SAN FRANCISCO — After the Orioles approached Samuel Basallo and his agents about signing a contract extension on Aug. 17, the day he made his MLB debut, it didn’t take long for them to come to an agreement on an eight-year, $67 million deal.

The contract is seen as a major win for the Orioles. They have his three years of arbitration covered at $4 million, $7 million and $11 million, with two years of free agency at $15 million each, plus a club option for another season at $18 million.

Basallo will make slightly more in the interim three seasons, earning $1 million instead of the $760,000 league minimum, but overall, if he pans out to be the type of player he is expected to be, the Orioles will be saving a significant amount of money by locking him up during his rookie season.

But, if Basallo ends up being a star, he would have stood to make more money by waiting until he was a free agent. Take Juan Soto, who was reportedly offered a 13-year, $350 million extension by the Nationals in 2022. Instead, he got a 15-year, $765 deal with the Mets, the largest payday in professional sports.

Or Mookie Betts, who said no to an eight-year, $200 million extension in 2017 with the Red Sox and turned that into a 12-year, $365 million contract with the Dodgers.

The rest of the Orioles’ core — including Jackson Holliday and Gunnar Henderson — seem to be waiting as well.

But not Basallo. He told his agents, he said, to stop negotiating and he didn’t need more money. The deal became official Aug. 22, five days after the team approached him.

So why did Basallo decide now was the right time to sign an extension, even if it means he could earn less overall in his career?

It’s a simple answer for him.

“Well, I don’t think money is everything,” Basallo said. “I don’t think I need $300 million to be happy. I told my dad, ‘If I was able to live and be happy with $1 million when I signed, I think $67 million is just fine.’ So you know, at the end of the day, this is the organization that signed me, that I grew with, that I know everyone in this organization and I’m happy to be here, happy to be a part of this team. I think that matters just as much as money.”

That $1.3 million bonus came in 2021 when he signed as an international free agent, and Basallo used that money to buy his family a home in the Dominican Republic. He doesn’t know what he is going to do with this new income, but helping his family is at the top of his list.

That includes supporting his younger brother Hairo Sebastian’s baseball training — he is expected to sign as an international free agent when he’s 16, and Basallo said he thinks Sebastian may end up being even better than he is.

“We’re still figuring things out on that end, talking about some options,” Basallo said. “But right now my focus is playing baseball and doing what I can to help that team win.”

Basallo, 21, will be a free agent at the latest when he’s 30 with this deal, so he still has the potential of getting one of those mega deals later in his career. But he has said he wants to play his entire career with the Orioles. And taking this deal now was the first step to making that happen.