Have the Brewers set fire to their bridges with Corbin Burnes?

The Milwaukee Brewers and their lone-remaining ace, and a homegrown one at that, Corbin Burnes have been locked in an arbitration hearing the last few weeks. There is nothing terribly unusual about that. But things took a nasty turn when the club argued that they should not pay him what he requested because he was, in effect, responsible for them not making the playoffs last year.

As you might imagine, this has gone down like a lead balloon with the 2021 NL Cy Young winner.

“They’re trying to do what they can to win the hearing, but I think there were other ways they could have gone about it and probably been a little more respectful with how they went about it. At the end of the day, here we are.”

The outcome of the hearing is that the Brewers won and will pay Burnes the $10.01 million that they wanted to rather than the $10.75 million that he was asking for. But this may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the organization.

Since Josh Hader’s departure for San Diego, one of the few remaining bright rays on the Brewers pitching staff has been Burnes. And while they have him at the price they wanted for now, his contract is up in 2025. The question is now whether he will be inclined to stay with Milwaukee or try his luck in greener pastures.

The Dodgers have been sniffing all around him this off season, and now that the relationship has so publicly soured between him and the Brewers, you can expect every other MLB organization to join the hunt.

Burnes makes no bones about his feelings over the sleight. “There’s no denying that the relationship is definitely hurt from what transpired over the last couple weeks. There’s really no way getting around that. Obviously, we’re professionals, and we’re going to go out there and do our job, keep doing what I can every fifth day that I go out there. But with some of the things that are said, for instance, basically putting me in the forefront of why we didn’t make it to the postseason last year, that’s something that probably doesn’t need be said. We can go about a hearing without having to do that.”

The Brewers are clear that they want to keep Burnes, but it is difficult to see how this is possible after the way that they have weaponized their shortcomings as a team to justify paying him less money.

And the worst part of all of this? The Brewers can afford to pay Burnes what he wants. Easily.

They are $40 million below average for the league in payroll. The extra $749,000 that he was asking for would not have been felt by the organization at all.

This can not be stressed enough: Burnes is the best pitcher that they have. By a long way.

Last season, Burnes followed up his 2021 Cy Young performance with a 2.94 ERA in 202.0 innings across 33 starts. He led the National League with 243 strikeouts. He went uninjured all year. It is difficult to see what more he could have done for the Brewers.

The Brewers, however, could have done much more for Burnes. The fact that they have dropped him under the bus seems like the bridges, if not burned, are well and truly smoldering.