SARASOTA, Fla. — The beginning of Orioles spring training was all about the aces.
The returning one, Kyle Bradish, has an elbow injury, and his outlook for 2024 is murky. The new one, Corbin Burnes, was welcomed with open arms from his teammates who are thrilled to have a former Cy Young Award winner in their midst.
“How can you not be excited about bringing on an ace?” first baseman Ryan O’Hearn said.
The Bradish news was a bummer after the hype entering spring training, but the Orioles ended last season with one ace in Bradish, who finished fourth in American League Cy Young voting, and will begin this year with one, too, in Burnes, who has finished in the top eight in the National League voting each of the past four seasons.
Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias is not normally one to speak hyperbolically, so his elation Thursday when talking about adding Burnes is notable.
“I think one of the things I like talking about with the Corbin Burnes acquisition is that anything you can say, he does it for us,” Elias said. “He has postseason experience. He throws innings. He’s a No. 1 starter. He changes the whole complexion of our team.”
Elias isn’t the only one who feels that way. Burnes’ new teammates spoke glowingly about the 29-year-old right-hander who joins the ballclub from the Milwaukee Brewers via a late-offseason trade.
“I think he elevates our club,” O’Hearn said. “It was pretty cool to see that, the front office making moves to make our team better.”
“We’re lucky to have him, a guy of that caliber in our uniform,” left-hander Cole Irvin said. “He’s going to raise the bar for what our floor should be from a starting staff. It’s going to be a fun year. It’s going to be exciting to watch him pitch every fifth day and do what he does.”
At the same time, Elias doesn’t want to put any more pressure on Burnes than already exists.
Burnes, who was acquired for prospects Joey Ortiz and DL Hall, is regarded as one of the sport’s best pitchers — a bona fide ace with elite stuff. But he alone can’t carry the Orioles to the promised land.
“The weight of the world is not on his shoulders,” Elias said. “We have a very good team, he’s going to be a big help for that.”
Burnes is no stranger to pressure. After breaking out during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and winning the NL Cy Young Award the following season, the 6-foot-3 righty has spent the past few seasons understanding how heavy the head is that wears the crown.
“I can only pitch for one person on the team,” Burnes said. “But, obviously, these guys are looking to me for some advice and to take the ball every five days, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
With Bradish and left-hander John Means unlikely to begin the season on the opening day roster, the other two locked-in rotation members in addition to Burnes are Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer. Both struggled to begin 2023 but ended the year with strong second halves before exiting in the second inning of their respective postseason starts.
They both believe they can learn from their new ace.
“That’s a big name, a special pitcher,” Rodriguez said. “I think it’s really exciting for Orioles fans, it’s exciting for the guys in our clubhouse being able to watch somebody like that every fifth day.”
“He’s pretty good,” Kremer said in a sarcastic tone meant to convey that Burnes, in fact, is much more than just pretty good. “I’m excited to learn from another guy. We’ve been fortunate the last couple years to have some good veterans, and he’s no exception.”
By nature of pitching in the NL, Burnes doesn’t have too many connections to the Orioles or much experience facing his new teammates. But he did pitch against Baltimore last season, dominating the Orioles in Milwaukee for eight scoreless innings with nine strikeouts. Gunnar Henderson, who went 1-for-3 with an infield single off Burnes in that contest, remembers what it was like facing him and is now happy he’s wearing orange and black.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing him out there and playing behind him because he’s an unreal pitcher,” the 2023 AL Rookie of the Year said. “We had to face him last year, his stuff is nasty. Yeah, looking forward to being able to see that for our team.”
Manager Brandon Hyde remembers how dominant Burnes was against the Orioles last season, but his experience with the ace goes back to 2018 in the NL Central. Hyde, then the bench coach for the Chicago Cubs, said he noticed “the stuff right away” when Burnes was a rookie with the Brewers.
“What he’s done these last five or six years is incredibly impressive,” Hyde said. “I feel great about having him here. It’s nice to officially meet him in person yesterday, and I’m looking forward to watching him pitch for us.”
The best-case scenario with Burnes, who is a free agent after the 2024 campaign, is that the Orioles reach the postseason and he helps carry the club to its first World Series since 1983. An accomplished ace atop the rotation certainly bolsters that pursuit, but Hyde doesn’t want to look that far ahead.
“Let’s wait and see,” Hyde said. “But if he pitches like he did the last three, four years, we’ll be in good shape.”
It’s been perhaps decades since the Orioles had a pitcher to the caliber of Burnes. Since Hall of Famer Mike Mussina left to join the New York Yankees, the Orioles have certainly had stellar pitching seasons — like Bradish’s in 2023 — but they haven’t had that stud — or “horse,” to use a descriptor Elias used for Burnes — atop the rotation.
But for closer Craig Kimbrel, who signed with the Orioles this offseason, the move is just one that a team in win-now mode does.
“To be a part of this and see moves like that, anytime a team tries to bring in an ace, you’re just tacking on wins and more opportunities to win,” he said.
The push to acquire an ace like Burnes was at the top of Elias’ offseason to-do list, checking in with the Brewers the day after the World Series ended. But the news of Bradish’s sprained ulnar collateral ligament in early January, which will keep him out for at least the beginning of the season, did alter the stakes for acquiring a front-of-the-rotation starter.
“I wouldn’t say that it materially impacted our desire to add someone like Corbin Burnes,” Elias said. “That was on the wishlist from Day 1 of the offseason. Certainly this is a demonstration of why you need a lot of starting pitchers. These kinds of things will happen.”
The jubilation from Baltimore fans after the news of the Angelos family selling the team to billionaire David Rubenstein was palpable. Elias had made the move many fans were anxiously waiting for, sending prospects for a player to help the Orioles win now.
But it wasn’t just the fans. Orioles players took the move as a message that the club’s brass was making a push for 2024.
“I think it just shows the organization is bought in to do whatever they can to win, to repeat in the East, to hopefully win a pennant and a World Series,” infielder Jordan Westburg said. “That sums it up, right? We wanted to go get an ace, and the organization went and got him. We’re really looking forward to his help. I think we’re in a really good spot right now. I think everyone is confident in this clubhouse.”
Burnes, who threw his first bullpen to catcher Adley Rutschman on Thursday, said he’s felt the warm welcome from his teammates already. He can sense that everyone is rowing in the same direction with the goal of winning the World Series.
While it won’t take any time for his stuff — headline by his dominant cutter — to get acclimated to a new atmosphere, he said it will take him a few weeks to learn everyone’s names.
His teammates need no reminders on his.