The 3 Big Problems with Keeping Corbin Burnes on the 2024 Brewers

Yes Santana and Canha did boost the offense the last 2 months of the 2023 season, but a big boost came from Tyrone Taylor who slugged .542 in August and .595 in September.  Which is why this is not the time to trade Taylor who should be penciled in to start the season in RF.  If Taylor can start the season anywhere close to how he finished 2023, he'd greatly increase his trade value at the deadline if they want to make room for Chourio.

Burnes has chosen to gamble on himself staying healthy in order to reach that huge free agent payday next offseason - at this point anything related to injury risk and his state of mind goes almost exclusively on his shoulders....not sure the Brewers should be too worried about a guy's desire to pitch like an ace during his free agent year.

I've long looked at pitchers from the lens of how a small market team needs to prioritize getting value out of them through their mid-late twenties pitching for you, then determine the best way to find an off-ramp to avoid being saddled with a cumbersome, overpriced contract for an arm too far on the wrong side of 30 - even if it means sacrificing a few late 20's prime years by either letting him walk in free agency and getting a comp pick or trading him at the deadline.  After the next few key agent starters sign elsewhere, there will be a couple teams interested in trading for Burnes before the season starts, and the question becomes if the trade packages offered are worth the Brewers trading him away, or if one more season with him anchoring a still solid pitching staff is more valuable to a roster that at present is still the best team in the division with Burnes on it.  Trading Burnes in the offseason does get more return for him, but it also essentially punts on trying to be a true contender this year - which might not be the right plan for the rest of the roster.  

I'm a proponent of rolling with Burnes as the Brewers' 2024 Opening Day starter unless they get an incredibly valuable trade return, then if the Brewers are in playoff position come the trade deadline they add more via trade, otherwise if things don't get off to a great start the Brewers can get aggressive and get Burnes on the trade market well before July to still get a quality return.

Reality is, at this point there are zero problems with keeping Burnes on the Brewers' roster to start 2024.  If the Brewers turn around and resign Santana to play 1st and splurge on Soler to be their DH via free agency, suddenly their lineup looks alot more balanced.  It really will be interesting to see what direction the Brewers will take things with a roster that already will have a bunch of young and exciting talent on it.

I don't think Burnes would be a negative drain on the clubhouse. Last year was essentially the same as next year will be from a contract perspective. As long as we don't overuse him I think he will be who he was.

6 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

We had an obvious replacement for Hader’s 55 IP per year. 
 

We do not have equal replacement for Burnes’ 200 IP.

We probably couldn't replace Cy Young version of Burnes but the Burnes from last year we can. Burnes was worth 3.5 WAR (baseball-reference) last year, Lauer, Teheran, Houser, Rae were worth 1.9 WAR in over 60 starts (essentially the 4/5 rotation spots) So between the ace and 4/5 spots we would need to replace 5.4 (say 6 WAR). Peralta wasn't great so he could easily pick up a win or two more. Getting 3 two win pitchers won't be to crazy. Now replacing Woodruff may be more difficult because he had 2.4 WAR in 11 starts, which a more effective Burnes and Peralta could do on their own.

I think the only problem is losing him for just a comp. pick. (or nothing if an injury.

Holding on to Burnes is the best way to assure that we will need a rebuild period. If we don't get a top-tier prospect back from him, it'll make it a lot harder to compete in the coming years.

For those who think that we couldn't be competitive if we trade him this year (getting a top-tier young MLB-ready player back), how the heck are we going to remain competitive in the coming years without him or the top-tier young player we didn't get because we didn't make the trade?

I believe that we could be just as competitive with someone like Ricky Tiedeman or Kyle Harrison in the rotation from the trade, while using the money we would've spent on Burnes to sign someone like Hoskins, as we are with Burnes in the rotation for one more year with our current offense. Then, next year, we'd still have Tiedemann/Harrison playing for around league minimum, while the other team would be wondering how to replace Burnes (or paying him $40M+ in an extension). 

The Brewers can't spend like some other teams, so they can't just rebuild through free agency. They need to maintain a steady stream of young, cheap talent, so they can't afford to lose the value they'd get from a Burnes trade. Woodruff's injury (and the loss of ability to trade him) is a huge setback. We can't double-down and lose out on the return we could get from trading Burnes. 

14 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Sometimes top prospects end up being Nick Neugebauer, Lewis Brinson or Jose Capellan.
Burnes won Cy Young in 2021 and provides the organization the best bite at the apple opportunity we have for the near future.

And sometimes former MVPs get extended and start playing like a replacement level player. There's risk to anything the team does. 

If he is not traded Burnes will be here for one more year, and then he is going to sign a monster deal elsewhere. He is not going to be a Brewer beyond 2024. 

When Melvin decided to hold onto Fielder, he traded the farm for Marcum and Grienke (both with two years of team control) in an attempt to "go all in" and win it all. It didn't work out, and we continued to get worse over the next few seasons as we didn't have any pre-arby guys coming up, so we had to fill out the roster with expensive older guys in a downward spiral that eventually led to Attanasio blowing things up and bringing in Stearns to go a different route.

There are proponents to "going all in," and I see the allure even if I don't think it's a good long-term plan. However, if we are going to "go all in," which would seem the only logical strategy if we are holding Burnes for the year and then letting him walk, then we need to add a lot more talent than we have. We need to trade away a bunch of our prospects to get some better options for places like 1B, 3B, DH, and SP. We'll also need to push the payroll higher than it appears they are willing to go this year. 

