Brewers legend reveals his prediction for 2025 NL Cy Young

The 2025 season is just a few days away and experts have started making their predictions for the upcoming season. Former Milwaukee Brewers star Dan Plesac also made a prediction, picking his early winner for the National League Cy Young Award.

While MLB teams are nearing the last leg of the Spring Training games, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs will officially start the 2025 season with a two-game series in Tokyo.

Plesac, a Brewers legend and MLB analyst, highlighted some of the best performing aces in Spring Training in his "Dan's Hand" on MLB Network. The former All-Star pitcher picked Arizona Diamondbacks' offseason signing Corbin Burnes as the NL Cy Young frontrunner for the 2025 season.

"The next guy for me is my pick to win the National League Cy Young award, Corbin Burnes," Plesac said. "This guy figured it out about four years ago. He added that cutter to his mix. He's a big game pitcher. He was dependable for the Orioles. I don't know where the Orioles would have been without Corbin Burnes."

Burnes elected for free agency at the end of the 2024 season with the Baltimore Orioles. The Diamondbacks made a surprise move by signing the former Cy Young winner on a $210 million, six-year contract in late December.

"The baseball world and I were shocked when he signed with the Diamondbacks. Remember when they pulled the same trick about seven years ago when they signed Zach Greinke?"

Corbin Burnes reveals teams interested in him during the offseason

While the Diamondbacks pulled a major coup by signing one of the most dominant pitchers in the league over the last five years, Arizona faced competition from several teams in Corbin Burnes' free agency.

According to the former Cy Young winner, the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants and the Orioles were all in the running for his services this offseason.

"Two teams (had) very similar offers, both in the AL East, in Baltimore and Boston," Burnes said on Foul Territory. "The Giants kind of hung around... Toronto was there, I mean, I couldn't give you a close second just because the number-one team on our list and where we wanted to be was here.

"But there (were) definitely some teams listed among those four that had some big offers out, not necessarily beating what I got, but some good, competitive offers."

Corbin Burnes won his only Cy Young award in 2021 but has been contending for the top pitching prize for the last three seasons. He finished fifth in the AL Cy Young standings last season with Detroit's Tarik Skubal winning the accolade.