Baltimore Orioles Could Lose Ace Corbin Burnes To Hated Division Rival

The Baltimore Orioles could lose Corbin Burnes in an absolute nightmare scenario to a hated division rival.

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The Baltimore Orioles are facing the free agency of their best player this offseason with superstar ace Corbin Burnes on the open market.

The 2021 National League Cy Young winner is the hottest commodity in the pitching market. After his fellow Cy Young counterpart Blake Snell signed with the Dodgers, he is unquestionably the most sought-after arm for teams that are looking to spend money on elite starting pitching.

While the Orioles would love to retain him and will certainly give it their best shot, when the kinds of offers that Burnes will receive start rolling in, the undeniable reality for a team like Baltimore is that it's going to be incredibly tough to re-sign him.

With the Los Angeles now likely out of the running after bringing in Snell, that eliminates at least one of the most spend-happy teams in baseball. But while seeing him leave for the defending World Series champions would sting tremendously, it's might not be as bad as it would be to see him sign with the defending American League champions and arguably Baltimore's most hated rival in the New York Yankees.

Manny Randhawa of MLB.com named Burnes as a player that could spurn his current team and stay within the division and join a Yankees rotation that already features a Cy Young winner in Gerrit Cole.

"Cole was limited to 17 starts last season, and the year before, Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes combined for 26 starts -- they know more than most that you can never have enough starting pitching," Randhawa wrote. "Enter Burnes, who is the top remaining free-agent starter on the market and a former Cy Young Award winner himself. Soto is certainly still the Yankees’ top priority this offseason, but the club has reportedly been in touch with Burnes’ camp."

New York's interest in Burnes has not been extremely well documented, but you truly do never know with the Yankees. If they fail to sign Juan Soto and lose him to the Mets, Hal Steinbrenner will be looking to make a splash. It wouldn't be a huge shock to see that attempted splash end up being one of the best pitchers in baseball in Burnes.

The best thing that could happen to the Orioles would be for the Yankees to get Soto into the kind of contract that most people expect — upward of $600 million — which would likely put the Yankees in the market for a second-tier pitcher to complement Cole and the rest of the rotation.

There's not a greater worst case scenario than seeing Burnes end up in pinstripes, but if Baltimore isn't willing to pony up the cash, there could be nothing that's able to be done.