In other words, we'll need to undo much of what Stearns and Co built that has led to arguably the most successful run of baseball in Brewer history in order to "go for it all" this year. Otherwise, I don't see any logical reason to hold Burnes. Your betting against the odds thinking that having Burnes this year (with the current make-up of the team) gives us a better chance of winning it all than trading him and getting a lot of prospect talent back for the next 5-6 years.

Also, Neugebauer wasn't one of the top prospects in baseball. He had a big arm, and it was exciting for a team starved for pitching to finally have a guy in the minors to cheer for, but I would expect a better prospect than him in return for Burnes. I get your point that the prospect may fail, but the guys I mentioned are already MLB ready, and we'd have full 6+ years of control. That limits the risk vs trading for a couple of guys in the lower minors.

Again, there is risk to anything the team does. I just think the team needs to stick with the longer-term method of team building that they implemented when Stearns was hired. It has had success for a team that doesn't have a very successful history, so I'd hate to blow things up just to hold onto a good player for one more year when logically it makes sense to trade the likely 3-4 WAR he'll provide this season for the potential of far more value than that over the next half-decade in a prospect(s) that will form the next core along with guys like Chourio, Contreras, Frelick, etc. 

When Melvin decided to hold onto Fielder, he traded the farm for Marcum and Grienke (both with two years of team control) 

Losing Cain stung, although that loss was pretty easily offset by the addition of Gomez in a future trade, but besides Cain the only other thing they lost was a knucklehead known more for his 40-hands photo than anything he did at the MLB level on the field and a slick fielding SS who never hit enough to miss him.  Odorizzi also made a nice career for himself as a mid to bottom of the rotation starter, but the upside that Greinke brought to a Brewers team desperate for a TOR starter but good enough to win it all offensively was well worth sending over a handful of prospects.

I don't think there's an obvious "only way" to approach Burnes this year for the overall longterm helath of the franchise - it's not a cut and dry "trade him no matter what" or "roll with him 1 more season before he leaves".  The Brewers have the budget flexibility to play "wait and see", afford whatever arbitration salary Burnes will earn if they retain him through arbitration, and see how things shake out with any trade offers between now and the deadline.  Given the current state of the NL Central, I think the Brewers would have to get a massive trade offer to move Burnes now - if it seems just like a fair deal, why not hold onto him into the season and then see how the Brewers start?  If they're scuffling, they could get a "fair deal" a month or two into the season as well, particularly if a team obviously geared up to try and win it all has some significant pitching injuries in their rotation.  The Dodgers and Rangers are already in that spot with arms that either won't be ready to start the season (DeGrom/Scherzer) or starters with extensive injury histories that could easily struggle early (Buehler, Glasnow, Kershaw, ...basically the entire Dodger rotation at this point).

On 12/20/2023 at 8:33 AM, Frisbee Slider said:

In fair to Neugebauer, he was #17 prospect in baseball for 2002, per Baseball America. Ahead of Josh Hamilton, Adam Wainwright, Brandon Phillips and Justin Morneau.

https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/prospects_mlb/2002~BA/

Thanks for that. I remember the excitement, but I guess I forgot he was that highly regarded nationwide. Shame for a team and a fanbase that really needed a boost that he had his injury issues.

On 12/20/2023 at 8:21 AM, Fear The Chorizo said:

When Melvin decided to hold onto Fielder, he traded the farm for Marcum and Grienke (both with two years of team control) 

Losing Cain stung, although that loss was pretty easily offset by the addition of Gomez in a future trade, but besides Cain the only other thing they lost was a knucklehead known more for his 40-hands photo than anything he did at the MLB level on the field and a slick fielding SS who never hit enough to miss him.  Odorizzi also made a nice career for himself as a mid to bottom of the rotation starter, but the upside that Greinke brought to a Brewers team desperate for a TOR starter but good enough to win it all offensively was well worth sending over a handful of prospects.

I don't think there's an obvious "only way" to approach Burnes this year for the overall longterm helath of the franchise - it's not a cut and dry "trade him no matter what" or "roll with him 1 more season before he leaves".  The Brewers have the budget flexibility to play "wait and see", afford whatever arbitration salary Burnes will earn if they retain him through arbitration, and see how things shake out with any trade offers between now and the deadline.  Given the current state of the NL Central, I think the Brewers would have to get a massive trade offer to move Burnes now - if it seems just like a fair deal, why not hold onto him into the season and then see how the Brewers start?  If they're scuffling, they could get a "fair deal" a month or two into the season as well, particularly if a team obviously geared up to try and win it all has some significant pitching injuries in their rotation.  The Dodgers and Rangers are already in that spot with arms that either won't be ready to start the season (DeGrom/Scherzer) or starters with extensive injury histories that could easily struggle early (Buehler, Glasnow, Kershaw, ...basically the entire Dodger rotation at this point).

Cain gave the Royals 20.80 fWAR in his time there. Escobar added 11.40 fWAR as a Royal, Odorizzi was part of a trade for James Shields, and gave the Rays 6.20 WAR in his time as a Ray. The only one who didn't really work out for the Royals was Jeffress.

Grienke posted 3.3 WAR for the Brewers in 2011 and was traded as the Brewers disappointed in 2012.

This is why I think it's best for the Brewers to trade Burnes away. He's projected to add around 3.8 WAR in 2024. You insinuated that the Brewers didn't really give up that much, but just in the Grienke trade, the Royals got 38.40 WAR (and two World Series appearances, one win) in return for 3.3 WAR in 2011. At least Grienke was able to get traded away, Burnes will not, he'll simply leave as a free agent.

A bigger revenue team can make up for that by signing a big-named free agent. Those trades really hurt teams that can't build through free agency.