Orioles News: New ownership made official, Holliday’s dad displeased, MASN dispute

Opening Day has finally arrived for the Baltimore Orioles and while there is still a chance that the weather could cause some problems, it is nice to have real baseball games to talk about again. This offseason and spring training has brought a lot of intrigue and interest in the Orioles for the upcoming season, but the most impactful news may have come at the very top of the organization.

The Orioles' ownership situation has been a hot topic for months now with the word that the Angelos family was planning to sell the team to billionaire David Rubenstein. There were a lot of hoops to jump through to make the sale happen, but yesterday MLB owners approved the sale and Baltimore officially has a new sheriff in town. How much things will change (for better or worse) for the Orioles under new ownership remains to be seen, but there is a good bit of optimism right now.

Orioles News: Matt Holliday is not happy about Jackson not making Opening Day roster

Despite the fact that the Orioles look to be in tremendous shape as a team heading into to the 2024 season, there has been some negativity surrounding the decision to not include top prospect Jackson Holliday on the Opening Day roster. While Holliday put together a very strong spring and was widely expected to make the team, the front office felt as though he could benefit from getting more reps against quality lefties in Triple-A as well as more seasoning at second base.

You can count Jackson's dad, former All-Star Matt Holliday, among those that are not happy about the decision. In a recent radio interview, Holliday was clear that he felt his son had done enough to make the team and strongly hinted that he felt as though he was being held down because of a "business element" which could really only mean because of service time considerations. He may be right, but Holliday did struggle a bit against lefties this spring so Baltimore isn't completely off base, either.

Orioles News: New ownership is prioritizing MASN dispute resolution

As much as fans want the Orioles' new owners to immediately commit a ton of money to the team's payroll, it sounds like one of the first issues that they want to get sorted out is the long-standing dispute over TV rights and fees with the Nationals. The dispute stems from when the Nationals were moved from Montreal to DC and setting off controversy with regards to Baltimore's existing TV territorial rights and who should be paid what.

With the Orioles now under Rubenstein's ownership, he shared during a forum that getting the MASN TV dispute resolved for good was high on his list of priorities. While he said that there was no easy solution and he didn't have anything to announce yet, he did express optimism that progress could be made soon and that all parties involved are motivated to put the issue behind them.

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