Overview
- Rating: 6.33
- 2025 stats: 3-2 W/L, 11 GS, 64.1 IP, 2.66 ERA, 3.94 FIP, 1.3 aWAR
- Date of birth: October 22, 1994 (age 30 season)
- 2025 earnings: $30 million
- 2026 status: Tommy John Surgery recovery (targeting July 2026 return)
Voting overview
2025 review
Corbin Burnes’ addition to the Diamondbacks organization was one of the bigger shockers of the offseason. After making a significant investment in one of the top starting pitchers in the 2023-24 offseason and
failing miserably (He Who Shall Not Be Named), coupled with already having six viable starters for only five spots in the rotation, it seemed highly improbable that the Diamondbacks would be involved in any starting pitcher acquisition, let alone one of the most sought-after free agents of the offseason. Then a bombshell report came from John Heyman late in the evening of December 27 that drove Diamondbacks fandom into a whirlwind of euphoria:
In a stunner, the Diamondbacks had snagged the premier starting pitcher available that offseason and appeared to set themselves up for another serious run at the playoffs. Unfortunately, as we all know, that’s not how it panned out.
Burnes’ tenure with the Diamondbacks got off on the wrong foot right away when Torey Lovullo was deciding who to tab as his Opening Day starter. Corbin Burnes was the expensive new signing and had a track record of excellence, but Zac Gallen was going into his walk year and had been excellent for stretches in his Diamondbacks tenure in addition to being the incumbent Opening Day starter since 2023. Burnes made the first start of Spring Training, lining him up for the Opening nod, but Gallen was similarly lined up with his schedule. A mere week before the season began, Lovullo officially chose Gallen for the first start of the season, but what he perhaps had not anticipated was that Burnes’ schedule was so regimented he could not flex into the second start and instead had to slot into the fifth start of the year. Whether it was poor communication from Burnes or between the coaching staff, the prized free agent acquisition’s contract was off to a poor start before he’d even thrown in a regular season game. For the record, I believed that naming Gallen the Opening Day starter was a good call and I stand by that opinion, but I won’t go into defending it any further here.
Once the season finally commenced, it took a while for Corbin to reassure fans that we weren’t just a snakebitten franchise that would never secure a satisfactory return from signing a free agent starter again. Burnes first start was in Yankee Stadium against the defending AL Champs and while he didn’t pitch terribly, he gave 4 runs (2 unearned runs came in on a brutal error by Naylor attempting to flip the ball the Burnes covering first) and didn’t survive the 5th inning. In his next start, Burnes got his first decision as a Diamondback, a Loss, when he allowed 4 runs -all earned- to the Nationals in only 5 innings. Two starts in and sporting a 5.79 ERA, D-backs fans were on edge. After those two starts, though, Burnes became the pitcher we all expected when he signed his $210 million deal. Over his next eight games, Corbin would post seven Quality Starts with a 2.15 ERA including a 21 inning scoreless streak. Even though the team on the whole was still scuffling, it appeared we at least had a horse we would be able to ride toward the postseason if we could just figure out something with the bullpen.
Then, on Burnes’ 11th start of the season, it all came crashing down. Corbin was dealing going into the 5th inning, already having notched 6 Ks and running a shutout, but with 2 outs in the inning, he gave up a line drive single to CJ Abrams and before the play was over Burnes motioned to the dugout asking for a trainer to come get him. Replays showed him telling Geraldo Perdomo that it was his elbow. A few days later, it was announced that Burnes would need Tommy John Surgery. For a pitcher that had never missed a significant amount of time before and was running a streak of 3 straight seasons of at least 193 IP, it was a shock.
Corbin Burnes had his surgery on June 11th and began the long road of recovery. He wasn’t a ghost during this time, though. Most notably, he was invited to speak to the Diamondbacks draft class at the team’s introductory camp. His speech, parts of which were documented in a Diamondbacks team YouTube video, showcase just how valuable Corbin is even if he’s not on the mound.
2026 outlook
Burnes has publicly set his target return date from surgery for July of next year, about 13 months post-surgery which is on the quicker end for a starting pitcher. For references of pitchers injured midseason 2024 and who made their return in 2025, Eury Perez made his first MLB start about 14 months post-surgery and Shane Bieber made his first MLB start about 16 months after his surgery. It will be great if Corbin is healthy enough to start pitching again at Chase in July 2026, but we should probably set our expectations for August or September. As far as how effective we can expect him to be on his return, that’s anybody’s guess. We certainly shouldn’t expect peak-Burnes, but even if we get a low-4s ERA over 4-5 innings a start, it will surely be helpful as our starting rotation seems paper thin at time of writing. As much as I’d love for Corbin to anchor our rotation during a second-half surge to the postseason, I’m just hoping that he has an uneventful recovery and gets his feet back under him so he can have a normal offseason heading into 2027.
