Bay Area Insider Says San Francisco Giants Have Contacted Corbin Burnes

The San Francisco Giants are looking to upgrade their rotation this winter.

After the team initially seemed to have interest in keeping their ace Blake Snell, the two-time Cy Young winner elected instead to sign a massive five-year, $182 million with the Giants arch-rivals to the south in the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

After the news of Snell's departure came out, reports indicated that San Francisco was actually not very interested in giving him anywhere near what it would have taken to bring him back.

If the plan was indeed to let Snell walk, it begged the question of who was going to be at the top of the Giants' rotation. Since then, reports have emerged that Baltimore Orioles superstar ace Corbin Burnes may be in the cards with interest from the team stated by insiders.

Now, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the team has been in contact with the Bakersfield native about coming to pitch in the Bay Area.

"I’m hearing the Giants have been in contact with Corbin Burnes, who’d certainly be a superb option after losing Snell to the Dodgers," Slusser wrote on her X account on Friday morning. "He’s got the kind of personality I think would appeal to Buster Posey, too, bulldog reputation."

If San Francisco really did pull the trigger and bring in Burnes to replace Snell, a strong argument can be made that Burnes would be an upgrade. Despite pitching sensational down the stretch of the season after returning from injury with a 1.13 ERA over the final three months of the season, Snell had a disastrous start to the season and has struggled to stay on the field throughout his career.

Historically, Snell doesn't stay in games long either even when he is healthy. He has never thrown more than 180 innings in a season and has only reached that mark twice. Burnes on the other hand has gone over 190 innings three times in two less years than Snell and threw 202 in 2022.

Having just turned 30 years old — almost two years younger than Snell — Burnes has been an absolute workhorse throughout his career. In full seasons, he has never made less than 28 starts while Snell has made over 30 starts just twice in nine seasons.

With a full 32 starts and a 2.92 ERA in 2024 with Baltimore, Burnes has not shown any major signs of slowing down and the Giants would feel comfortable handing him a huge deal to be their ace for years to come.

As it has been the case for numerous free agents over the years for San Francisco, the interest sounds very real. Now it's up to Posey to actually turn that interest into a signature.