Last week, MLBTR’s Steve Adams ran through every team’s chances of landing Juan Soto in a post for Front Office subscribers. In the wake of last night’s Blake Snell deal, let’s continue that exercise by examining where each club stands on the market’s top pitcher.
With Snell off the board on a deferred $182MM deal, Corbin Burnes is the only remaining pitcher who might break the $200MM threshold. He just turned 30 and should be in line for seven or potentially eight years. Burnes hasn’t been quite as dominant over the past two seasons as he was during the 2020-22 stretch. His strikeouts have trended down in consecutive years, settling at a slightly above-average 23.1% rate this past season. Burnes managed a 2.92 earned run average despite the drop in whiffs. He has an excellent durability record and has reached 32 starts in three straight seasons.
Burnes should at least easily beat the seven years and $172MM which Aaron Nola secured last winter. We predicted him for an even $200MM over seven seasons when we ranked him the top non-Soto free agent on our Top 50. Which teams are best positioned to make that kind of offer?
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