Associated Press4:01 PM ET2 Minute Read
For Corbin Burnes, the disappointment wasn’t the loss of his salary arbitration but the words used by the Milwaukee Brewers during the process to determine his 2023 salary.
You have stung.
The 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner attended his case and walked away with hard feelings. He has lost his hearing and will receive $10.01 million from the Brewers instead of his $10.75 million claim.
“Obviously it’s hard to hear. It’s hard to take. They’re trying to do whatever it takes to win a hearing,” Burnes told reporters at spring training in Phoenix [transpired] in the last few weeks. You really can’t get past that.”
Burnes, a five-year veteran, is 35-19 years old and has a 3.21 ERA. He is eligible for free agency after the 2024 World Series.
“You’re kind of finding your true worth,” Burnes said. “You think you work hard for seven years in the organization and five years on the big league team and you get in there and basically they value you in a very different way than what they thought you contributed to the organization.
“You won it. But when it came to winning or losing the hearing, for me it was more than that.”
Burnes felt he was “brought to the fore” as to why the Brewers failed to make the 2022 postseason.
“That’s something that probably doesn’t need to be said,” stated Burnes, who led the National League with 243 strikeouts and amassed a 12-8 record with a 2.94 ERA. “We can conduct a hearing without having to do that .”
One of the fears of a player attending his own proceedings is hearing unflattering words from the team. The chatter isn’t entirely rosy when it comes to money.
“There was no attack on the character or the person I was,” Burnes said. “But just some of the things that were said that definitely didn’t need to be said are something that I think kind of let everyone down.”