out of hand

The Baltimore Orioles didn’t just sign Pete Alonso. They changed the temperature of the entire room.

That’s what Yankees fans are learning the hard way right now. Once Baltimore dropped a five-year, $155 million deal on the table for a premium bat, “reasonable” stopped being a thing you could count on in negotiations this offseason. And if you’re New York, stuck in the Cody Bellinger stare-down, that’s a problem you can’t talk your way out of.

Orioles’ aggressive Alonso signing quietly rewired the Yankees’ offseason

For years, the Yankees have lived in a free-agent economy where their patience could be framed as discipline. They wait, they posture, they let the market come to them, and eventually the leverage swings back because somebody gets nervous. That works when the big dominoes don’t fall early.

Instead, the Orioles walked in, paid for the bat contenders were chasing, and — intentionally or not — made it harder for other teams to sell anyone on a discount. Once a rival in your own division is handing out a deal like that, every comparable free agent and every agent in the sport is pointing at it like a courtroom exhibit.

That’s the going rate when teams are serious. And that’s the part that screws the Yankees. Not because Baltimore “stole” Bellinger or because the Orioles are in the same negotiations — but because the Orioles effectively pushed the baseline up. It created the exact kind of “talks getting out of hand” situation that turns a clean roster plan into a negotiation headache.

This is what a power shift looks like in real time. The old AL East script was simple. The Yankees used to set the pace while the other teams reacted, and if you’re not careful you end up building your offseason around what New York might do. The Orioles flipped that around. Maybe with a little help from the Blue Jays. But they still made a big, clean, headline move and the Yankees are the ones dealing with the consequences.

Orioles fans can take a little pride in this. They forced the Yankees to negotiate in a harsher climate — and in January, that’s a win you don’t even need a box score for.