Corbin Burnes had no idea he was going to be traded until the news went public Thursday night.
The starting pitcher assumed that with spring training a mere two weeks away, the Milwaukee Brewers had decided to keep him for 2024. But while it came as a shock that the Brewers had other plans when they shipped him to the Orioles in one of the biggest trades of the winter, the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner quickly embraced his new team and the role he’s expected to play on the championship-caliber club.
“It’s an exciting team,” Burnes said on a Zoom call Friday. “If I’m going out there doing my job, those guys are doing their job, it’s going to create a lot of success in a division that’s obviously full of a lot of good baseball teams. They won a division last year and I see no reason why we can’t go out there and win the division again this year.”
Baltimore won 101 games to capture the American League East title in 2023 before falling to the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series. It was the first playoff appearance in seven years for an organization that endured a full-scale rebuild to construct one of baseball’s best young rosters.
Though Burnes, 29, is only under contract for one year, the Orioles already showed their window of contention is wide-open with their upstart 2023 campaign. A playoff series sweep exposed their lack of experience on the October stage, but Burnes is no stranger in that department: He carries a 2.84 ERA in eight postseason appearances (two starts).
“Obviously fortunate to be traded from one team that was good to another team that is arguably even better,” Burnes said. “I’ve been part of winning seasons for the last seven years now so I know what it takes to get to the postseason on a regular basis, what it takes out of a team to get to the postseason on a regular basis.”
Before the Orioles can think playoffs, however, they have put together another strong regular season to get there. Burnes offers Baltimore an elite arm capable of racking up the strikeouts and keeping the base paths clear. He’s also proven to be a durable starter, something the Orioles sought in trade targets this offseason to take the load off some of their younger pitchers.
Since the start of the 2020 season, Burnes ranks fifth in the majors in innings and 12th in games started while missing only two turns of the rotation because of injury. He acknowledged a shoulder issue coupled with an illness prevented him from getting off to a strong start in 2023, but Burnes avoided the injured list and finished the year strong with a 2.72 ERA and 111:33 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his final 16 starts from July 1 through the end of the regular season.
“In addition to the impact of the pitches he’s throwing across the plate and the strikeouts, it’s the volume that he’s demonstrated,” executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said earlier Friday. “The combination of those two things, it’s just really special with this guy and he’s extremely competitive. He’s a true No. 1 starter. He’s the kind of guy that wants to be out there until you absolutely force him to come out of a game and then he wants to be out there again. So, it really projects to be an enormous impact for our team.”
It’s a lead the Orioles hope their younger starters such as Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez can follow. For Burnes, who credited many veteran Brewers pitchers for looking out for him during his early years in Milwaukee, he hopes they can get something out of sharing a rotation with him even if it’s only for one season.
“Just looking forward to passing what I can to these young guys in the rotation,” Burnes said. “Bradish had a great year last year. Rodriguez had a great year in the second half last year. So, some bright young names that have really good stuff and showed that … I’ve learned a lot over my time in the big leagues and hopefully I can pass a bit of knowledge along to those guys.”