Contract extensions start to bubble up this time of the winter. The Orioles might be wise to get on that.

If any meaningful change in this Orioles offseason wouldn't alter their build-from-within plans, it would be handing out an extension or two.

To say that not a lot has changed for the Orioles this offseason isn’t true. Their payroll for the players that will be on their roster on Opening Day (an important distinction in a world where Chris Davis’ salary is on the books in some form) is set to increase thanks to arbitration raises and signings.

Other key tenets of the Mike Elias era remain unchanged, though. The free agent contracts are of the one-year variety, some with an option for a second. And there hasn’t been a contract extension for any of the Orioles’ homegrown players.

That goes for those who have proven themselves to be valuable contributors and grown along with the major league team, and those who are part of Elias’ own stable of blossoming stars he brought into the organization himself.

Boston’s $331 million extension for Rafael Devers agreed to Wednesday shows what can happen if a team waits too long and gets backed into a corner. That’s a pretty flimsy prompt to examine an aspect of this Orioles offseason that might not be running counter to expectations but is certainly not entirely encouraging. I’m going to use it as one anyway.

John Means’ arbitration-settlement/contract extension after his elbow surgery last spring, which also locked in his 2023 salary, has the technical distinction of being the first multi-year contract the club has given out, but to actually count it as such is something only those in the employ of the Orioles would do, and I’m not one of them.

We’re talking about the kind that keep players beyond free agency, or pay them for their club-controlled years in order to do that; the kind of contracts that the Atlanta Braves’ World Series title was built on, and that are becoming more and more commonplace among the game’s young stars.

The Orioles haven’t trafficked in them in quite some time. When Elias was hired, he was often asked about extending someone like Trey Mancini. He did not. Over the course of the rebuild, Anthony Santander and Cedric Mullins have solidified themselves as productive lineup fixtures. They’re still in arbitration, Santander with two seasons left and Mullins with three. Ryan Mountcastle and Austin Hays haven’t had the high-level seasons the other two did, but nonetheless are year-to-year with the Orioles.

The Orioles need for lefty bats may not actually exist. But the allure of a reclamation project slugger sure does.

To excuse the Orioles of the expectation that they sign their top players long-term before they got good in 2022 would be a bit too kind, even if it’s understandable why they didn’t. Now that the team is on the ascent, though, those players are the types where cost certainty may prove helpful as the Orioles build their roster in the coming years.

This isn’t about players who have been on the team for years, though. It’s about the ones who joined last year: Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. They’re both at the stage of their careers where they’ll never be less expensive to tie down than they are now. Henderson could win Rookie of the Year next season, and Rutschman will probably be an All-Star. The Orioles would be paying more than the league minimum for them in the coming years, but presumably be getting friendlier terms on their arbitration years and delaying free agency by a season or two.

Both the Orioles and the player would need to be motivated to make an agreement like that. It’s not worth trying to tease out the players’ ends, not knowing them only enough to ask questions about baseball in formal settings and having no insight into their personal, professional, or financial motivations.

All I’m saying is there’s a level it’s worth it to the player, and there’s a level that’s worth it to the Orioles. The overlap of those levels is probably quite small, if it exists in the first place. It might be larger for others on the farm who have yet to make their debuts. Every wave of call-ups of young stars is probably going to present an opportunity for such an agreement for the Orioles to lock someone in on favorable terms.

They’ll want to start considering that not for the long-term future when these players come knocking for Devers-level contracts, but for the scenario where they have a bunch of high-quality major league players making $13 million a year in arbitration and find their budget meager when faced with paying them.

Like I said, weak prompt. It’s January, etc. The Orioles giving a fanbase that’s a little grouchy about liftoff-related moves the guarantee that someone they’ve come to like won’t be traded away in the name of creating long-term value somewhere between three years and three months before free agency would allow them to claim to have done something impactful this winter without spending imprudently in the free agent market or trading away a prized prospect for less than their high valuation of him.

The chances to make such deals typically come around salary arbitration discussions, which are likely to be occurring at this time of year. Doing so seems like a fine accomplishment if the opportunity presents itself. It sure beats having to pay one what Boston did Devers when it’s too late.