Right-hander Corbin Burnes and the Arizona Diamondbacks are in agreement on a six-year, $210 million contract, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday, a shocking end-of-the-year signing that sends the best player left in free agency to a team that had not been linked to him all winter.
Burnes, 30, is a former Cy Young Award winner who had spent the majority of the winter hunting for a landing spot as free agent pitchers across the landscape secured high-dollar, long-term guarantees. Burnes’ preference was to play on the West Coast, but he listened to all teams in hopes a similarly large offer would materialize.
In Arizona, he found an unlikely match. The Diamondbacks, already boasting a strong rotation that includes Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt, Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Montgomery, will add to it the best player on the market, pending a physical. The deal, which was first reported by the New York Post, includes an opt-out after the second season.
Nine years after signing right-hander Zack Greinke to a contract almost identical to the one for Burnes, Arizona again is trying to build a roster to contend in a National League West division still dominated by the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Diamondbacks are the last team to beat the Dodgers in the postseason, doing so during their run to the 2023 World Series, something they will attempt to replicate in baseball’s toughest division.
Burnes adds another star to it. Since 2020, when Burnes joined the Milwaukee Brewers’ rotation for good, he ranks third in Major League Baseball in innings pitched (816⅔), second in ERA among those with at least 500 innings (2.88), second in strikeouts (946), sixth in home runs per nine innings (0.8) and among the top five in FanGraphs WAR (second with 21.7) and Baseball-Reference WAR (fourth with 18.6).
Baltimore traded for Burnes last offseason, and he spearheaded the Orioles’ rotation, posting a 2.92 ERA over 194⅓ innings — his third consecutive season with 190-plus. Burnes’ strikeout rate dipped to 8.4 per nine, and though he stumbled through a troublesome August, he posted a 1.20 ERA in five September starts and then limited the Kansas City Royals to one run in an eight-inning playoff start.
Though Burnes’ deal does not reach the total value of Max Fried’s eight-year, $218 million contract with the New York Yankees this winter, it puts him in rare company among the starters who received at least $35 million per year on a six-plus-year deal, joining Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg.
For the fear teams have of aging pitchers, Stuff+ models still adore Burnes, even as his strikeout rate has tumbled in recent seasons, calling his cutter the best among all starters and rating all five of his pitches above average.
