Orioles Corbin Burnes backup plan could come with the same fatal flaw

Last offseason, the Baltimore Orioles made the kind of blockbuster deals that teams desperate to win a World Series make, acquiring Corbin Burnes in a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. Burnes is a pitcher any team would've wanted, but the reason why it was such an eye-opening deal was because Burnes was entering his final year of club control. The possibility of Burnes being one-and-done in Baltimore loomed.

If the Orioles won the World Series in 2024, nobody would care all that much whether Burnes left or not. Obviously, the goal would be to keep him around long-term, but if they had won the World Series, it wouldn't have been a big deal if he departed. Well, Burnes was great as expected, but the Orioles didn't win a single postseason game for the second year in a row. Now, Burnes is a free agent, and all signs point to him leaving for an offer that the Orioles will refuse to match or top.

If Burnes does walk, that leaves a gaping hole at the top of their rotation. The Orioles did sign a starting pitcher on Monday, but Tomoyuki Sugano is not Burnes. This team will be in dire need of a frontline arm if Burnes leaves.

Fortunately for Orioles fans, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com links them to a bonafide ace, Dylan Cease. While Cease might not be Burnes, he isn't that much of a downgrade. There is one fatal flaw that would come from trading for him, though, which is awfully similar to the one that came with Burnes' arrival.

"Cease would seem like a solid fallback plan for the Orioles, though after potentially losing Burnes just one season after acquiring him, it remains to be seen whether GM Mike Elias would give up a package of players for another pitcher with one year of club control," Feinsand wrote.

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Trading for Dylan Cease would present the same risk Corbin Burnes did

Cease is projected to earn roughly $13 million in arbitration in 2025, but is then set to hit free agency after the year. Do the Orioles really want a repeat of the Burnes situation?

Again, if they win the World Series with Cease and then watch him depart, it won't be such a big deal. However, as we saw with Burnes, winning a postseason game isn't even a sure thing. Do the Orioles really want to ship out the pieces necessary to acquire Cease if there's a chance he'll only be with the team for one year?

Baltimore's farm system is good and deep enough to the point where they can trade for Cease and not skip a beat. Even with that being said, though, trading valuable pieces for just one year of Cease would hurt.

There's a chance Cease can come cheaper as a free agent than Burnes will, but is that likely? Cease is over one year younger than Burnes, and the price of starting pitching only continues to rise each and every year.

Plus, even if Cease is a bit cheaper than Burnes, that doesn't mean that the Orioles will sign him. The Tyler O'Neill deal was the first (and so far only) multi-year deal handed out by GM Mike Elias in his six-year tenure with the Orioles, and it was just a three-year deal worth $49 million. The new ownership change doesn't appear to have changed anything regarding his reluctance to spend big in free agency. While the Orioles were linked to Max Fried, they didn't appear to be serious bidders there, either.

If the Orioles will take re-signing Cease seriously, then it probably is worth the risk of trading for him. Pitchers of Cease's caliber don't become available often, and the Orioles have the prospects to get a deal done and not break a sweat. If they won't take it seriously, though, which appears to be the case with Burnes, it becomes a lot harder to justify.