Corbin Burnes Cuts His Way to Dominance
The 26-year old righty has been carving up major league hitters with his extraordinary cutter
In his first start of the season, Milwaukee starter Corbin Burnes was in a pitcher’s duel with Minnesota’s José Berríos. Neither pitcher had allowed a hit through six innings. Burnes retired Jorge Polanco to start the seventh, then faced Byron Buxton.
Buxton jumped on a 96 MPH cutter and hit it 411 feet to right-centre field for a home run, simultaneously breaking the no-hitter and the shutout. Burnes would be pulled from the game immediately after the hit and take the loss in a 2-0 Twins’ victory. That home run is the only run that Burnes has allowed so far in 2021. The same cutter that Buxton hit has become one of the best pitches in baseball.
Burnes’ pitch arsenal has gone through many changes in a short amount of time. In 2018 and 2019, Burnes’ primary pitch was his four-seam fastball with a slider as his main secondary offering. It worked for him in 2018, posting a 2.61 ERA in 30 relief appearances. In 2019, however, the league caught up and Burnes’ ERA rose to an ugly 8.82.
Over the offseason, Burnes made some adjustments to his four-seamer, developing it into a cut-fastball. Following a mechanical adjustment, Burnes joined the Brewers’ rotation and pitched to a 2.11 ERA in the shortened 2020 season.1 Burnes threw his new cutter 31.5% of the time and allowed a .162 batting average against throughout the season. His breakout led to high expectations for 2021; expectations he has exceeded in every which way.
As of April 21, Burnes leads the majors in ERA (0.37), FIP (0.68) and xFIP (1.22). His K/9 rate of 14.79 is third, behind Jacob deGrom (15.75) and teammate Freddy Peralta (15.50). He has yet to walk a batter. The cutter has become his primary pitch, throwing it 50.4% of the time. Hitters have been helpless against it, batting just .098 and accounting for 20 of Burnes’ 40 strikeouts thus far.
Per Statcast’s Run Value metric, Burnes’ cutter and Tyler Glasnow’s four-seamer have been the best pitches in 2021. Narrowing the results down to just cutters, Burnes’ is the best in the league by a significant margin. His performance so far has placed him among the best pitchers in the game, alongside deGrom, Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole and Shane Bieber. Continued dominance from Corbin will have the Brewers thinking playoffs and Burnes thinking Cy Young.
These changes are examined further in this article from David Laurila of FanGraphs: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cutter-in-hand-corbin-burnes-is-the-hottest-pitcher-on-the-planet/