The Diamondbacks are in agreement with free agent right-hander Corbin Burnes on a six-year deal worth $210MM, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The Boras Corporation client will have the opportunity to opt out following the 2026 campaign.
The news is a shocking turn of events as Burnes had garnered plenty of interest in free agency but had not been connected to Arizona at any point in the offseason. While some rumored suitors for the right-hander’s services such as the Yankees and Red Sox turned to alternative options for the front of their rotations by signing Max Fried and trading for Garrett Crochet respectively, a number of known interested parties remained in the mix. That included not only the incumbent Orioles but also the big market Giants and Blue Jays, both of whom USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports offered the Burnes a higher guarantee. Nightengale notes that the state of Arizona has a much lower income tax rate than that of either California or Ontario, Canada. In addition to that financial incentive, Burnes is a a resident of Scottsdale, AZ who will surely enjoy the opportunity to pitch close to home.
Not to be dismissed as a potential factor in Burnes’s decision is the opt-out opportunity. It’s not currently clear whether the right-hander’s other offers afforded him that same flexibility, and until the full financial breakdown of the deal is available it won’t be entirely clear how much money Burnes would be leaving on the table by opting out. Should the $210MM guarantee be spread evenly across the six seasons of the deal, however, it’s not at all hard to imagine Burnes surpassing a $140MM guarantee after his age-32 campaign as long as he keeps pitching at his current, ace-caliber level. Earlier this offseason, Blake Snell landed a $182MM guarantee from the Dodgers ahead of his age-32 season, and a look at MLBTR’s Contract Tracker reveals that Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom have all signed free agent contracts that guaranteed nine figures ahead of their age-32 campaigns or older.
Turning back to the contract Burnes just signed, however, the deal falls short of Burnes’s previously-reported goal of matching the $245MM guarantee the Nationals offered to right-hander Stephen Strasburg during the 2019-20 offseason. By total guarantee, the contract actually lands within roughly the same ballpark as MLBTR’s seven-year, $200MM prediction we made at the start of the offseason as part of our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list, where Burnes ranked second in the class behind only Juan Soto. A closer look at the deal reveals that Burnes followed in the footsteps of virtually every other pitcher this winter and landed a deal that exceeds expectations, however. The $35MM average annual value of the deal dwarfs the $28.57MM AAV predicted by MLBTR and even matches Strasburg, while the opt-out opportunity provides its own value in the form of flexibility as previously mentioned.
More to come…