It sounded the same here in Florida as it did back home. The phone pings. The gasps. “Whoa,” left and right. Live on MLB Network Radio, former Orioles executive Jim Duquette’s claps echoed through the cavernous resort hallway where he was broadcasting.

“They finally did it,” he shouted.

A day after being spurned by slugger Kyle Schwarber, who returned to the Phillies despite a commensurate offer from Baltimore, the Orioles agreed with slugging first baseman Pete Alonso on a five-year, $155 million deal that does a lot more than satisfy president of baseball operations Mike Elias’ desire for an impact bat.

This is big-boy stuff, plain and simple. This is the moment many have been waiting for.

We might have spent the first half of this decade believing the club’s homegrown players would bring the Orioles playoff success. Now, Elias is using the resources of the ownership group led by David Rubenstein and Michael Arougheti to supplement them with one of the best sluggers in the game.

So, yes, this checks an offseason box for a banger in the middle of the Orioles lineup, which Elias said was a goal even after acquiring Taylor Ward from the Los Angeles Angels last month.

The rest of the deal’s effects are just as impactful.

It sheds the stink of rejection that the newly moneyed Orioles experienced last winter and the early part of this one at the top of the free agent market. Free agency is a zero-sum game. One team wins and all the rest lose, and the Orioles now have a win on their ledger.

It answers a lot of questions about whether this front office could graduate from the spendthrift rebuilding days to the big-money, long-term contracts the best free agents command. Alonso’s deal is the highest average annual value ($31 million) the club has given out, and it is eclipsed only by Chris Davis’ seven-year, $161 million deal in terms of overall value. This one includes no deferred money, as Davis’ did, and also no opt-outs, as more and more big deals do.

It means, by extension, that they’re willing to take big risks for big rewards. No one wants to have an aging slugger who loses his power on their books at that salary, but the potential gains of having Alonso protecting Gunnar Henderson in the heart of the lineup at the beginning of the deal outweigh that.

It also satisfies something these Orioles haven’t often cared about, which is winning hearts and minds, both here among the baseball world in Florida and at home. Elias’ early tenure was defined by unpopular decisions that caught him all kinds of grief, some deserved and some not.

Given everything he’s said about the desire for the team to be viewed as a contender in the extremely difficult AL East, and about making this kind of game-changing addition, it felt crazy as I packed my bags Wednesday morning to fly home that he and the Orioles wouldn’t put their stamp on these meetings and change the discourse around the club.

That sort of narrative building doesn’t really matter. But, judging by how this has landed, it can feel as if it does.

This is for many reasons something the Orioles of old wouldn’t have done — even as recently as last year, when they had money to spend and used it on short-term deals. They would have looked at their homegrown options — in this case Ryan Mountcastle and Coby Mayo — and figured they were set. Not anymore.

This offseason has been one when everything Elias has said has pointed to a shift in thinking and approach. He said the main lesson from their 2025 collapse was that you have to evolve and adapt. After two months of hearing and sensing that he was living up to that declaration, he and the Orioles finally demonstrated that they have.

It’s one thing to say it and another entirely to do it. That’s the issue the Orioles have run into for a while now. Adding nearly $100 million in payroll over two years post-ownership change doesn’t feel as impactful when it’s spread out on shorter-term deals.

And it was hard to believe they would execute a deal like this — or for those like me who did believe it, to not feel like a mark — until you saw the signing to make it true. Now, that proof requirement is satisfied, and the whole perception of the club, its offseason and its future changes.

If trading for Ward set up a lot more questions for the roster than answers, this further unsettles what things will look like come opening day. They’ll have moves to make, for sure, but given the players they’ve been connected to in trades and free agency over the last few weeks, who’s to say this is the end of the splashy additions?

Remember that Elias said he wanted the baseball world to think this team could compete at the top of the AL East. This is the type of signing that influences that thinking. It was the same for trading for Ward and signing Ryan Helsley for the ninth inning.

It’s not greedy to say the Orioles can or should do more. Now that they’ve signed Alonso, whatever reservations one could have about whether they’d even consider it are gone forever.