It was quite a bet the Orioles made, choosing Shane Baz as their headline starting pitching acquisition as they sought to build a playoff-caliber rotation. A lot was — and still is — riding on the 26-year-old right-hander this summer.

Before he’s even thrown a meaningful pitch for them, the Orioles have doubled down. We knew they believed in his talent and ability to rebound after a year pitching in Tampa Bay’s temporary ballpark inflated his stats.

Now, with his five-year, $68 million contract extension, they’ve bet on him to be a meaningful part of their rotation for the rest of this decade — and having him in place will help them build that out however they see fit.

That was the appeal of Baz when the Orioles sent four highly rated prospects and a draft pick to the Rays to acquire him in December. He’s always had the quality and pitch mix to be slotted near the top of a rotation, and he showed flashes of that as he returned from Tommy John elbow reconstruction in 2024 and 2025.

But the dimensions and conditions at Steinbrenner Field — where the Rays played last year due to hurricane damage at Tropicana Field — meant Baz’s home stats inflated his overall line. Under the hood, he was a far better pitcher than his 4.87 ERA showed.

So, if the Orioles were acquiring him to pitch in the top half of their rotation along with Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers, he fit the bill, provided their pitching department is as effective as they believe it to be.

If they saw adding him as an opportunistic trade and still wanted to sign a top free-agent starter, he’d have been overqualified for the No. 4 or No. 5 spot.

It turned out to be the former, and Baz signing this extension means the Orioles partially lucked out and partially were wise not to extend past their comfort zone for a top starter such as Ranger Suárez or Framber Valdez.

They paid a steep price in prospects but now have Baz for a fraction of the money as those two received. Suárez signed for five years and $130 million, and Valdez for three years and $115 million. Neither is in his prime anymore, which Baz is and will be for the duration of his deal.

If the Orioles get the best out of Baz, there may not be a better pitcher on a new team. It’s been easy for a lot of reasons to look at him as a Grayson Rodriguez replacement, from their similar rises as Texas prep stars to their tantalizing upside.

Even if he doesn’t reach those levels and ends up being more like Dean Kremer — a competent and reliable big league starter — he’ll be a good value to the Orioles.

Rogers is set to be a free agent after this year and could be one of the top pitchers available if Thursday was any indication. Kremer will be a free agent after the 2027 season and Bradish after 2028. The Orioles have a mutual option with Zach Eflin worth $25 million next year, which I’m sure both sides would be thrilled to execute if this season goes well enough to justify that.

That’s partially because of the value in Kremer and Bradish being in their second years of arbitration and Baz signing this deal. There’s a lot of near-term flexibility for a class of free-agent pitchers that will include Tarik Skubal, Kevin Gausman, Freddy Peralta and many more.

There’s also a wave of young pitchers in the high minors in Trey Gibson, Luis De Leon, Nestor German and Levi Wells who could debut this summer or next and have the combination of stuff and command to succeed in a big league rotation.

They’re all great options to have. So is certainty. Having Baz secured until 2030 locks in a pitcher the Orioles believe has his best in front of him. Manager Craig Albernaz has said Baz has Cy Young potential, and while the presence of Rogers and Bradish ahead of him means that doesn’t need to materialize immediately, they didn’t want to wait for that to become true to pay him.

It’s notable that there was no rush. Baz would have been a free agent after the 2028 season otherwise, which would have put him in the same class as Gunnar Henderson and Bradish.

And let’s not kid ourselves — those dates are burned into a lot of brains in Baltimore. I had the conversation Friday morning around the proverbial watercooler at the office, rattling off the names and free-agent years of their key players. Adley Rutschman, 2027; Henderson and Bradish, 2028; Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser, 2029.

They matter to fans because, before Samuel Basallo signed his extension last year, deals like this simply didn’t happen with the Orioles. The time to execute them with all those players came under the Angelos family’s stewardship, and the money wasn’t available for extensions the way it is under David Rubenstein, Michael Arougheti and their group.

But they also matter because it put an expiration date on the core that all those years of losing produced. The Orioles had to win by then. They still do.

Signing Baz to this deal makes that more feasible. His salary will increase dramatically over the course of this deal, and so will those of all of the aforementioned stars. But, before we even know how good he’s going to be in an Orioles uniform, we know Baz will be here.

And, if he meets the Orioles’ expectations, they may not need to spend on another top starter. They’d already have one, and he’d be a bargain.