The World Series Champ
A former teammate of current Blue Jay and future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer, Corbin helped the Nationals win the 2019 World Series alongside Scherzer.
Corbin had an incredible 2019 performance in the Nationals’ World Series-winning season, going 14-7 with a 3.25 ERA with 238 strikeouts in 202.0 innings. It was good enough to garner him an 11th-place finish in NL Cy Young voting.
In the postseason, Corbin made three starts for the Nats and appeared out of their bullpen five times to help them take home the World Series title. In Game 7 of the 2019 World Series, Corbin fired off three shutout innings in relief of Scherzer to finish off a strong season.
Corbin was one of five pitchers to tally at least 10.0 fWAR between 2018 and 2019, trailing only four Cy Young Award-winning arms in DeGrom, Scherzer, Cole, and Verlander. At his peak, Corbin was a force to be reckoned with, and he’s looked for a return to the postseason ever since the Nats’ 2019 title.
In fact, he hasn’t been a part of a team with more than 81 wins since that year, so joining the Blue Jays is beneficial for Corbin, too.
Before the 2019 season, Corbin inked a six-year, $140 million deal with the Nationals that ended up being — aside from his great 2019 season — one of the worst contracts of the last decade. Simply put, things just got difficult for Corbin going forward.
Now the burden of this contract is off his back, and his $1 million price tag makes accepting his role as a depth option more believable for both sides.
The Transformation
From 2021-2024, Corbin was one of, if not the worst pitcher in MLB. Over this span, he sported the following average rates: 5.71 ERA, 170.0 IP, 134 K, 31 HR, and 1.53 WHIP. He led all pitchers in earned runs surrendered in 2021, 2022, and 2024 and gave up the most hits in baseball in 2020, 2022, and 2024 including 13+ losses in all of these years.