Looking back at the Orioles-Brewers trade for Corbin Burnes

Looking back at the Orioles-Brewers trade for Corbin Burnes

Early this winter, Orioles fans were upset that the team wasn’t being more aggressive in the pitcher market.

In 2023, everything was going well for the team: they had a 101-win season, a core of young, exciting position players, and a better relationship with their fans.

To make things better, the team only needed one more starter, preferably a No. 1 starter. The group had enough farm-system surplus to get the job done.

Someone from Baltimore asked me in a mailbag I made last month why it was taking the GM Mike Elias so long to fill the position.

On Thursday night, the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers agreed to trade right-handed beginning Corbin Burnes in a huge deal.

In shortstop Joey Ortiz as well as left-handed hurler DL Hall, the Brewers will get two young players. They will also get a competitive draft pick in the July round.

Adding Burnes to the team caps off a busy week for the Orioles, who are currently owned by David Rubenstein. The Brewers are likewise about to start a new season.

Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, who was not picked up by a team at the beginning of the offseason, probably won’t be on the starting lineup next year.

When you consider that former CEO David Stearns as well as manager Craig Counsell have left, the Brewers will be sporting a different look going forward.

In a lot of ways, the offseason has proven to be a disappointment, especially when it comes to trades.

The Orioles look like they want to win everything, while the Brewers have two interesting prospects that will help them this season.

Even though it’s easy to forget which Juan Soto was sold to the Yankees, it was much more exciting for baseball fans when the Brewers traded their long-time ace on Thursday night.

Another change was that the Blue Jays added a reliable but often injured hitter to their lineup. Also, the defending World Series champions might not have their star shortstop to start the season. Wow, what a week! Let’s get started.

Fans of baseball could finally say that the Orioles did what they were supposed to do. They got a good hand. Early Thursday night, rumors started to spread that the Baltimore Orioles were trying to trade for Brewers star pitcher Corbin Burnes.

Before the team made it official, the rest of the deal came together quickly. The Orioles got right-handed pitcher Corbin Burnes as a trade for left-handed pitcher DL Hall, infielder Joey Ortiz, and the 34th overall pick in the 2024 Fair Balance Round A draft.

The deal seems a little low for one of the top pitchers in baseball at first glance. But Burnes will be a free agent at the end of the time of year, and he has said that he wants to try being a free agent, so it looks like this will only be a single-year rental on the right-hander.

Baseball America recently ranked both Hall and Ortiz in the top 10 of the Orioles’ farm system. It is still strange that the Brewers thought now would be a good time to trade Burnes.

Their new first baseman, Rhys Hoskins, is thought to be the best free agent left, and they were ready to compete with the Cardinals, Cubs, or Reds for the NL Central title.

For the 2024 season, it looks like they stepped back. Let’s just say that in a dynasty league, if Burnes’ contract was up, I would still want a little more than what the Brewers got on Thursday. That could be why I’m only a fantasy sports manager and not a real-life one.

It’s hard to say that this move lowers Burnes’ value from the point of view of redraft. I still don’t get how he moved to Camden Yards, a park that is better for pitchers.

Before, the Orioles moved the fence in left field up to 30 feet and back, and they also made it taller from 7 feet to 12 feet.

The overall ballpark factor for Camden Yards was 105, and the home run factor was 124. This was the second best in the major leagues, after Great American Ballpark.

Last year, Camden Yards had a ballpark factor of 96 for all hits and a factor of 91 for home runs. To give you an idea, the number of home runs hit at American Family Field was 107.

One more cool thing that Statcast does is figure out how many additional or fewer home runs a pitcher would allow if he pitched all season in a certain ballpark.

They thought Burnes would have given in seven fewer home runs if he had pitched in Camden instead of all the other parks he did last season. That’s a big deal.