Sun Burnes: Arizona signs ace righty Corbin Burnes to Anchor Rotation

Last offseason, the Diamondbacks were looking for a starter to pair with Zac Gallen at the top of their rotation. The market was thin at the top: Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani were probably never available to them, so their best options were Sonny Gray, Blake Snell, Eduardo Rodriguez, Shota Imanaga and Jordan Montgomery. They signed two of those guys and neither provided the rotation-stabilizing performance they expected. But instead of waving their hands in the air and raving about the unfairness of the variance, the Diamondbacks got right back on the horse:

LATEST: Corbin Burnes to Diamondbacks, $210 million, 6 years. gives up after 2 years

— Jon Heyman (@jonheyman.bsky.social) 2024-12-28T06:32:12.313Z

Corbin Burnes was the best free agent pitcher available. In each of the last five seasons, he has been one of the best pitchers in the game, racking up a 2.88 ERA, 3.01 FIP and 816 innings pitched. He is second in WAR (21.7) over that span, second in RA9-WAR (23.2), second in strikeouts (946) and third in innings pitched. In other words, he was an Ace with a capital A, a “set it and forget it” pick early in the starting rotation. He will receive $35 million per year for six seasons, opt-out after the second year of his contract, which also includes a $10 million signing bonus.

With Gallen also on their roster, the Diamondbacks have one of the best one-two combinations in the majors. That doesn’t even include Merrill Kelly, a borderline All-Star when healthy, or Brandon Pfaadt, who looked like he was finally on his way out before a tough final two months of the season. Add in Montgomery and Rodriguez, and Arizona goes six deep with plausible playoff starters. Here’s how to injury-proof a rotation: pure depth.

I’m curious to see how the arc of Burnes’ career will develop. He burst onto the scene in 2020 with a reworked fastball and wipeout slider that led to gaudy strikeout totals. He continued to rework that cutting fastball seemingly every year, changing its shape and using it to accumulate weak contact rather than set up strikeouts. That ugly slider that served him so well is now a backup plan; rather, he leans on a big double-decker curveball that he will throw in any count to any hitter.

The result of this reinvention? Burnes has transformed himself into a command, ground-out pitcher instead of a short-lived strikeout artist. His 2021 Cy Young campaign covered just 167 innings; he missed a few shifts that year due to illness, but rarely worked until the end of the game. He has gone 190 innings in each season since then, striking out fewer batters each year.

It’s fair to say that Burnes is no longer the electric guy he was in 2021. It’s also fair to say that he’s incredibly effective in his current form. He has averaged about 4.0 WAR and 3.00 ERA in about 200 innings in each of the last three years. Maybe not the result of a top-five starter overall, but he’s still clearly one of the best pitchers in baseball. He turned 30 in October and doesn’t have a long injury history or debilitating innings load. It is reasonable to expect Burnes to continue in similar form for the foreseeable future.

Of course, this is just one way things can go. Pitchers with declining strikeout rates sometimes turn into pumpkins. That’s why Burnes got Stephen Strasburg money instead of a Gerrit Cole deal. If he maintains his recent form over the next half-decade, it will be a significant deal for the Diamondbacks, even if the waiver limits how great it can be from the team. I’d rather have Burnes in this contract than Snell or Max Fried in the ones they signed, even though overall all three contracts are pretty similar. ZiPS believes that all three offers were paid in excess of the model’s value; would give Burnes six years and $182 million for the following showing:

I could write for hours about Burnes. In fact, I’ve done this on more than a few occasions. But the most notable part of this deal to me is that Arizona is the one handing out the money. The Diamondbacks made it to the World Series in 2023 with a payroll of $124 million. They upped that number last year chasing a repeat performance, and then missed the playoffs by just one game. But instead of standing still or retiring, they are increasing the budget again and expanding the team.

It’s a smart decision given the way the team is built. The rotation is great right now, but Gallen and Kelly will be free agents after this year. Ketel Marte, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Eugenio Suárez will likely never be better than they are now. Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno are ready to contribute to a championship team. This is the Diamondbacks’ window and they act like they know it.

Does it matter that they play in the same division as the world-winning Dodgers? I mean, I’m sure they’re not enthusiastic about it, but at this point it’s simply a fact. The NL West is a tough division and that won’t change anytime soon. So instead of pouting and punting, the Diamondbacks are doing everything they can to keep up with Los Angeles. Good for them!

To be clear, the Dodgers are still the favorites in the division. However, the Diamondbacks are now arguably the second-best club in the NL West, and that’s a great place to be, because they don’t need to win the division these days. Heck, they don’t even have to be the best of the non-division winners, because three Wild Card teams make the playoffs. Their young core is strong enough to push now, and that requires outside additions. Arizona also understands that this window won’t last forever, and Burnes’ waiver increases the team’s urgency to strike while the iron is hot. Of course, if Burnes pitches well, the Diamondbacks could lose him in a few years. But that’s okay: the next two seasons will always be the most important. If the waivers were necessary to close the deal, so be it.

Even better, the Diamondbacks have improved their roster in a way that’s helpful during the regular season — Burnes pitches a lot of innings — and scary in a short playoff series. Now they have Burnes, Gallen and Kelly to anchor their postseason rotation, and if Montgomery returns to his 2023 form or Pfaadt takes another step forward, one of them could leapfrog Kelly on the depth chart and give Arizona a trio even better. In any case, the Diamondbacks are positioned to perform well in a best-of-three Wild Card series, which is probably where they’ll end up if they make the playoffs, considering, well, the Dodgers.

The hits keep coming. The Giants also reportedly had the edge on Burnes, and are both a division foe and a contender for a Wild Card spot. They have plenty of money to spend and serious pitching needs, but now there’s no one to where to turn for a similar impact on their rotation. Jack Flaherty? Nick Pivetta? Burnes was the only marquee name remaining, so the Diamondbacks managed the rare double of improving their roster while significantly limiting the competition’s options with a single signing.

Maybe it seems like I’m too optimistic about this deal. There are, in fact, many ways it can go wrong. Launch contracts are always risky, because launch is risky. Elbows are tough body parts, shoulders aren’t much better, and sometimes a mile an hour of speed is the difference between dominating and getting bombed.

But even taking all that into account, could you find a better, more reliable pitcher than Burnes? It’s consistent and offers volume. He doesn’t do it with shots that make you wonder how his ligaments stay attached, and he’s young enough that even if he were to miss a season with injury, he could still come back strong. Sure, I would have preferred Tarik Skubal or George Kirby to move on, but those guys weren’t available. Burnes was, and he’s not much worse than them.

No free agent deal is perfect. There are always risks that come with spending so much money on a single player. It’s expensive, but it’s also necessary. So if you’re going to play the free agent market, do it like Arizona just did. Sign an elite player in his prime at the very moment your team needs an elite player in his prime. If you can, sign him to a deal that could keep him around for years to come, but more than anything, make sure you get him while your competitive window is open, when your team is ready to take advantage of his contributions. Quite simply, this is one of the best team-player pairings so far this winter.