Milwaukee Brewers: 3 Bright spots from tough 2020 season
By Kenny Jilek
Corbin Burnes
About a month ago, when Burnes reentered the rotation, I stated that he had Cy Young stuff. Did I expect that he would actually be in the Cy Young race this season? No, I did not, but he’s always had the pitches to make it a possibility.
He is currently leading the National League in ERA, Fielding independent pitching (FIP), hits allowed per nine innings, and strikeouts per nine innings. Translation: He’s really really good at getting guys out. Also, if you like Fangraphs’ calculation of Wins Above Replacement, he’s leading all National League pitchers in that category as well.
Corbin Burnes’ success has been due to a few things, but a couple of them are two basically new pitches that he developed in the Milwaukee Brewers’ pitching lab at their Arizona facility, the sinker, and cutter.
The sinker, instead of a traditional four-seam fastball, has done wonders for his problem last season of giving up home runs. He gave up 13 home runs off the fastball in 2019. He’s only given up one off the sinker, which dives down and in to a right-handed hitter, which makes it a lot harder to hit out of the yard than a straight fastball.
The cutter, along with its slightly slower counterpart, the slider, has been Burnes’ best strikeout pitch this season. His slider was talked about as one of the best in the league last season, and now he’s got one of the fastest cutters in the major leagues, which he uses to overpower hitters. He’s also kept the slider in his arsenal as an option to keep hitters off-balance with the changing of speeds.
Speaking of changing speeds, he’s throwing his changeup a lot more, 11 percent of his pitches compared to just 4.1 percent last season. It’s given him a pitch that breaks away from lefties, and he uses his cutter to hit the outside corner to left-handed hitters as well. He’s put all of these pitches together to form a wicked repertoire of pitches that leave hitters shaking their heads in disbelief.