If Cubs Do Sign Corbin Burnes This Winter, They Also Need to Make These Big Moves

[Matthew Trueblood]

On Monday, a report by Bruce Levine of 670 The Score made the rounds, stirring Cubs fans to dream about the team signing one of the game's top pitchers this winter. Does it really make sense, though?

Image courtesy of © Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Though some fans overlook it because of the success Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, and Jameson Taillon have had this year, the Cubs do have a glaring, imminent need in the starting rotation going into 2025. Those three veterans aren't guaranteed to maintain their good health, and after a season in which Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski, Caleb Kilian, Jordan Wicks, Ben Brown, and Cade Horton have all missed time with significant injuries, it would take a unique level of arrogance to assume they'll come back next season and deliver a high volume of high-quality work in the big-league rotation. All that, plus, Kyle Hendricks is leaving.

Thus, it makes a world of sense that the Cubs would consider a pursuit of Corbin Burnes, who will hit free agency at the end of this season with as strong a résumé as any domestic starting pitcher has brought into that process since Gerrit Cole in 2019. The 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner was traded to the Orioles this winter, but has been close to the same pitcher this year that he'd been over the previous three. His strikeout rate is down slightly, but so is his walk rate, and he remains one of the best pitchers in baseball at inducing weak contact.

Burnes is tied for sixth in MLB in innings pitched this year, tracking toward his third straight with at least 190 frames, and he's seventh in WARP among pitchers, according to Baseball Prospectus. He's only going to turn 30 this winter; he's just nine months older than Justin Steele. Of course, there's also a connection between Burnes and the Cubs already, because until this year, his only big-league manager was Craig Counsell.

The problem with a Burnes signing is that it would be massively expensive, taking up a huge amount of payroll space for a team that also has huge needs outside its starting rotation. Hence, signing him would have to be just one move in a complicated and very bold series of them. The Cubs need to get ahold of an impact player at one of the few positions they don't already have locked down for the medium-term future, in order to upgrade a below-average offense that hasn't proved capable of keeping them in the race this season. They also need to move on from some bad money and freshen their books, particularly if they intend to take on a line item as hefty as a Burnes deal.

The team's farm system is strong, albeit without either the every-level depth or the top-end star power that marks the very best groups in baseball. They have the firepower to, for instance, put together an appealing trade package for Angels catcher Logan O'Hoppe, whom they've prized for years. They might elect to keep Matt Shaw, whose introduction to Triple-A Iowa has been encouraging, and slot him into their everyday lineup right away. If they do so, though, they need to create space for Shaw, and they need to clear money both to accommodate Burnes and to prepare themselves for potential extensions with Shaw, a new arrival like O'Hoppe, and/or Isaac Paredes.

Specifically, that could mean trading Nico Hoerner. It could mean trading Taillon. In just the right circumstances, it could mean trading Steele, although it's unlikely that a trade package worth the attendant risks for the Cubs would materialize during the winter. If that trade were going to happen, it would have happened last month, when desperate contenders and the lackluster Cubs were in simpler positions for trading. One way or another, though, signing Burnes would need to come with a bevy of other transactions, aimed at making the Cubs a better team around and beyond their starting staff.

That makes such a signing unlikely, but we knew that. Even if Levine is right that Burnes will be a focal point for the team going into the winter, we know that Jed Hoyer doesn't like to allocate his resources the way he would need to in order to make a Burnes addition work. We also know that the Cubs are likely to surpass the luxury-tax threshold this winter, putting up small but meaningful roadblocks to signing any player with a qualifying offer attached to them. In all likelihood, the Cubs will need to be more creative and accept more risk in the process of upgrading their rotation this winter. Burnes sure is an appealingly unsubtle potential solution to their problems, though.

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