As the Orioles return home in a far different state, roster-wise and sentimentally, than they left last week, the annual early-August distraction at Camden Yards will be in full swing.

Former All-Star outfielder Adam Jones, now a special adviser to general manager Mike Elias, will enter the Orioles Hall of Fame. The man who succeeded him in center field seven Augusts ago — Cedric Mullins — won’t be there after he was dealt to the New York Mets last week, hours before the MLB trade deadline.

Jones’ six-year, $85.5 million extension in May 2012 was the last the Orioles signed to keep a young player from reaching free agency, two front offices and two ownership groups and several baseball lifetimes ago.

After doing so, Jones ended his career with the club in 2018, when a beloved wave of homegrown stars (Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop and Kevin Gausman, among others) were traded to enjoy their primes elsewhere. Dealing Mullins, who came up shortly after that 2018 trade deadline sell-off, now means that cycle has repeated itself with the players who helped the Orioles get through their rebuilding years — Austin Hays, Anthony Santander and John Means chief among them.

The paucity of contract extensions for homegrown stars has been a stick to beat the Orioles with for well over a decade. Every time one is signed, as was the case with Boston rookie Roman Anthony this week, the comparison is an easy one to make. There are instances when it is a flimsy stick if you consider the full context, and other times those blows land squarely and should hurt.

Taken together they simply make for an unpleasant reality that can be altered only by breaking the pattern of these goodbyes. It’s hard to be invested in a team when every homegrown star’s exit feels guaranteed.

There’s never been a place for sentimentality in this front office’s calculations. As owner David Rubenstein explained in the spring, Elias isn’t going to sign a player to make the fan base happy for a day if he feels the contract will end up underwater. Rubenstein also said he’s “very fond” of what Elias has built in Baltimore.

The question is, as it is for everything this year, as the Orioles evaluate what has made the last year so challenging, do they think the lack of extensions is worth changing?

Jones said this year when he rejoined the organization that his extension allowed him to build his life and career in Baltimore, a decision that cut into his ability to cash in to the level some of his peers did but that allowed him a level of security which mattered to him.

That was true right to the bitter end — and it was a bit bitter — as Jones used his veteran rights to nix what he described as a hastily presented deadline trade to the Phillies and finish that disastrous 2018 season with the Orioles. Much of what was expensive, movable and not nailed down was dealt that summer. Jones stayed and eventually ceded center field to Mullins, who debuted Aug. 10, 2018.

Mullins was a top prospect in the organization at the time and was a true source of hope as the team transitioned into its rebuild. It wasn’t always pretty. He struggled badly as the everyday center fielder to begin 2019 and was sent down to Triple-A Norfolk. Things didn’t get better there, and he spent the second half at Double-A Bowie.

He was back in the major league mix in 2020 and regained some of his form, then his career took off in 2021 as he ditched switch hitting and as a left-handed hitter became an All-Star with an .878 OPS, 30 homers and 30 steals. That level of production has returned in spurts over the ensuing four seasons, and he’s been a modestly above-league-average offensive player who patrolled center field as well as anyone.

The Orioles were happy to go year to year with him in salary arbitration entering this, his age-30 season and his last before free agency. Same went for Hays and Santander and all those before him.

It’s important to recognize the context of how extensions to keep players from reaching free agency typically happen. Early-career players make the league minimum for the first three years of their careers, then earn arbitration raises based on their career performance in the three or so years leading up to free agency. Extensions frequently are agreed to early in a player’s career, when he’s making the league minimum, and come with modest salary raises over what the player would receive in his pre-arbitration and arbitration years while letting a team buy out some of his free agent years at current-day market rates. These deals often look better for the team long term than the player, considering what the top stars who reach free agency typically secure, but players lock in nice profits as well.

I can’t really speak to what was happening when Machado and Schoop were early enough in their careers to sign such extensions. For Mullins and his cohort, the Orioles were undergoing significant organizational change as Peter Angelos’ sons, John and Louis, were taking control.

Part of their goal was keeping costs low, and Elias’ rebuilding plan aligned with that. As the years went on, though, it felt like they were making baseball decisions for players they were glad to have around and who represented good value for their arbitration salaries but didn’t want to commit to long term.

That period of payroll austerity coincided with the early stages of the next generation’s core of Orioles stars: Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. Both are now close enough to free agency that they have no reason not to play out the string and test the open market. Although Colton Cowser, Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday are farther from that point, they are getting less likely to be extension candidates. (The influence of Scott Boras, who represents Henderson, Westburg and Holliday and prefers his clients to reach free agency, doesn’t help the Orioles’ case.)

That hangs over a lot of the frustration with how this Orioles season has gone. Another generation has come and gone, this with real accomplishments under its belt, and the team’s stumble in 2025 means the clock is ticking on the next group.

There’s probably not much the Orioles can do about that, outside signing the kind of sentiment-first, dollars-and-cents-second deal they’ve always tried to avoid under Elias — or getting ahead of the extension market for the next generation, such as Samuel Basallo or Dylan Beavers.

Until then, this is unavoidable. Jones’ Hall of Fame induction coming so closely after the beloved player who replaced him is sent out of town is just the latest reminder of a dynamic that this club has to shift.