In the first week of February, the Orioles and the Brewers agreed to a trade. The trade has drawn a lot of attention because the Brewers decided to send the former NL Cy Young award winner to the Orioles.
The Orioles had a great 2023 season. They got 101 wins and won the AL East title. However, they lost to the Rangers in the ALDS. The Orioles certainly would like to go further in the playoffs and enhancing the rotation is a key step. Nonetheless, is adding Corbin Burnes a great decision?
Corbin Burnes made 32 starts for the Brewers last season, posting a 3.39 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP over 193.2 innings. Opponents batted .200 against Burnes in 2023. When we look at the Orioles’ pitching performance last year, no pitchers tossed more innings than Burnes did. Additionally, last season, Burnes punched out 200 batters and no pitchers in the Orioles threw more than 170 strikeouts. Moreover, Kyle Bradish had a great 2023 season. He made 30 starts and owned a 2.83 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP. In the Orioles rotation, Bradish was the only player with an ERA below 3 and his WHIP of 1.04 was lower than Burnes’ WHIP of 1.07. Therefore, it’s quite reasonable to believe acquiring Burnes will help the Orioles rotation since Burnes can toss 190+ innings and his numbers in 2023 were convincing.
Corbin Burnes won the 2021 NL Cy Young award. Without doubt, he’s one of the most dominant pitchers in the majors. However, pitching in the AL East isn’t easy. Can he replicate his performance? Well, Burnes never pitched against the Rays before. Nonetheless, in 2023, he did pitch against the Red Sox and the Yankees. He made a start against the Red Sox on April 23, 2023, allowing 3 runs (2 earned) in 5 innings. On September 10, he did a fantastic job against the Yankees. Burnes tossed 8 innings and didn’t let any Yankees batters collect a hit. Furthermore, he made a start against the Blue Jays in 2022, giving up 3 runs (2 earned) over 7.2 innings.
The Orioles fans were glad that the team eventually was back to the postseason. Nonetheless, as we know, the AL East is not always an easy division to compete in. The Orioles front office certainly knows that there’s something to improve. Acquiring Corbin Burnes is a huge move, and it seems quite reasonable. Burnes has been dominant in the majors for several seasons. Additionally, he wasn’t placed on the IL over the last 2 seasons. Well, it’s a small sample size, but the Orioles fans would like to see him pitch well against the AL East opponents as he did. It’ll be very interesting to see Burnes’ performance in the Orioles uniform. By far, Burnes already made 2 starts for the Orioles in the spring training games; he gave up 3 runs over 1.2 innings in his previous start. It’s just the beginning of spring training, let’s keep watching his performance in the rest of the spring training games.
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