Comments From Orioles' New Owner Doesn't Inspire Confidence He'll Spend Money

For those fans hoping that the Baltimore Orioles would finally start spending money under new owner David Rubenstein, his latest comments doesn't necessarily inspire confidence.

Mar 29, 2018; Baltimore, MD, USA; A general view of the stadium prior to the game between the Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. / Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles have a new ownership group.

This exciting announcement immediately gave fans hope that the billionaire majority owner, and local native, David Rubenstein, would open up his checkbook and actually put money into this organization unlike the Angelos family.

So far, Rubenstein and his group have been met with excitement, as this offers hope things will change for the Orioles, especially in regards to keeping their superstars Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson for a long time.

Those two are paramount to this franchise's success and there was real concern both would be gone if the Angelos family still maintained control.

Shelling out $150 million and $200 million deals to each of these stars brought the response where the previous owners said they "would be so financially underwater that you'd have to raise the prices massively."

With Rubenstein at the helm, the Orioles have assets to finally spend.

The question now remains if he and his ownership group are going to operate that way, or if they're still going to act like a small-market team.

What the new owner's response was certainly doesn't inspire confidence that things are going to change.

"It's not easy to figure out how much money put in. As all of you know, does money buy you happiness? Not necessarily. It doesn't necessarily buy you success. The same is true in baseball. Money doesn't always mean you're going to have the best team, the best players, the best morale. It's a complicated mixture of things that have to come together," he said as reported by Childs Walker of The Baltimore Sun.

That's not quite what the fans were hoping to hear.

Maybe this billionaire has learned from the mistakes that fellow billionaire Steve Cohen made after his purchase of the New York Mets where he made big proclamations that resulted in bloated payrolls by handing out large contracts to free agents in hopes of buying wins.

None of that occurred for them.

Rubenstein clearly took the more cautious approach.

This was amplified by the owner's longtime spokesperson, Chris Ullman, who responded to Walker via email and said, "Determining how much to spend involves a complicated mix of factors. Over time, the new ownership group will make spending decisions they believe to be in the best interest of our team, players, and city."

This might sound like nails on the chalkboard for Orioles fans.

It's probably the smart strategy: Undersell and Overdeliver.

But, for a city full of baseball fans like Baltimore who finally have a team they love and see compete for championships, all they wanted to hear was some admission that money would be poured into this team.

That wasn't the case with these comments.