Boras says Orioles want to retain players they’ve drafted

Starting pitcher Corbin Burnes remains a free agent, and the Orioles would like him to return. There are other reported suitors for Burnes, last year’s No.1 starter. The Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays are in the mix.

Scott Boras, Burnes’ agent, talked about the chances he could remain with the Orioles during Monday’s video conference call with outfielder Tyler O’Neill, another of his clients.

On Wednesday at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, Boras said that the Orioles have been more aggressive under new owner David Rubenstein.

“We kind of jumped the market in that regard,” Boras said at his annual media briefing at the Winter Meetings. “We’ve been in very close contact with Mike Elias and talking to him regularly. He’s made it very clear under this ownership they’re going to take steps forward that they haven’t taken in the past.”

One of those steps was signing O’Neill to a three-year, $49.5 million contract with an opt-out after 2025. It was the first time that Elias, the Orioles’ executive vice president/general manager, has negotiated a multi-year contract for a free agent.

“Well, the addition of Tyler to this already very competitive group says a lot about what the Orioles want to do,” Boras said. “Why players go places has a lot to do with their winning component. But really this boils down to ownership. When you have competitiveness in a market, ownership has to respond, and to compete with fellow ownership about these elite talents, it’s something that normally when you’re new to it, it’s not as understood, but if you hope that the presence of all the information that surrounds the availability of elite players, No. 1 pitchers, they’re just not in free-agent markets year-to-year.

“You’re fortunate that when you have a need for one and there’s one in the market that can fulfill that, and ironically that player has performed well in your market. And, also, ironically, that player has given you in the postseason exactly what you’d expect from a No. 1.

“So all those unknowns that are coupled with free agency are known to Baltimore, which gives them more of an insight and I would assume an aggression to continue to make this team more and more of what it needs to be to be at a world championship level.”

Boras says the difference under Rubenstein is real.

“Obviously, organizations reach step-wise goals, and I think Mike Elias’ platform when he came there was one to build under the direction of an ownership that allowed him to do what he could do,” Elias said.

Besides Burnes, Boras represents infielders Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg.

“It’s very clear from the conversations that we’ve had with the new ownership, they are to retain the players they have drafted and brought through the system and are enjoying their success, and also attract the needed potentials that they have to allow them to compete in the very difficult AL East, and really have the necessary components that rewards the existing group that they have, and ownership has really even gone to the architectural attractions to try to recruit players, which they’ve done, and I think their overall nature of the franchise for the fanbase is really one that is very, very different than it was before,” Boras said.

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