Alan Mills can relate to Jason Garcia's jump from Single-A to the majors

The questions keep pouring in regarding the Orioles' seven-year, $161 million deal with first baseman Chris Davis. Mostly how it may impact other moves.

The Orioles aren't giving Yoenis Cespedes $90 million, let alone whatever figure he has in mind beyond what they're paying Davis. As I wrote yesterday, they'd be fine with a one-year deal if he's willing to go that route.

ESPN's Buster Olney broke down the structure of Davis' contract, which includes $42 million in deferred money. Davis will receive $17 million annually from 2016-2022, with annual payments of $3.5 million from 2023-32 and $1.4 million from 2033-37. There's no interest on the deferrals.

So who won here? I'd say both sides, with agent Scott Boras getting the Orioles to increase their offer to $161 million and the Orioles making it work by speading out the money while refusing to go as high as $200 million. And managing partner Peter Angelos got the player he wanted all along.

How many people thought the Orioles would go 3-for-4 in re-signing their biggest free agents? Not this guy.

The rotation regressed last season and it lost left-hander Wei-Yin Chen. The Orioles must find a starter, and I'll continue to push for Doug Fister. He's affordable, he doesn't cost a first-round pick and he's got a track record. As long as he's healthy, I'd go for it.

Forget the drop in velocity last season. He wasn't right physically and he's not about the radar gun. He's a location and movement guy who induces ground balls - again, when he's right.

Making the jump from Single-A ball to the majors isn't unprecedented. As Jason Garcia discovered last year, it's just a supreme challenge.

Garcia had an excuse. He was a Rule 5 pick selected by the Orioles from the Red Sox organization at the 2014 Winter Meetings. He ran into someone over the summer who could relate, though via different circumstances.

Double-A Bowie pitching coach Alan Mills was a reliever for Prince William in the Carolina League in 1989, with another stop in Fort Lauderdale in the low Single-A Florida State League. A year later, he was taking the mound at Yankee Stadium.

Think Mills and Garcia had lots to talk about during the kid's injury-rehab assignment at Bowie?

"Any time you've been somewhere where someone is... It's like if someone is going through a tough time, you can be sympathetic, but if you've been through it, you have empathy because you've been through the same thing. It's somewhat similar to that," Mills said earlier this week at minicamp.

"My first year, I played the year before in the Carolina League and then I was in the big leagues the next year. It's a tough road because the things you did in A ball to get hitters out, you become accustomed to, or I had become accustomed to. I had to change. Now you go from one level to the highest level. It's a learning process and that's kind of what I had to do."

Mills did just fine, spending 12 seasons in the majors and pitching for the Orioles in the 1996 and 1997 playoffs. He spent nine years in Baltimore during two stints after the Yankees traded him on Feb. 29, 1992 for two players to be named later, who turned into minor leaguers Francisco de la Rosa and Mark Carper.

"I was very fortunate and so was Jason," Mills said. "I had teammates on my team - (Dave) Righetti, Eric Plunk, Andy Hawkins. Just a lot of guys who helped me make that adjustment. And Mark Connor - we called him 'Goose' - he was the bullpen coach. He helped me a great deal. Rick Cerone, Bob Geren, all those guys helped me make that transition. So I kind of understood what he was going through."

The sympathizing may have reached its peak after Garcia accidentally threw behind volatile Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista during an April 21 game at Rogers Centre. Both benches were warned, Bautista homered three pitches later and took his sweet time rounding the bases - agitating the Orioles with each step, in particular Ryan Flaherty and Adam Jones.

Welcome to the big leagues.

"It's tough," Mills said. "I remember in spring training I faced Cal Ripken and I was like, 'OK, I'm facing Cal Ripken. I was pretending I was like him in the back yard.' Or, 'There's Wade Boggs, there's Rickey Henderson.' All these guys you see and all of a sudden you're competing against them and you're almost outside of yourself looking. Once you get beyond that, they just become another person, which will happen in its own time. But it's a hard, hard process at the beginning."

Mills did it without wearing the tag of Rule 5 pick. The Orioles had little choice but to carry Garcia in their bullpen, though his three-month stay on the disabled list with shoulder tendinitis eased the burden. The Yankees rushed Mills and he responded by going 1-5 with a 4.10 ERA in 36 games spanning 41 2/3 innings. He appeared in only six games the following year before the trade, and went 10-4 with a 2.61 ERA 35 games with the Orioles in 1992.

"I don't know why I made the jump," Mills said. "I felt I was ready, but like I said, it's an adjustment. You go from an A ball field in Carolina where you've got 1,500 people in the stands, and you go to Boston and you've got 32,000 in the stands. Yeah, it's a lot different. You've got cameras everywhere, you've got media everywhere. It's a big adjustment.

"For him going from low A to the big leagues, he held his own pretty good. There are going to be times automatic you're going to be over your head. That's kind of to be expected, I'm sure, but he's a talent. There's no way you can make that jump unless you are."

Mills wasn't short on conversation topics with Garcia, who is expected to begin the 2016 season at Bowie after going 1-0 with a 4.25 ERA and 1.416 WHIP in 29 2/3 innings with the Orioles.

"Yeah, we just talked about the game in general and things you go through," Mills said. "I mean, I'm going to share with him anything I can that I feel will help him make progress. And if it's that or if it's pitching or whatever it is, being a coach is, I never imagined I would do it, but it's more than just mechanics of the game. A lot of the transition you make going from the minor leagues to the major leagues is mental. It just depends on what I see and what we're talking about at that particular time."

The tools are there for Garcia, whose upper-90s fastball at instructional league in 2015 prompted the Orioles to acquire him from the Astros at the Rule 5 draft. Garcia was pitching in the Red Sox organization while recovering from ligament-reconstructive surgery on his right elbow in May 2013.

"Oh, yeah, he has the tools. It's just a matter of putting them together," Mills said.

"You've been doing this a long time. You've seen guys come up and have tools, but can't stay. That's where the mental part of the game comes in. You have to make adjustments. That's the one thing about the big leagues. It may be adjustment hitter to hitter, it may be adjustment inning to inning, it may be during an at-bat. It's very, very complex when it comes to that, because all the players in the league are good or they wouldn't be there."