Which Team Needs Corbin Burnes More: Giants or Blue Jays?

As we near the holidays and the start of a new year, many of the best free agents of the 2024-25 offseason have already come off the board. Juan Soto, Blake Snell, Willy Adames and Max Fried (amongst others) have already found their new homes for the foreseeable future.

Many, including frontline starting pitcher Corbin Burnes, are still on the open market looking to land their next big contract. Burnes is easily the best remaining pitcher alongside the likes of Jack Flaherty, Charlie Morton, Kyle Gibson, Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw.

As you can see, most of the tier two starters are off the board with the drop-off between Burnes and the field being pretty dramatic.

It remains to be seen if Burnes, the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner, will sign his next contract before or after the upcoming holidays. The date is unclear, but the two rumored finalists for his services are not.

As of right now, the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants are the two clubs rumored to be finalists for Burnes. The right-hander is sure to command a deal for six or seven years and would be joining either one of these teams as their immediate staff ace.

Let’s break down the Blue Jays and Giants pitching situation and determine which one needs Burnes more in 2025 and beyond.

Toronto Blue Jays 2025 Starting Rotation

This past season, the Blue Jays had one of the worst pitching staffs in the league, but most of that was tied down to their atrocious bullpen. Their starting pitchers were 15th in the league in ERA through the first half of the season, but they improved that mark to 9th in the second half.

Most of the spots in their 2025 rotation are spoken for, but there’s definitely one spot that Burnes could fill.

• Kevin Gausman has been a rock-solid presence in the Blue Jays’ rotation for years now and he’s currently penciled in as their staff ace. The right-hander regressed a bit in 2024, posting a 3.83 ERA and 105 ERA+ after being at 3.16/2.97 the year before, but he’s still the leader of this staff. He still has multiple years of team control left, so his spot is secured for the foreseeable future.

• Dating back to 2017, Jose Berrios is one of three pitchers in all of baseball to have an ERA of 3.90 or lower and over 1300 innings pitched (Aaron Nola, Gerrit Cole – H/T MLBNerds on X). He’s been the face of durability and consistency, and his 2.95 second-half ERA in 2024 provides a lot of hope heading into ’25. Him and Gausman are the undisputed 1-2 of this rotation, and adding Burnes alongside them would make things borderline unfair.

• Chris Bassitt‘s spot in the rotation is where things start to get spotty. He, like Gausman and Berrios, is an ironman on the mound but his results have fallen off a bit. Last year, Bassitt went 10-14 with a 4.16 ERA and 97 ERA+. In many of his outings, especially in the second half, he visibly looked like he was losing steam. His 5.23 ERA across 12 second-half starts backs that up.

• Bowden Francis went from “just okay” swingman to one of the game’s best pitchers in the matter of a few months. After starting the year as an unproductive starter and reliever, he battled through and made some mechanical adjustments, only to come out on top. The right-hander had a sparkling 1.81 ERA in 10 second-half starts, which was second only to Blake Snell (min. 60 IP).

• Yariel Rodriguez looked decent in his first look in the big leagues, but he regularly struggled to go deep into games and projects as more of a long-term relief pitcher than anything else. The Blue Jays have considered the ‘pen to be his eventual landing spot since day one, and rumor has it they’re looking to make that move as early as this offseason.

Where Does Burnes Fit?

Gausman and Berrios are as close to “sure things” as you can find in this rotation. Bassitt has some uncertainty thanks to his age and second-half showing in 2024, while Francis has to prove that this past season wasn’t a fluke.

A signing of Burnes would allow the Blue Jays to shift Rodriguez to the bullpen and he’d immediately make the starting-five much, much stronger. With Burnes in tow, the Blue Jays would be one Bassitt rebound away from having one of the best starting rotations in baseball.

The Blue Jays have flexed some of their financial flexibility in recent years by being willing to toss ungodly amounts of money at Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. So far, they’ve only re-signed Yimi Garcia while missing out on every single other free-agent target of theirs. At this point, Ross Atkins and Co. need to cross their fingers Burnes lands in their laps, otherwise their seats become much, much hotter.

San Francisco Giants 2025 Starting Rotation

The Giants finished the 2024 campaign with the 18th-best starting pitcher ERA in the league – three spots behind the Blue Jays. Unlike the Blue Jays, the Giants lost their best pitcher – Blake Snell – in free agency and now have to desperately try to fill the void in their rotation that his departure left.

• Logan Webb has quietly been one of the best starters in baseball for years now. The right-hander has been a durable innings-eater and has led the NL in innings pitched two years in a row. In 2024, he made his second straight 33-start season and wound up with a 3.47 ERA, 2.95 FIP and 111 ERA+. He also made the first All-Star Game of his career while earning Cy Young votes for the third time.

• Robbie Ray is a wild-card, as he’s dealt with a slew of injuries that have kept him out of action since 2022. Time and time again, the left-hander has shown that he is capable of being an electric arm, but it’s just a matter of keeping him healthy for long periods of time. He made seven second-half starts for the Giants at the tail end of 2024, but he’s got a spot in this rotation waiting for him come 2025 no matter what.

• A reliever-turned-starter, Jordan Hicks should open the upcoming season in the Giants’ rotation for the second year in a row. The right-hander changed up his repertoire to give himself a better shot to succeed as a starter, and the results wound up being pretty solid. Hicks posted a 4.01 ERA across 20 starts before shifting back to the bullpen to finish out the year.

• Kyle Harrison was viewed as the league’s best left-handed pitching prospect in the not-so-distant past, but he has yet to turn that into much at the big league level. In his defense, he’s only made 31 starts in the big leagues, so he’s got plenty more time to turn things around. Harrison will be a part of the Opening Day rotation, but the Giants are understandably going to ask for a bit more out of him in year two of his career.

• Landen Roupp made his big league debut in 2024 and showed a ton of potential across four starts and 19 relief outings. He’s got a lengthy minor league track record of hit-prevention and knock-your-socks-off strikeout numbers, so there’s a good chance we see more of him out of the Giants’ rotation come 2025.

Where Does Burnes Fit?

Each of this quintet offers potential to help out the 2025 Giants, but each of the four behind Webb come with their fair share of warts. Ray is made of glass, Hicks may not be a full-time starter and Harrison and Roupp are still developing.

The fit for Burnes is very apparent when putting the Giants’ current situation into context. A Webb-Burnes 1-2 punch atop that rotation would feed families.

Which Team Needs Him More – Blue Jays or Giants?

Both the Giants and Blue Jays both majorly fell short of expectations in 2024, and both finished under .500. Still, they consider themselves to be in the midst of their latest contention windows, and both need Burnes atop their respective rotations.

That said, it’s hard to go against the Blue Jays here, as they’re desperately looking to make one last run with their Bo Bichette-Vladimir Guerrero Jr. core. The Giants have already made a huge splash this winter by landing Adames on a seven-year deal, but the Blue Jays have spun their tires and come away with next to nothing.

To prevent the fanbase from rioting, the Blue Jays fully, truly, desperately need Burnes. They need him more than the Giants do, but it’s a tight race. The Blue Jays have watched as their division rival Yankees signed Max Fried and the Red Sox traded for Garrett Crochet, so it’s time for them to land a big fish of their own.