Cubs Could Prioritize Corbin Burnes This Winter, But Should They?

We’ve still got about six weeks left in the regular season and then another month or so to determine the World Series champ, but the rumor mill cares little for such trifles. With the Cubs just barely keeping their heads above water, talk has already turned to how they’ll load up for what had better be a legitimate run in 2025. Assuming Jed Hoyer is back for the final year of his contract, he’s got no choice but to field a winner next season.

After saying repeatedly that improvement would have to come from within, Hoyer made an aggressive deal with the Rays to lock down third base with Isaac Paredes. And even though there hasn’t been a strategic change in their value-based bullpen construction, the Cubs have turned things around since June with a series of “nasty” reliever acquisitions. But what this club sorely lacks is star power, something that doesn’t appear to be coming from the system.

That isn’t to say the Cubs don’t have a few dudes with serious potential, just that we’re not talking about the days of Kris Bryant and Javier Báez. Even if one or two out of a group that includes Matt Shaw, Moises Ballesteros, Owen Caissie, Cade Horton, James Triantos, and Kevin Alcantara makes good on their talent — and I still think we see more than one of them traded — it’s unlikely they’ll play at an elite level right out of the gate. What they really need on the North Side of Chicago is a player who puts butts in the seats and takes some pressure off of the young nucleus.

Enter Juan Soto.

Nah, I can’t imagine ownership is willing to green-light a half-billion-dollar contract when the Cubs have never even gotten to $200 million yet. The market for position players drops off significantly after the top spot, with Alex Bregman and Anthony Santander among those getting a little rise in the talent vacuum left in Soto’s wake. Once thought to be a Cubs target, a pursuit of Bregman appears highly dubious with Paredes in town. The switch-hitting Santander plays right field and has DH’d as well, though Hoyer would have to move some pieces around elsewhere in the outfield to make room.

The odds of adding a big-ticket bat get slimmer if Cody Bellinger opts into the second year of his deal, though maybe that same vacuum has him and agent Scott Boras seeking a new payday.

Okay, so what if their top target isn’t a position player at all? Maybe they want to make a big splash to bring in a former division rival as their staff ace.

“I hear the number one priority for the Cubs is going to be Corbin Burnes of the Baltimore Orioles,” Bruce Levine told 670 The Score’s Mully & Haugh Monday morning (3:35:42 mark). “I think the old adage, there’s an old adage in baseball: If you need another hitter, go out and get the best pitcher. It’s an odd statement, but it’s been made before that pitching is still 80% of the game.”

This report is easy to believe because of the connection to Craig Counsell from Burnes’ time with the Brewers, not to mention the fact that it does the Cubs well to float the idea that they’re interested in several of the top names. Once you poke around under the hood, however, I’m not sure it makes a ton of sense for Hoyer to make Burnes the highest-paid player in Cubs history.

I’m guessing most of you think this will just be a matter of the Cubs feigning interest and then pivoting to whatever value-based deal they can find once another team gives Burnes a monster deal. You’re probably not wrong. But let’s operate for a few moments under the notion that the front office really is willing and able to spend what it takes to land a legitimate ace. I still don’t think it’s a great idea, and I’ll tell you why.

While there seems to be aliitle less concern these days about pitchers being on the wrong side of 30, Burnes will reach that age in December and is probably looking for a deal to take him through most of the next decade. That’s fine if he ages like Max Scherzer, who signed with the Nationals heading into his age-30 campaign and proceeded to win two Cy Young awards with finishes of second, third, and fifth in the first five years of that deal.

Scherzer also improved his strikeout rate in each of those first five years, then remained over 30% in each of the next three seasons. Not bad for a 37-year-old. Even with injuries hampering his last couple seasons, we’re looking at a surefire Hall of Famer who could go down as the best pitcher of his generation. Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw have something to say there, but I digress.

Burnes won the Cy Young with the Brewers in 2021 at the age of 26 following his breakout performance in 2020. After coming up as a reliever in 2018, Burnes made just four starts out of 32 appearances in ’19 and put up an 8.82 ERA thanks to allowing 17 homers in 49 innings. He turned it around during the shortened campaign, generating 2.4 fWAR in just 12 outings (nine starts). That carried into his award-winning ’21, but things have gone downhill from there.

We’re still talking about a very good pitcher, of course, but Burnes’ strikeout rate has decreased markedly over each of the last four years while his home run rate has increased or remained even in that same time. His velocity has remained steady and even improved this season, yet the run values of his cutter and curve are trending to come in around half or less than what they’ve been the three previous seasons. Not a great sign when you’re talking about two-thirds of his pitch usage.

To be fair, this could be more like a Verlander situation. You may recall that the former Tiger was seen as over the hill at 34 before a trade to the Astros — because the Cubs couldn’t pull the trigger — reinvigorated his career. Burnes could be like Scherzer and hit his stride at 30 or he could be like Verlander and still be very good for a few more years before reaching a whole new level in his mid-30s. I just don’t think either of those outcomes stands out as probable enough to wager well into nine figures on them.

I want to reiterate in closing that I think Burnes will be a very good pitcher for a long time to come. But does he remain the ace on a staff that features Horton (fingers crossed), Justin Steele, and Shōta Imanaga for the next few years? That’s the question Hoyer has to answer this winter and I’m willing to bet either the answer is no or that some other team thinks strongly enough that it’s yes to push the Cubs out of the bidding.