SARASOTA, Fla. — David Rubenstein conducted his first true news conference as Orioles owner Monday during spring training. He answered questions about the franchise’s payroll, extensions for young stars and more during the 17-minute session.

Here are five things we learned:

Rubenstein says he isn’t worried about money: Many Orioles fans care about payroll. It’s not because they want the organization to recklessly spend without purpose. It’s because they’ve seen this franchise get by without spending for years, especially during the painful rebuild when the Orioles ran bottom-five payrolls and routinely lost 100-plus games.

Rubenstein, however, says he isn’t concerned about money. That’s a benefit of having money, of course, but it also might speak to his intentions as Orioles owner. Take these snippets from his answers about payroll and spending as proof:

“I don’t have a financial limit.”

“We don’t have any particular financial constraints.”

“The money isn’t the big issue. We are financially in very good shape.”

Rubenstein boasted about the increase to the Orioles’ payroll this offseason. The Orioles’ 56% uptick is the highest in Major League Baseball, according to FanGraphs, though it’s easier to drastically increase a payroll as low as the Orioles’ was. Baltimore ranked bottom-five in spending in each of Mike Elias’ first six seasons as general manager, all of which came under the Angelos family owning the club.

“We want to put the best team on the field we can, and we don’t have a constraint by saying there’s a certain amount of money we’d spend,” Rubenstein said. “So we can get the best team we can get, we will try to do that, and if it costs more money, then we’ll do it.”

It’s every fan base’s dream to have a billionaire owner who is more concerned about winning than the bottom line. These comments — like his “speed up the effort” to win a World Series quote this offseason — imbue confidence that’s what Baltimore has now.

But he still wants to make money: After his news conference, though, Rubenstein told The Baltimore Sun that he still wants to “make a profit.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to put together a team that is going to lose money for the investors,” he said.

That sentiment isn’t surprising. Billionaires don’t make their billions by running businesses that lose money. Rubenstein is one of the most successful people in the private equity space, on top of being a dedicated philanthropist and a best-selling author.

But in MLB, which doesn’t have a salary cap like other professional sports leagues (more on that later), it’s not uncommon for teams to risk going into the red to chase championships. While spending is correlated with winning in baseball, that strategy is not guaranteed to work, as Rubenstein made sure to note shortly after saying he has “no financial limit.”

“Baseball has shown over the years that, generally, spending now doesn’t necessarily produce championships,” he said. “So championships are won by team spirit, by having real good camaraderie and by having good players, so it’s a combination of things. If spending more money was a guarantee of winning a World Series, we’d be happy to spend more money.

“It’s no guarantee. You want to have a team that works together well and it’s a team not just for one year, but it’s a team that’s going to get along for quite some time.”

That message — one of sustainability — is similar to one Elias has been preaching for years.

Mike Elias ran the offseason he wanted to: This shouldn’t have been in doubt, but Rubenstein’s comments Monday further solidify the belief that Elias is no longer operating the offseason — if he ever was in the past — with significant constraints from ownership.

Rubenstein has praised Elias as the sport’s best general manager, and the 75-year-old Baltimore native is intent on letting Elias make the baseball decisions.

“Brandon [Hyde], two years ago was voted American League Manager of the Year, and I think Mike was voted the Major League Baseball Executive of the Year. Who am I to say I know more about baseball than they do?” he said.

Under former Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos, Elias’ offseason inaction was often couched with the assumption that Angelos wouldn’t approve greater spending, even if Elias wanted it.

This offseason, that wasn’t the case, and Elias did increase spending. He signed seven major leaguers to contracts that will pay them a combined $68 million in 2025. That money, in addition to increases through arbitration, is why the Orioles’ payroll jumped from $95.3 million to begin last season (26th of 30 MLB teams) to $160 million now (15th), according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

However, Elias didn’t make any splashes. The only player he signed for more than one season was outfielder Tyler O’Neill (three years, $49.5 million), and that deal includes an opt-out clause for the slugger after 2025. The Orioles weren’t able to re-sign Corbin Burnes, who left for $210 million from the Arizona Diamondbacks, or bring in a pitcher anywhere near his caliber.

Rubenstein said he and Elias were in communication “every single day, several times a day” throughout the offseason.

“We didn’t have a financial limit on what he could spend or not spend, but he did want to let us know what he was doing all the time and get our input, and we gave him our input,” Rubenstein said. “But our input really was relating to learning more about the players. It wasn’t so much about the money.” That might change in the future as the dollar figures increase.

Rubenstein is taking a wait-and-see approach to extensions: As an Orioles fan growing up in Baltimore, Rubenstein cheered for the likes of Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer. Those players are Orioles legends, in part, because they played nowhere else but Baltimore.

That was a different era of baseball, though. As the game has become more player-friendly thanks to free agency, it’s now more difficult for some teams to keep their young stars. The previous generation of young Orioles fans were forced to say goodbye to Manny Machado when the franchise traded him at the 2018 trade deadline. The Orioles chose to trade Machado, a future Hall of Famer, and rebuild rather than try to keep the third baseman and build around him.

That was an understandable decision given the club’s struggles in 2018 and the uncertainty regarding Peter Angelos’ health and the future of the franchise. But the organization is in a much healthier spot now under Elias and Rubenstein than it was then.

Is Rubenstein confident he can sign Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and others to long-term contract extensions?

“I don’t want to use the word ‘confident’ because that would imply that I have some inside knowledge that I don’t really have,” he said. “I recognize how baseball operates, and it would be great if you can sign some people to longer-term contracts. But it takes a while to do it, and right now, we’re focused on getting the team ready for the season, and we’ll see what unfolds. We’re not unaware of what you’re talking about.”

Rubenstein mentioned he had lunch with Henderson and Rutschman on Monday. Before anyone could read too far into that, Rubenstein made clear it was a “social lunch” just so he could get to know his two star players, the young cornerstones of a ballclub that’s hoping to make the playoffs for a third straight season.

OK, if Rubenstein doesn’t want to use the word “confident,” how about this: How eager is he to keep those players in Baltimore long term?

“I certainly would like the best young players we have on the team, and those are two I just mentioned to stay here in their career just like Brooks Robinson was here in his entire career, Jim Palmer was here his entire career,” he said. “We’d like to have players stay with Baltimore for a long, long time — their entire career. … We think that we’re putting together a team they’re very happy with, and we’re providing an atmosphere they’re very happy with. We’ll just have to see what unfolds.

“But we’re not unaware of the desirability of doing what you suggest. We’ll just have to wait time and see.”

Rubenstein doubles down on salary cap stance: What Rubenstein doesn’t need to wait and see about is whether MLB would be better off, in his mind, with a salary cap.

Last month, Rubenstein said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he prefers a salary cap structure to improve competitive balance across MLB. He reiterated that opinion on Monday.

“I would just say the best way to phrase it, everybody in baseball wants to have a competitive environment so every fan thinks every team can win any given year,” Rubenstein said. “Having a competitive environment is what we want and what other owners want. And ultimately, I think that’s what I think the fans really want, too, is a competitive environment so no matter what city you live in, you think your team can win that year when the season begins.”

MLB doesn’t have a salary cap like the NFL, NBA and NHL, though MLB does have what some consider to be a soft cap with the competitive balance tax threshold, which penalizes teams with payrolls over a predetermined amount. In 2025, that threshold is $241 million, as defined by the current collective bargaining agreement between the league and the MLB Players Association.

The defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers have tested the sport’s spending limits in recent offseasons, reaching a peak this year with an eye-popping competitive balance tax payroll of $402.3 million. The New York Mets, the second-most spend-happy team in baseball, handed out a $765 million contract to Juan Soto this offseason.

On those terms, it can be difficult for small-market teams, especially those unwilling to spend, to compete. However, a salary cap would not solve the issue of the handful of teams every season who choose to spend little, running payrolls under $100 million as the Orioles did each year under Elias before 2025.

A salary cap has been a hard line in the sand for the MLBPA, which believes it would suppress players’ salaries.

“We’re never going to agree to a cap. Let me start there,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in 2023. “We don’t have a cap, we’re not going to agree to a cap.”

Rubenstein was asked Monday what he would say to someone who argued a salary cap is good for MLB’s owners and not its players. He pointed to the other leagues that “seem to have players that are pretty happy with the situation.”

“My impression is that players in other leagues seem to be OK,” he said. “But I can’t address how that would affect baseball or something like that. I’m not sure anybody is thinking that the players in other leagues are thinking they’re in bad shape.”

The current CBA expires in December 2026, and another lockout could be on the horizon, especially if owners fight for a salary cap.

Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Calvin Meyer at jameyer@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/JCalvinMeyer.