Baltimore Orioles Were ‘In the Ballpark’ in Attempt To Retain Key Free Agent

Despite falling short of retaining their ace pitcher this offseason, the Baltimore Orioles were at minimum making competitive offers in an attempt to do so.

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Corbin Burnes throws to the Milwaukee Brewers in the second inning of a spring training game. | Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Baltimore Orioles have had a very middle-of-the-road offseason, having lost some key free agents such as Anthony Santander and Corbin Burnes, but also brought in some solid talent such as Tyler O'Neill and Tomoyuki Sugano. This mixed bag of moves has led to somewhat of an unknown when it comes to the team, as they look to remain in competitive form and make the postseason in 2025.

Losing Burnes is a tough blow, after only one season with the team he chose to move on to the Arizona Diamondbacks rather than stay with the Orioles. He was a workhorse in 2024 as well, pitching 194.1 innings and accruing a 2.92 ERA, 1.096 WHIP, 181 strikeouts to 48 walks, and a 128 ERA+.

Now after the offseason has finished up for the former Baltimore ace, he took some time to speak about the decision and how it ultimately went down. Jack Vita of The Baltimore Sun (subscription required) recently transcribed the quotes, with Burnes saying the following about the Orioles:

"[The Orioles] were definitely pretty aggressive early on. Obviously, I enjoyed my time there, enjoyed the group of guys there. Just as offers started to come in, they were in the ballpark, for sure, but we just got to the point when [the Diamondbacks] got serious, and [made] their offer, we just couldn’t turn it down, just comparable to what the other ones were. And obviously, location was a piece of that as well."

The large majority of this information makes sense given the situation, especially the location given Burnes owns a home in Arizona already. Unfortunately for Baltimore however, they lose out on an extremely high quality pitcher who was the leader of their group in 2024, and a large scale acquisition in the trade they put together to land him.

Losing a high value prospect in Joey Ortiz (previously ranked No. 63 on MLB Pipeline) as well as a reliever with DL Hall is somewhat a tough pill to swallow, now that they know they were only able to get one season out of Burnes before he moved on. While that was somewhat a possible scenario in mind when the deal first happened, now that it has officially played out, it makes things a little more difficult to manage.

Knowing that the Orioles were at least in on things is a positive note, especially considering Burnes noted they were aggressive at one point. While it is definitely a consolation prize of sorts, it shows they did not just let him walk without any intent of trying to bring him back.