Orioles ace Corbin Burnes aims for World Series, eyes free-agency

NEW YORK — As Baltimore Orioles ace Corbin Burnes reconnected with a couple of former teammates during batting practice Tuesday at Citi Field, a New York Mets staffer he had never met approached him.

“Hey,” Burnes recalled a Mets development coach telling him, “we handed your mental-work stuff off to some of our draftees that just came in to help them with their mental process. We just want you to know you’re impacting the game outside of just your organization.”

A day later, the encounter stuck with Burnes.

“I thought that was really cool,” Burnes said during a wide-ranging conversation Wednesday. “For me, that’s how I think I turned the corner in ’19. It was pretty cool to know that something that helped me is probably going to help some other guys over there.”

Burnes, 29, emerged as one of the game’s preeminent starters by dedicating himself to mental strength, refining his routine and changing his pitching repertoire years ago. He has stayed at that level. Among pitchers since 2020, only Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler (23.0) has a higher fWAR than Burnes (21.0), who won the National League Cy Young Award in 2021.

Once the World Series ends, Burnes will become a first-time free agent, likely as the market’s top pitcher. This season, he’s making $15.6 million. There’s little doubt Burnes, a client of Scott Boras, will see multiple lucrative offers.

When it comes to making a choice, expect Burnes to take a methodical, meticulous approach indicative of his personality; he’s the kind of guy who thoroughly grades himself after every start. He believes in planning and preparation. He will do the homework, he said.

Wherever he ends up, Burnes wants to win. An organization’s reputation for how it treats families — Burnes is married with three young children — will unquestionably play a major role, too, he said. Though Burnes grew up in California and lives in Arizona during the offseason, geography isn’t expected to be a key component in his decision. There may be other factors, but family and winning stand out as the important ones.

Burnes played in the postseason five times during his six-year tenure with the Milwaukee Brewers, the club that drafted him in 2016. There’s a strong chance he returns to the playoffs this year with the Baltimore Orioles. In the offseason, he wants to choose a team that he thinks can win each year during his tenure.

“I am going to have to do a lot of research this offseason of farm systems, young guys coming up, groups of core guys that are on a team,” Burnes said. “Where does it look like teams are going to be competitive? Where are teams just looking to spend some money to make the fan base happy? Whatever it might be.

“I think I can provide value in helping to elevate some young guys on the staff. Is it a group of young pitchers where maybe they missed the postseason this year but they have the pieces to do it now and for the long term? But you never know what’s going to happen each year in baseball. So you just want to provide yourself the best chance to win, hopefully for your entire tenure, hopefully for most of your tenure, whatever it is.

“That’s important, knowing that you can provide more value to a team that’s going to be in the postseason and maybe elevate some young guys.”

Like many great pitchers, Burnes walks the line between cockiness and confidence. For example, on game planning on a new club, Burnes said his approach was, “Here’s what I’m going to do, kind of whether you guys like it or not, this is how I game plan and how I get prepared … they accepted it, ran with it and some other guys started to take from it as well.”

These days, Burnes said, he also likes the role of mentor. Orioles starters Grayson Rodriguez, 24, and Kyle Bradish, 27, have asked Burnes questions ranging from how to bounce back from poor outings to how to game plan and more. He mostly enjoys talking about the mental side of the game, which was why the words from the Mets’ development coach meant so much to him.

As Burnes becomes more of a veteran, all the other adjectives he’s long been synonymous with still apply: ace, stalwart, competitive. He doesn’t mind teaching, he said, but he’s also still learning, and it shows. For the first time in his career — and in a platform year, no less — Burnes has pitched for a different club yet consistent success continues. He has fulfilled the role the Orioles envisioned for him when they acquired him in a trade last winter.

Through 26 starts with Baltimore, Burnes has a 3.28 ERA with 146 strikeouts in 154 1/3 innings. He eyes more. And he’d be quick to say he is capable of better, especially coming off consecutive subpar starts against the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros — his ERA stood at 2.76 before his those outings. Burnes, who went as far as the league championship series as a rookie in 2018, hopes to help lead the Orioles to the World Series.

“I looked at it as, hey, arbitration, you’re pitching in a platform year to maximize your money each year,” Burnes said regarding how he handles the pressure of the season before free agency. “The way I look at it, I’ve been pitching in a platform year for the last three years.

“Pitching in a Cy Young race in 2021 kind of was the first experience of, hey, you’re really pitching for something here. You have a chance to do something cool. … It’s been the best thing for me to do to avoid the outside noise and the social media pull to get you away from what you do. … The minute you start digging too much into that, is when you start to lose focus.”

The idea of finding out his worth on the open market appeals to Burnes. With the Brewers, he experienced a contentious hearing during arbitration, ahead of the 2023 season. He understood the process but didn’t appreciate everything that was said about him. At the time, he was the rare player who didn’t shy away from voicing his displeasure. He was disappointed that the club didn’t make an effort, in his view, to avoid arbitration and that at the time the relationship with the organization was damaged.

A couple of months before the hearing, David Stearns, now the Mets’ president of baseball operations, had already stepped down from the same role with the Brewers and transitioned into an advisory one with Matt Arnold taking over in Milwaukee. Still, Burnes said, he holds no grudges. Burnes said he had a great relationship with Stearns and added he wouldn’t hold anything against Milwaukee, either. The phone will be open to anyone.

Not every player embraces the idea of free agency.

Burnes does.

And he makes it easy to understand why.

“Early on in my career when I was with Milwaukee, I was always open to staying there my entire career,” Burnes said. “It gets to the point where it either doesn’t look like they want you there long term or don’t feel like they can match your value, whatever it might be. The closer you get to free agency, the closer you get to realizing what the true market value is going to be essentially.

“That still holds true being three or four months away from free agency. It’s one of those things that not many guys are able to get to. Some guys sign great extensions and it’s great for them and it works out well. I’m not saying an extension for me years ago would’ve been bad but it’s one of those things where once you get this close, you start to see what other guys have done in the past and what your possible value can be. You get the chance to pick where you want to go. Not many guys get to do that.

“So it gets more and more enticing the closer and closer you get to that day.”

(Top photo of Corbin Burnes: G Fiume / Getty Images)