Former Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette, MASN analyst Ben McDonald, Brewers analyst Bill Schroeder and MLB Network Radio analysts Xavier Scruggs and Ryan Spilborghs all joined Glenn Clark Radio recently to chime in on the Orioles’ acquisition of Brewers ace Corbin Burnes.
Burnes represents the top-of-the-rotation arm the Orioles needed this offseason to help put the club over the top. The 2021 National League Cy Young winner, Burnes has posted a 2.94 ERA and 677 strikeouts in 562.2 innings since 2021. What will Burnes bring to Baltimore?
Ben McDonald: He checks all the boxes. When you lost Kyle Gibson, you lost a lot of innings. There were some ups and downs in there, but overall it was a really good year for him. He had some quality starts and he chewed up a lot of innings. Corbin Burnes, as we know, is an innings-eater. He’s averaged right about 200 innings pitched the last two years. He’s been very durable, for the most part, in his career. He doesn’t miss many starts at all, takes the ball every fifth day. That checked that box. But more importantly, you’ve got a real No. 1 guy. This is not a front-of-the-rotation kind of guy people talk about [but] is a 2 or a 3. This is a No. 1.
Bill Schroeder: That season that he won the Cy Young Award, it was just off the charts every time he went out to the mound. He never really made any mistakes and when he did, he grinded over it for four days. He gave up [seven] home runs that year. That was it, and you’re talking about pitching in American Family Field. That can be a bandbox when it’s summertime. It’s tough for any hitter or even a pitcher to live up to what he was able to do in his Cy Young Award season, but still, he’s better than most. Corbin Burnes when he’s at about 75 percent is better than most pitchers in the big leagues. What you get in Corbin Burnes is a No. 1 starter.
Veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson drew rave reviews for his work with younger teammates, but he signed a one-year deal with the St. Louis Cardinals this offseason. Can the 29-year-old Burnes be a similar sounding board for younger Orioles?
Bill Schroeder: We’d get shots of him in the dugout with the other starters during games and they’re holding baseballs and grips. He and Wade Miley and Freddy Peralta and [Brandon] Woodruff when he was with the team, he’s always looking to improve himself and other guys. If anybody on that roster … could come up with a cutter, Corbin Burnes is probably the best guy to teach them what he does with that cut fastball. He throws it in the upper 90s. He’s willing to help. He’s a student of the game.
The way he grinds through every one of his pitches after games … it’s not the result, whether it was a hit or an out. It was, “Did I throw this pitch exactly where I wanted to, and if I didn’t, why did I not do that?” He analyzes to an extent I’ve never seen before. But he doesn’t overanalyze. He’s still athletic out there on the mound. … If the cutter’s not working that day, he’s going to be flexible enough and his catchers are going to be flexible enough to understand that. I think that when his playing days are over, he can certainly be a guy that would be perfect in the minor leagues to teach young pitchers. I don’t know if he’s going to want to do that.
Trading for Burnes, who has one season of club control remaining before hitting free agency, was clearly a move geared toward getting the Orioles over the top. Do the Orioles now have enough to win the first World Series in franchise history since 1983?
Ryan Spilborghs: No. I still think there are a couple more margin moves in the bullpen that need to be done. You’ve got to think of the teams you’re competing against. As far as the American League, I think they’re as primed as any team to go as far as possible. Last year, the Texas Rangers were a really, really good team that sputtered in the final two weeks of the season and then they got hot. But it wasn’t a surprise because this was still a team that was leading the division for the majority of the year and then Bruce Bochy used his bullpen exceptionally well. I think in the case of Baltimore, I would like to see a couple more pieces just on the margins, like another bullpen arm. I don’t mind the Craig Kimbrel deal. I would have liked a more higher-end [addition] because if Kimbrel was doing so well, Philadelphia would’ve brought him back. … You don’t have Félix Bautista. I’ve been kind of banging on Emmanuel Clase, go for the trade with the Guardians and get a closer that’s under control for the next four years and call it a day. Now we’re talking World Series for real.
Burnes has said multiple times he expects to test the market. Is there any shot this trade will lead to something more than a one-year rental, especially with a new ownership group on the way in?
Xavier Scruggs: They probably have an opportunity to sign him knowing that he has an opportunity to grow with a team that could be dominant for a while, specifically thinking about what they’ve done with young prospects and how they’ve developed guys at the major league level as well. Not a lot of other teams have done that and have the type of window that the Baltimore Orioles have, so I think that could be attractive to Corbin Burnes. But also I look at [how] this is a guy that could make you go from Round 1 of the postseason to being a World Series-winning team. I think if there’s something that we’ve seen is Angelos and that ownership was [geared] more toward being risk-averse. Now I think if you switch ownerships, there might be that ability to say, “OK, let’s take on a little bit more risk to see if we can be a great team and maybe that boosts us moving forward in the future.”
The Orioles sent left-hander DL Hall, infielder Joey Ortiz and a 2024 draft pick to Milwaukee in exchange for Burnes. Dan Duquette is the one responsible for drafting Hall, a hard thrower who was developed as a starter but has mostly worked out of the bullpen in the big leagues to this point. The Brewers are expected to give him a shot to start.
Dan Duquette: I don’t really know what [Milwaukee’s] plans are for DL Hall. Obviously DL Hall, when we drafted him, had all the tools to be a good pitcher in the big leagues. How he continues to develop, he certainly has the pitches. He’s got great, great stuff. He’s a very good athlete. The question has been consistently throwing strikes. If he can consistently throw strikes, he can certainly be a starter. I don’t know how they view him, but I really liked his talent. I’m proud of the fact that he got to the big leagues. He’s going to get an opportunity to develop in the big leagues. He’s got some hellacious stuff and it’ll be interesting to see how that comes along.
Entering spring training, the Orioles rotation looks to feature right-handers Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer and Grayson Rodriguez along with left-hander John Means. Should that remain the case come Opening Day, Tyler Wells would likely begin the year in the bullpen. Wells has been an effective first-half starter each of the past two seasons before hitting a wall not long after the All-Star break.
Ben McDonald: The first half of both of those seasons, [Wells] was the best starter the Orioles had in ’22 and ’23 up to the All-Star break. There’s no denying that. He was that good. His WHIP was one of the best in baseball. What I love about Tyler Wells is he is a strike-thrower. That’s why I love him at the back end of a bullpen, because your back-end bullpen guys can’t give up free bases except when you want to pitch around a guy and walk him. Tyler Wells does not walk guys, a lot like Corbin Burnes. The WHIP is very, very good. That’s what I love about Tyler Wells when he’s a starter and when he’s a reliever. My guess is they will build him up in spring training. My guess is if somebody goes down, he’ll be the first man inserted into that rotation. But the way I’m looking at it right now, unless somebody really pitches bad or gets hurt in spring training, I think Tyler Wells is going to be in that bullpen and I think he’ll do a wonderful job in a setup role, can close at times as well, can get lefties and righties out. He can be a big, big valuable piece.
For more from Duquette, listen to the full interview here:
For more from McDonald, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Schroeder, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Scruggs, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Spilborghs, listen to the full interview here: