Cubs Free-Agent Target Tracker: Corbin Burnes

[Brandon Glick]

Will Chicago be willing to splurge on the 2021 National League Cy Young Winner--and former Cubs killer?

Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

Though Corbin Burnes was traded to the Baltimoe Orioles back in late January, the ace righthander is well known around these parts as one of the figureheads of the most recent iterations of the always-solid Milwaukee Brewers. He responded well in his new digs, accumulating 3.4 WAR and a 2.92 ERA in 194 1/3 innings, earning the start for the American League in the All-Star Game (his fourth consecutive appearance at the Midsummer Classic). The Orioles failed to advance past the Wild Card round of the playoffs, prematurely ending Burnes’s tenure in Maryland, assuming the notoriously frugal O’s don’t loosen their purse strings for a payday that will certainly reach well into nine figures.

Burnes is probably the best pitcher who is expected to hit the free agent market this winter, though other former Cy Young winners--namely, Shane Bieber and Blake Snell--and other pitchers who’ve had strong performances in recent years (Max Fried, Jack Flaherty, Nathan Eovaldi) round out a stronger-than-usual crop of starters. If a team is in the market for an ace, or a bounce-back candidate with a strong track record, or even just a plain old “high-risk, high-reward” play, this year’s crop of free-agent hurlers is a good place to go window-shopping.

The Cubs very clearly fit that category of teams that need another starter, as rookie import Shota Imanaga--the team’s MVP for the 2024 season--was the only pitcher who remained reliable and healthy for the entirety of the 2024 campaign. Justin Steele still clearly has ace potential and should be a fixture on the North Side for years to come, but he failed to crack 135 innings pitched this year while dealing with elbow and hamstring injuries that bookended his season. Javier Assad proved himself worthy of a long-term spot in the rotation, but he blew past his career high in innings with 147 this year, and he declined in September as that workload piled up. Jameson Taillon still has two years on his contract and certainly had a strong second season with the team, but some of his success has to be chalked up to the pitcher-friendly way that Wrigley Field played all season.

Beyond those four, the team has a lot of enviable depth: Ben Brown, Jordan Wicks, Brandon Birdsell, Cade Horton, and Hayden Wesneski are the most prominent options. It’s easy to figure that at least one of those guys will take the job for the fifth spot in the rotation and run with it, and it’ll be a fun competition to watch. However, the team is very clearly lacking the Batman to Steele and Imanaga’s Nightwing and Robin, which is where someone like Burnes slots in.

It’s worth noting that for all his recent success, Burnes isn’t the same pitcher who won the Cy Young award in 2021. His durability since then has been beyond impressive (three straight seasons of 190+ innings), but his strikeout rate (35.6% in 2021, 23.1% in 2024), walk rate (5.2% to 6.1%), home run rate (1.1% to 2.8%), and average exit velocity allowed (84.9 MPH to 87.1 MPH) have all taken a turn for the worse. To be sure, his numbers from this season are all still excellent, but he’s more touchable now than when he could make a serious claim as the “best pitcher in the world”. For reference, his 3.55 FIP this season was more than double the league-leading mark he posted in 2021 (1.63).

Those caveats shouldn’t scare off the Cubs, though. Burnes is still an ace who is capable of taking over games, as evidenced by his dominant eight-inning performance in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series earlier this month. If anything, the Cubs may be able to use Burnes’s declining metrics as a way to get a discount on a pitcher who still averaged more than 95 miles per hour on his cutter this season.

The size of the soon-to-be 30-year-old’s contract will scare off some suitors, though it shouldn’t break the bank like Juan Soto’s will. The Cubs currently have roughly $152.5 million in luxury tax salaries accounted for heading into the 2025 season, which gives them about $88.5 million in space from the projected first threshold of $241 million. Given that the team surpassed the first competitive balance tax threshold in 2024, it wouldn’t be too unreasonable to expect them to do it again in a make-or-break year for baseball operations chief Jed Hoyer. If the Rickettses give the front office the true green light, the team may have more than $100 million to spend this offseason.

It’s worth noting that Burnes has a pre-existing relationship with manager Craig Counsell, who was the dugout leader in Milwaukee when Burnes brought home the Holy Grail of pitching hardware. It would be surprising if Counsell didn’t actively advocate for the front office to aggressively pursue his former ace. While the Cubs have needs elsewhere on the roster--finding a middle-of-the-order bat is a more pressing issue--passing up the opportunity to bring in a surefire No. 1 starter would be a level of foolishness to which even this team seems immune.

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What do you think? Does Corbin Burnes make sense as a priority target this winter for the Cubs? Or should they focus their efforts elsewhere on the free-agent market?

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[Bertz]

I'm pretty strongly anti-Burnes.  I've mentioned this before but he gives strong "2016 Jake Arrieta" vibes.  That's not bad, in fact that's a very good pitcher!  But the decline is precipitous and I have doubts he'll be the best FA starter in year one of his deal, much less beyond that.  Add on thr expected contract and forget about it.

If you want an ace I think the best bet is Max Fried.  You have to wonder if the forearm bothering him each of the last two years is a warning sign that his elbow is going to pop, but if the doctors aren't worried about his elbow the resume is pretty unimpeachable IMO.  If you want to take some risk Kikuchi looks like he has a chance to be the best guy in this class.

[LBiittner]

I was all in on Fried until bertz raised the elbow thingy. Then I did a look back and saw fried had TJ 10 years ago.

Uh-oh, what's the warranty timeline on TJ ?

Spotrac has fried getting $23 million x 6. Is this a fair projection? If so, I don't see Jed reaching that far.

[Bertz]

35 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

I was all in on Fried until bertz raised the elbow thingy. Then I did a look back and saw fried had TJ 10 years ago.

Uh-oh, what's the warranty timeline on TJ ?

Spotrac has fried getting $23 million x 6. Is this a fair projection? If so, I don't see Jed reaching that far.

There was a study a long time ago that said new ligaments tend to last about 7 years, but with how quickly medicine in this space advances I wouldn't put too much weight in that still being gospel.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Bieber and Flaherty seem like much more realistic options. Hoyer is not going to sign a QO FA SP, I can almost guarantee it.