One by one they began to file into the auxiliary clubhouse that serves as a formal interview room at Camden Yards. Orioles employees, coaches, interim manager Tony Mansolino and a large contingent of players.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias sat next to control owner David Rubenstein. At the other end of the table was Koby Pérez, the Orioles’ vice president of international scouting and operations. And in between Elias and Pérez sat the 21-year-old catcher with the very mature salary.

The celebration of Samuel Basallo’s eight-year extension, complete with $5 million signing bonus, escalators and club option for 2034 that brings the total package to $88.5 million, continued this afternoon with a press conference. A game will be played later tonight, but the Basallo news dwarfs anything else that’s happening.

Teammates in attendance included Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle, Dean Kremer, Tyler O’Neill, Coby Mayo, Colton Cowser, Alex Jackson, Brandon Young, Dietrich Enns and Matt Bowman. Most of them sat next to or behind the media members who normally occupy the room.

About half of those players could be under consideration for similar treatment down the road.

“The Orioles’ ownership group is fairly well capitalized, and we have the resources to do these kinds of deals,” Rubenstein said. “It takes two to do deals, but we thought this was a perfect one for the first one of this type, not only because his last name begins with a B and we’re in Baltimore … We like the fact that he has a B.

“The best players the Orioles have had over the years historically have been homegrown. So Jim Palmer, his entire career was here. Brooks Robinson, entire career here. Cal Ripken, entire career here. So obviously you can get good players from time to time who come later in their career. I mean, I finished a career here. But we’ve had a tradition of having players who spent their entire career here, and we hope Samuel, as well.

“We’ve got a lot of other talented people on the team who we hope will ultimately want to spend their entire career here or spend long-term arrangements with us, and we’re committed to doing more of these as soon as we can.”

Elias said the Orioles chose Basallo to be the first player extended for the same reasons that he was the first to sign out of their new international program. Basallo is the crown jewel. 

“We think he’s tremendously talented, as he’s shown already at the major league level,” Elias said. “He’s got the ability to catch. We also think he’s a potential middle-of-the-order run-producing bat. He’s got a lot of power, but he can really hit, too, and what he’s done at a young age has been very encouraging. We know the great family and support system that he comes from. We’ve seen the type of worker that he is, and we think he’s scratching the surface of a very bright future.

“We still have work left to do, but we’re going to do this together. It’s important for us to have these types of talents in the organization for as long as we’re able to, so we talked and we were able to find common ground, and we’re really pleased with where we’re at with this.”

Did the Orioles just scratch the extension surface with Basallo? It’s a little more complicated.

“These aren’t easy deals to line up,” Elias said. “To those of you on the business side, this is not something for organizations or players to line up on. That’s part of it. That’s OK. We worked very hard at this, and any time we think there’s an opportunity to line up and have it make sense for both parties, it’s something we discuss and explore.

“It’s never easy to push deals across the finish line in this business, so we celebrate when that’s the case, and we as a front office, as an ownership group, an organization, we’re always going to continue to look to make good investments whether that’s trying to extend our own players or anything else that we do, so this is a part of that. We just want to have a very talented team, organization and run it as well as we can and continue to invest in the operation for the sake of this organization and Baltimore baseball.”

Basallo, who signed with the Orioles as an international free agent in January 2021 out of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, referred to the money as life-changing. More so than the $1.3 million bonus he received that set the franchise record at the time.

His current deal represents the largest pre-arbitration extension for a catcher in major league history. He hasn’t decided on any big expenditures.

“It’s a big blessing that God has placed over my family,” Basallo said via interpreter Brandon Quinones. “We don’t yet know what we’re going to do. We have a plan and people that are going to help us figure that out, but right now my focus is to play baseball and do everything that I can to help the team win games. 

The subject of money was prominent today, as expected, and it stretched beyond Basallo. The Orioles are approaching an important winter after a disappointing season that’s moved them from a Wild Card to last place.

“I think David and his whole group, and it’s a large group, it’s a really robust group, and as he said, it’s well-capitalized, they’ve put us in a position to run this franchise optimally in a way that I don’t know it’s been executed here over the long history of the team for a while,” Elias said.

“This season has had a lot of misfortune and it hasn’t gone to plan and we don’t think that our record reflects the level of talent and capabilities that are in this organization. But this group has put us in a position where a lot of these things are much more possible and that we have the ability to make an investment like this, to build new facilities across the minor leagues and in Sarasota to raising the payroll like we did over the winter to continue to explore these type of contracts, either with our own homegrown players or with free agents. This is all on the table thanks to this group.

“We will continue to try to make shrewd investments and run the franchise responsibly, but we want to win. We want to win in Baltimore and in the AL East, and we know that requires the whole spectrum of investments, moves that you make as an organization, and we hope we’re just getting started.”

Rubenstein jumped in unprompted.

“We had some bad luck this year, obviously,” he said. “Health challenges were more severe than anybody could have ever predicted. Our players, when we have our best team on the field and they’re healthy, I think we’re as good as anybody in baseball. We just need to stay healthy, and hopefully we can be healthier next year. We’ve got some really good other projects under way. I think people are going to be really happy in Baltimore with what we field next year, but I don’t want to eliminate this season. We still have a number of games to play, and we want to win as many of them as possible.”

Negotiations with Basallo didn’t drag. The first conversation was held Sunday, when the Orioles selected his contract from Triple-A Norfolk. He passed his physical yesterday and signed the extension.

“Well, it was important to wait, in this case, until his debut,” Elias said. “I think that was certainly something that both sides were conceptually aware of might be a possibility. These types of deals happening around players’ debuts now around the league, everybody sees that. But in terms of when dialogue opened up on this particular deal, Gio and I started talking the day of his debut. So not very long ago.”

“I feel extremely good and I thank God that the organization believes in my talent and believes in me, to be willing to have this conversation and come to this agreement on a new contract with me,” Basallo said. “I think it means a lot to hear the organization feels that way about me and my talent.”

The final comments were made in a press conference that lasted about 25 minutes. Basallo and his group, including parents Hairo and Evelyn Mendez, brother Hairo Sebastian, girlfriend Leticia Arias and his representatives, posed for multiple photos. Players walked back to the clubhouse with Basallo. They have a game tonight.

Basallo probably will be behind the plate. Back to the on-field business.

“It feels really good and really special to have all my teammates here, coaches, trainers,” he said. “I know I just got here, but having them here really does mean a lot to me. I think over the next eight years, we’re all going to try to do our best as a group to give everything that we have to try and win as much as possible.”