Corbin Burnes, Brewers Proving Why Arbitration Sucks
It has been a pretty awful offseason for the Milwaukee Brewers and Corbin Burnes.
Burnes, 28, and the Brewers engaged in an arbitration dispute throughout the offseason. Burnes was seeking $10.75 million from Milwaukee, but they were only willing to give him $10.01 million.
“You work hard for seven years in the organization and five years with the big league team, and you get in there, and basically they value you much differently than what you contribute to the organization,” Burnes said to MLB.com Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy during Spring Training.
“There’s no denying that the relationship is definitely hurt from what perspired over the last couple of weeks. There’s really no way of getting around that. Obviously, we’re professionals. We’re going to go out there and do our jobs and keep doing what I can every fifth day I go out there.”
“[The Brewers] basically put me in the forefront of why we didn’t make the postseason last year. That’s something that probably doesn’t need to be said,” Burnes said.
It’s borderline shocking that the Brewers just wouldn’t give Burnes the extra $749,000. I mean how cheap does it get? This guy has carried your pitching rotation since 2020. He has been top-two in Cy Young voting each of the last two seasons, and he won it in 2021. Honestly, he is literally the reason your franchise is semi-relevant in the sport.
Burnes will once again have to endure the arbitration process one more time before he’s able to hit the open market as a free agent unless the Brewers trade him.
I can’t believe they said he was the reason they didn’t make the postseason. That is just blasphemous. While Burnes didn’t necessarily pitch that well down the stretch, he still sported a sub-3.00 ERA — the best mark of any starter on the team!
I don’t understand this at all from Milwaukee’s perspective. They seemed to attack him pretty hard during this arbitration hearing. While this is fine and it’s a business, you can’t personally attack your best pitcher without expecting consequences.
The argument against arbitration
Arbitration is dumb. I think everyone around baseball understands that. You’re quite literally pinning owners against players. When it really starts to get dumb, however, is a situation like this one. Under no circumstances should the Brewers have allowed this situation to deteriorate as much as it has.
It’s beyond stupid that teams have to alienate their best players in hopes of wrangling some cash. It’s greedy on the part of the owners and stupid on a league-wide scale.
This whole situation is just bad. The Brewers pulling teeth for $749,000 is honestly an embarrassment. It’s a bad look for the league and it fractures the relationship between team and player.
MLB cares more about pace-of-play initiatives than it does about negotiating contracts. Arbitration doesn’t happen in any other sport the way it does in baseball: Exposing young players just so ownership can fight for pocket change.
I really hope Corbin Burnes decides to take initiative here and maybe ask for a trade. If I were him, I’m not sticking around giving my best years to an organization that barely has respect for me.
Like so many arbitration cases in the past, a player was offended and ownership is money grabbing. Please get rid of this garbage, MLB.
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