3 teams Corbin Burnes might prefer over the Orioles in MLB free agency

The Baltimore Orioles have an ace on their hands with Corbin Burnes. Burnes showed up and showed out in the 2024 postseason, tossing eight innings of one-run baseball in Game 1 of the Wild Card round. Unfortunately, the one run that Burnes allowed would be the only run scored in the 1-0 Orioles loss at the hands of the Kansas City Royals.

Now that the Orioles season is over, after losing the Wild Card round in two games, Burnes is set to enter free agency. He will have a big decision on his hands as to where he wants to spend the next four or five seasons.

Now, let's preface. As of today, my prediction is that Burnes will land back with the Orioles this offseason, but if he were to prefer another situation with a different organization, here are the top three teams to look at.

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3. Los Angeles Dodgers

There are so many layers to Burnes landing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. First, if Burnes wants to win, there's no better place in baseball than with the Dodgers. LA will have Shohei Ohtani returning to the mound as well as a healthy Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Adding Burnes at the top of that rotation that has players like Betts and Ohtani in the lineup every day would be unfair.

Burnes is one of the best right-handed pitchers in the game, posting a sub-3.00 ERA for the fourth time in five seasons since becoming a full-time starting pitcher.

The Dodgers have the money to offer Burnes a huge contract because of the fact that $680 million of Shohei's $700 million is deferred money set to be paid to him a decade from now. The Dodgers will be aggressive in free agency, as they always are, but they might not be willing to push all their eggs in Burnes' basket.

Will the Dodgers be willing to put as much money in one place as it would take to acquire Burnes? We're not completely sure that they're going to be willing to do that this offseason after what they did with Ohtani last offseason. But if the Dodgers can match the Orioles offer in monetary value, it's hard to argue that there's a better place for Burnes to win than with the Dodgers.

2. Boston Red Sox

Burnes has been rumored to be connected to a few different teams that are going to be aggressively pursuing pitching this offseason. One of the teams that's frequently connected to Burnes is the Boston Red Sox, and the fit might just make perfect sense for him.

The Red Sox have a solid young core with even more talent coming up through the farm system. Most of their talent is position players though, led by Jarren Durran, Rafael Devers and plenty of other talented bats. Boston's best prospects are all hitters too. They need pitching and if they want to acquire the top talent, it'll be through free agency and trades.

Burnes would slot in as the ace on the team, firmly sitting above Tanner Houck. He would make the team much better, giving them a true ace to put up against the best pitchers in the league. Boston is going to be aggressive at improving their roster, so I'd expect them to be heavily involved

People tend to forget that these players are humans too. Moving from Baltimore to Boston wouldn't be a complete shock to the system either. He would stay on the East Coast, where he played last season. It's a very, very small detail, but something like this could be the difference in a decision between the Red Sox and a West Coast team that's thousands of miles away.

1. New York Mets

The number one driver for 99 percent of free agents is money. The number one thing that the New York Mets can offer just about every player in the league is money. Steve Cohen is in the business of buying a team that can outperform others across the league. He will be up against the biggest test to that statement this offseason.

Cohen will be trying to get Juan Soto to the Big Apple, but that is going to be way harder to do than many anticipate. The Mets will end up in a bidding war with the Yankees that they very well could lose. If the Mets lose this bidding war, they will swiftly need to allocate that money elsewhere across multiple other star players to compete in the NL East next season.

Players like Pete Alonso will get that money. But adding an ace like Corbin Burnes would make a ton of sense too. This idea is only realistic if they miss on Soto though. In Cohen's head, he's already spent that $550 million that it would take to land Soto this year. So if he misses him, which he very well could, that money needs to go somewhere and it could go to outpaying the Orioles for Burnes.

I get it, this is a very specific circumstance, but it's a very realistic one. If the Mets miss on Soto, they could outbid the Orioles for Burnes, and there's no way Burnes declines more money in order to stay with Baltimore.