It’s no exaggeration to say, this changes everything…
The signing of Corbin Burnes certainly ranks among the biggest surprises in Diamondbacks history. About the only comparable one is likely the signing of Zack Greinke in December 2015, which went from zero to “DBacks pursuing Greinke” to “Greinke in agreement with #DBacks, pending physical” in just a couple of hours, with no previous hints. Mike Hazen’s front-office has been remarkably good at keeping things under wraps. I’ve hardly heard advance word about any of their moves. That Greinke deal was slightly smaller in actual dollars, though if you adjust for baseball inflation, it works out at considerably more – $268 million in current dollars.
Short-term implications
Let’s take a look at how this signing changes things for the coming season. The D-backs starting rotation currently looks something like this:
- Corbin Burnes
- Zac Gallen
- Merrill Kelly
- Eduardo Rodriguez
- Brandon Pfaadt
- Jordan Montgomery
- Ryne Nelson
- Tommy Henry
- Yilber Diaz
- Blake Walston
- Cristian Menia
- Yu-Min Lin, etc.
You can change the rankings how you want – outside the top five, I largely went by MLB experience. But the reality is nobody thought the D-backs were in need of starting pitching. Improvement was going to come from regression to the mean for Rodriguez (2024 ERA+ 84, career ERA+ 110) and Montgomery (67 vs. 106), better health for Gallen and Kelly, plus Pfaadt being on the right side of the aging curve. Arizona’s rotation ranked 21st in the majors with 10.1 fWAR. Simply getting average output from the rotation in 2025 would be an improvement for Arizona, and there was reason to hope for considerably better from the returning members.
Adding Burnes moves the needle significantly: FanGraphs projects him to be worth 3.6 fWAR this year, which is four times as much as the 0.9 fWAR projection for Montgomery. Obviously – but I’m going to keep repeating it – a team will need more than five starting pitchers in a season. Depth matters. But I have to presume this signing paves the way for a Montgomery dump. Whether he is fit or fat in 2025, there simply doesn’t appear to be an Opening Day rotation spot for him. The team may well have to eat around half of the $22.5 million to trade him, but that can be used to defray the cost of Burnes in his first year. And that may be important.
Because the other thing I remember about the Greinke signing is… that was basically it. in terms of spending. Sure, the team traded for Shelby Miller shortly afterward, and Jean Segura later in the off-season. But the spending faucet was all but shut off, with the entirely forgettable exception of Tyler Clippard. I trust that won’t be the case here, and we have already seen the team take on additional salary, in the shape of Josh Naylor. There is still room to improve the 2025 Diamondbacks further. As 1AZfan1 discussed earlier today, pitching moves seem sure to follow. We could also use right-handed thump, and the team has been linked to Kirby Yates (though my aversion to high-priced closers is well-known!).
So I hope this is not seen as “enough” by management, because one surprising splash in the free-agent pool and all the media headlines in the world, probably won’t win anything. The expectation was that Arizona would be at or around the same payroll in 2024 and 2025, a figure which Jack estimated gave them $17-22 million to spend after the arrival of Naylor. Nick Piecoro reports the 2025 salary will be $30 million. That would fit within the range of the estimate, if the team is also able to trade Montgomery for 50% relief. But what’s clear is, we do not have the slightest idea how much money the D-backs actually have to spend. It feels like more is going to be spent.
Long-term implications
There was some reason to feel that 2025 would be the end of the team’s current window of contention. At the end of the season, Kelly, Gallen and Montgomery would all become free agents, with Eduardo Suarez and Naylor hitting the market on the position side. That’s an awful lot of holes to fill, especially with Kelly and Gallen in particular being under market value on their current contracts with the D-backs. But signing Burnes is a statement of intent, because he will certainly be here in 2026 as well: the opt-out makes the situation thereafter less certain, although I’m not sure a 32-year-old (as Burnes will be at this point in 2026) will get better offers than his current deal.
So what should we do with Gallen and Kelly? The notion of trading them, Zac in particular, has been floated, but with the team pushing in for this year, I’ve a feeling that is no longer going to happen. Indeed, if anything, the team might want to see if they can extend one or both of them. While Gallen is a Boras client, so was Burnes and it appears that factors beyond hard cash were important in his decision to sign here. The Giants and Blue Jays both offered more money, but between the tax situation, and Burnes’s family being here and settled in Arizona, the D-backs won out. Maybe we need to have a word with Zac’s reported girlfriend, Elise Loughran, and convince her now is the time to settle down?
There’s no doubt contracts like Burnes do contain risk, though perhaps less so than the Greinke deal which ultimately went pear-shaped for the D-backs. Corbin is two years younger than Zack was, and has been the better career pitcher to the point they signed with Arizona (ERA+ of 129 vs. 122). While it is true his strikeout rate has declined over the past few season, his control improved in 2024, to the extent that his K:BB ratio went up, from 3.03 to 3.77. If he were to end up reproducing Greinke’s age 30-35 seasons, we’ll be more than happy with that, because Zack was worth 31 bWAR and posted a 2.94 ERA over those six years. Though in such a case, the opt-out would very likely be exercised.
The key factor is going to be whether the D-backs are indeed able to contend in the coming seasons. Because paying north of $35 million to one player on a sub-.500 team would be a luxury, regardless of the pitcher’s individual performance. If that happens, then I imagine Hazen will come under pressure from Ken Kendrick to reload, and ship Burnes off for prospects. If the pitcher is still performing well, that would make the task easier. But that’s a situation for another day – or, preferably, not at all. Over the years, we’ve seen too many pitchers whose arrival in Arizona was greeted with joy, only to find them wanting, from Russ Ortiz through to Jordan Montgomery. Let’s hope Corbin Burnes is closer to Curt Schilling!