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  • Brewers Win Pyrrhic Victory Over Corbin Burnes in MLB Arbitration Case


    Matthew Trueblood

    On Wednesday, we learned that the Milwaukee Brewers had won their arbitration case against ace starting pitcher Corbin Burnes. He'll make $10.01 million this year, instead of the $10.75 million he requested. On Thursday in Arizona, Burnes told us what it all really cost.

    Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

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    As Corbin Burnes understood it, the Brewers made the argument that he was "in the forefront of the reason why we didn't make the postseason last year" during the hearing earlier this week. That was the big takeaway from his polite but angry account of the process of salary arbitration, delivered to reporters at the team's spring training complex Thursday morning. Whether the team intended to argue that, exactly, will remain unknowable to us, because the hearing itself will not become a matter of public record. All that really matters, though, is that that is what Burnes heard.

    This, as many have said, is the gigantic risk a team takes by going to arbitration with a player who is critical to their short- and long-term prospects for success. While the difference between the figures at which each side filed (nearly $750,000) is more significant than the general narrative has allowed, it's now likely that they'll spend more than that amount cleaning up the mess they've made. It will cost them incrementally more to extend some other player, or to convince a free agent to join their cutthroat gang. It will hurt their image with fans, many of whom already resented the thought process behind the Josh Hader trade and the general approach to this past offseason. They'll lose money, and they might well lose Burnes.

    Worse, the case is grossly unfounded. Burnes did struggle down the stretch last year, with a 4.27 ERA in his final 10 outings, but the team went 6-4 in those games, and he was more uneven than truly bad.

    2022 Pitching Game Log
    Date   Opp Rslt Inngs Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA Pit WPA cWPA
    Aug 18   LAD W,5-3 GS-6 W(9-5) 4 5.2 6 3 3 2 6 0 0 2.48 103 0.095 0.06%
    Aug 23 @ LAD L,1-10 GS-4 L(9-6) 4 3.2 5 7 4 2 3 1 1 2.66 81 -0.293 -0.18%
    Aug 29   PIT W,7-5 GS-6   5 6.0 8 5 5 1 5 2 0 2.84 102 -0.327 -0.20%
    Sep 3 @ ARI W,8-6 GS-6   4 5.2 7 5 5 3 5 1 0 3.02 110 -0.269 -0.15%
    Sep 8(1)   SFG W,2-1 GS-8 W(10-6) 4 8.0 3 1 1 0 14 0 1 2.93 100 0.437 0.23%
    Sep 14 @ STL L,1-4 GS-7 L(10-7) 5 7.0 7 3 3 1 5 2 1 2.97 107 -0.080 -0.06%
    Sep 19   NYM L,2-7 GS-6 L(10-8) 4 5.2 7 5 5 1 4 1 0 3.12 100 -0.203 -0.16%
    Sep 24 @ CIN W,10-2 GS-7 W(11-8) 4 6.1 4 2 2 3 8 0 0 3.11 102 0.139 0.13%
    Sep 30   MIA W,1-0 GS-8 W(12-8) 5 8.0 4 0 0 0 7 0 0 2.98 103 0.563 0.66%
    Oct 5   ARI L,2-4 GS-3   4 3.0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 2.94 40 0.152 0.21%
          20-13   W-L:12-8 4.7 202.0 144 73 66 51 243 23 13 2.94 3274 3.173 2.74%
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
    Generated 2/16/2023.

    Note that there are two games in that stretch against the juggernaut Dodgers, one against the Cardinals, and another against the Mets. There are also two games Burnes won virtually singlehandedly, shielding a weary bullpen by not only shutting down the opponent but doing so for eight innings while the offense did the bare minimum. He increased the team's Championship Win Probability Added even during the toughest stretch of his season, and the fact that he wore down slightly can't be fairly held against him under the circumstances. He bore up under the weight placed upon him precisely the way an ace ought to do.

    Next time he's asked to pitch deep into September and push his odometer past 200 innings in pursuit of a playoff spot, he's likely to be better able to sustain himself. He'd never gotten the chance to do it before, thanks to the six-man rotation in 2021 and the stunted 2020 season. Surely, he learned much from the minor struggles he endured late in 2022. The Brewers probably should have considered that and given him credit for it, rather than viewing a minor underperformance as an opportunity to seize leverage and cancel out one minimum-salary roster slot by inflicting a Pyrrhic victory on themselves and their best player.

    Here are Burnes's remarks, with a hat tip to MLB.com beat writer Adam McCalvy.

    We're eager to hear from you. This kind of grievance can be overblown, and the Crew could turn and spend their savings from this win on further reinforcement of the bullpen. Is there any way they can salvage this, in your eyes?

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    9 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

    Neutrality isn’t necessarily an admirable trait. Sometimes people actually have opinions on things and that’s fine. Even with the weirdness and dumb rules of arb, having a star player openly talk about being frustrated/angry isn’t a good look for an organization. I guarantee Matt understands the nuances of arb, that’s not the issue here  

    Matt isn’t here to defend the Brewers. He isn’t here to blast them, either. His role is to analyze what they do and come to a conclusion. 

    Out of curiosity can you explain why we have two threads on the same topic? On other forums something like that happens they either merge the threads or lock one up so there is a centralized location for discussion, having two separate threads makes the conversation harder to follow

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    14 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

    Out of curiosity can you explain why we have two threads on the same topic? On other forums something like that happens they either merge the threads or lock one up so there is a centralized location for discussion, having two separate threads makes the conversation harder to follow

    One is a front page news story and currently we cannot merge an article thread into a normal thread. I would have moved this thread this morning but it was so active I left it here for awhile longer. I’ll probably move it this afternoon some time  

    One of my primary tasks later in the year is resolving the inability to merge an article topic into another topic. 

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    36 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

    Neutrality isn’t necessarily an admirable trait. Sometimes people actually have opinions on things and that’s fine. Even with the weirdness and dumb rules of arb, having a star player openly talk about being frustrated/angry isn’t a good look for an organization. I guarantee Matt understands the nuances of arb, that’s not the issue here  

    Matt isn’t here to defend the Brewers. He isn’t here to blast them, either. His role is to analyze what they do and come to a conclusion. 

    That is all good and fine, it's an opinion piece.  It is you who pay for it, not me so you have the say here.  My suggestion is kind of a "show your work" when writing a paid for article.  I don't think that was done and the article ended with a leading question on if the Brewers can repair their scarred reputation.

    My other point is that the star player speaking out and being hurt does not hurt the team at all unless he causes problems in the clubhouse.  If that is the case it is on him, not the team.  Like I said, nobody in baseball cares about it except Brewers fans.  I think I saw someone post that it happens 10 to 15 times every year around the league.

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    1 hour ago, GreatNWwi said:

    Like I said, nobody in baseball cares about it except Brewers fans.

    This isn’t true, though. I’ve seen this situation talked about in every baseball group I’m a member of, including Twins Daily. 

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    41 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

    This isn’t true, though. I’ve seen this situation talked about in every baseball group I’m a member of, including Twins Daily. 

    Sure, Twins Daily where 90% hate anything Wisconsin.  But yes, there will be some people taking note until about Monday next week.

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