The Orioles have landed an ace in the form of 2021 NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes, and I'm relieved on behalf of Orioles fans everywhere. Baltimore general manager Mike Elias went through a radical rebuild that yielded an incredibly stacked farm system that, over the past two seasons, has grown into a force. He just hadn't yet gotten aggressive in adding established talent from outside the organization, and it was worrisome that he still hadn't really done that until this Burnes trade.
This is a big win for Elias and a notable change for a franchise that was sold to new owners this week.
For a Major League Baseball organization, there are two specific reasons to have a stacked farm system, starting with the obvious:
- So those prospects grow into quality major-league players.
- Currency for trades that acquire established big-league talent.
The ideal-world scenario is a team builds a farm system so ridiculous that it never has to even consider reason number two. Unfortunately, the reality is that prospects bust. So being able to spin prospect depth for established big-league talent is a huge luxury, one that the best teams exploit.
More often than not, championship teams end up with a blend of the two along with quality free agency work. Look no further than the World Series champion Rangers to see the free-agent signings (Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, etc.), homegrown prospects (Josh Jung, Evan Carter, etc.) and trades (Jordan Montgomery, Max Scherzer, etc.) mix together for the perfect cocktail -- a championship.
Last season, the Rangers knocked out the 101-win Orioles in the ALDS primarily because the Orioles' playoff rotation just wasn't there. Yet.
Elias was still with the Astros in 2017, when Houston took a huge swing in adding an established ace in Justin Verlander. A few months later, the Astros won the World Series. They have won four AL pennants and two World Series titles since that trade.
Now, the situation is a bit different with Burnes, but it makes me like Elias' aggression even more. Burnes is set to hit free agency after the 2024 season. My recent issue with Elias in the last year-plus was him stockpiling all these prospects with no place to play many of them.
It's unclear how much money ownership was willing to take on in potential deals (the O's ranked 27th or lower in MLB payroll in each of the last five seasons), but this team was really only looking toward the future instead of getting more aggressive toward the present until this Burnes deal. Good teams that are seemingly perpetually playing for the future instead of the present drive me crazy. You don't want to miss that championship window.
In the Orioles' current situation, they had more than enough room to grab shorter-term pitching, even if the cost was high-priced (Burnes will make $15.6 million in 2024, making him Baltimore's highest-paid player).
Think of it the way you hear NFL pundits discuss having a young quarterback who hasn't yet gotten his huge contract. If you surround the young, cheap QB with tons of talent elsewhere it's like a cheat code, right? The Orioles have a loaded roster with a good number of pre-arbitration players who haven't hit huge paydays. This would be the perfect time, then, to dish out short-term deals for an ace or two frontline starters or some combination of the two.
In a vacuum, the Burnes deal sends two young and talented players with plenty of team control left in exchange for a high-priced player for maybe just one season. It's a move that Elias looked like he wasn't willing and/or able to make. I had, frankly, grown impatient to the point that I pegged him a "prospect hugger." He just made a dent in that claim.
Elias did pull the trigger here and landed a true needle-mover in the rotation. Burnes is capable of winning a Cy Young next year. With him, the Orioles' rotation truly looks a lot different. Take a look at the possible playoff rotation now:
- Burnes: Ace. Cy Young winner. Still in his prime.
- Kyle Bradish: Heading into his age-27 season after posting a 2.83 ERA and 3.27 FIP last season, finishing fourth in Cy Young voting.
- Grayson Rodriguez: Former top-10 prospect who posted a 2.26 ERA and 2.75 FIP in his final 12 starts. He's still just 24 years old and could well grow into an ace as soon as next season.
- John Means: Former All-Star who came back from Tommy John surgery late last season. He'd be miscast if a team was trying to use him as a frontline starter, but he's capable of being one of the best fourth starters in baseball.
That top spot was basically just a blank before this deal. Bradish is good, Rodriguez can be great and Means is a legit rotation arm. There just wasn't that Verlander type sitting at the top -- even if we wanted to look at the champs, Montgomery and Nathan Eovaldi both showed the ability to look that part in the playoffs -- and when you're coming off a 101-win season and looking to win the World Series, that's a necessary ingredient.
Elias went out and got the deal done. Not only is this a huge move here in the short-term, but it should give Orioles fans a lot of confidence moving forward that the front office is willing to supplement the ballclub by using some of its prospect currency to acquire established stars from outside the organization. Before this move, we couldn't be 100% sure that would be the case. Now we know it isn't just a prospect-gathering organization. Flags fly forever, as they say, but they don't make those flags for being listed first in farm system rankings.
For the Orioles, a move like this is another step toward winning their first World Series title since 1983.
