Updated Post: Yanks Sign A.J. Burnett
Burnett Call Coming In 72 Hours (Or Less)…
Via Joel Sherman -
The Yankees and Braves are essentially in financial flat-footed tie in trying to land A.J. Burnett. Both have offered five years. The Yankees’ total package is just beyond $80 million. Atlanta has reached at least $80 million.
And the way the matter currently stands is that those are pretty much best and final offers, and Burnett must now decide whether he wants to go north or south from his Baltimore-area home to play the next five seasons. It is like the 1996 and 1999 World Series: Braves vs. Yankees. Well, the Yankees hope it is like that, since they won both of those Fall Classics.
One person involved in negotiations said he expects a decision by Burnett no later than Monday, but that there would be no surprise if it came as early as today.
$80 million for Burnett? Add that to the $46 million for Kei Igawa and the $40 million for Carl Pavano…and that’s $166 million spent on three pitchers where the money could have been better spent…
…or, look at it this way: Those three contracts would cover the cost of CC Sabathia’s deal.
I’ll say this Cashman. He’s got nerves of steel…
Update: Ken Rosenthal says the Yankees have signed A.J. Burnett to a 5-year, $82.5M deal.
You’ll get more analysis from me on this move later today. In the interim, what do you think of this move? Please feel free to add comments on your opinion in the comments section below.
uhhh…. unfortunately Burnett seems to have made up his mind.
According to espn.com:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3765754
Can someone explain to me how 5 years of AJ is better than 2 of Sheets?
This is comical. The Yanks get someone who is great against them and the Pox but sucks against everyone else. Tampa will school AJerk. What a bad signing and what a dumb organization. It looks like another lost season to me. Their priority should have been hitting BUT they idiotically overspend to get CC (hopefully for 3 years) and AJerk for 5(he will only pitch for maybe 1.5 of those years).
Teix should have been priority 1b after CC instead the inmates go after this soft asshole who couldn’t stand the heat of the Toronto press….AJerk will be ripped here in NYC for being the fool that he is AND for being Pavano part 2. What a terrible day in Yankee Empire…..the Empire has completely collapsed and now the Village idiot and a bunch of Huns run the show.
Steve, it’s either overpay for Burnett (it’s not even overpaying if he can remain healthy like he did last season) or not get him at all. Sheets is just as injury-prone, Lowe and Pettitte are old, and don’t tell me you want Perez. Overpay for Burnett or Sheets or stick with Alfredo Aceves in the rotation. You can’t actually think this move won’t help the Yankees…
I am completely against Burnett as well. He has never even pitched in the postseason. I think the teams number one priority should be a big bat in the lineup. Teixeira would be gold, even though that sounds like the time for that has come and gone…
butchie22: You’d have been happy with CC, Wang, Joba, followed by Aceves and Hughes, if we got Tex?
NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO!
FOX NEWS is reporting that they signed 5 for 82.5. WTF HAPPENED TO LOWE? MANNY? TEIXEIRA? ANYONE BUT BURNETT?
steve – do you remember what your thoughts were when we signed pavano to a 4/40 deal? i remember thinking we were getting a 28 year old coming off back to back 200+ inning seasons with average and excellent production, finishing 5th in NL cy young voting the year before. i also remember beating out 4-5 teams to get him, and being happy that we got a guy who, even if not outstanding in the AL, seemed like he was ready to slot into a 2/3 hole in the rotation.
were you sure it was going to be such a disaster back then? if not, it’s tough to criticize cashman for that move. nobody can predict the future. just like it is unfair to give cashman to much credit when guys work out, because he didn’t “know” that was going to be the case. you have to take educated risks and hope that more work out than others. but very tough to say, unless you knew (which i’m interested to hear) that pavano was going to be a disaster, that cashman flushed 40 mil. it just isn’t fair.
~~You can’t actually think this move won’t help the Yankees…~~
Dunno. Have to think about it.
Maybe Lowe is the better way…would have to noodle that for a while…
~~do you remember what your thoughts were when we signed pavano to a 4/40 deal?~~
It was something like: Let the buyer beware.
http://www.netshrine.com/vbulletin2/showthread.php?t=16185
This was the correct move. Yes, Burnett is injury prone, but he’s averaged 26 games started the past five seasons and the lowest single-season number was 19. He’s also put up a sub-4 average ERA in the AL East over the past three seasons, which is way more impressive than Lowe’s bull**** NL West ERA, in my opinion. Also, Burnett is 31, Lowe is 36. Good move Cashman, now just lock up Pettitte and then let’s play ball.
Mrs. Rabbit: Thumper!
Thumper: Yes, mama?
Mrs. Rabbit: What did your father tell you this morning?
Thumper: [clears throat] If you can’t say something nice… don’t say nothing at all.
Therefore, I shall say nothing.
Being optimistic, I hope there’s incentives and/or an opt out clause.
At the very least, we’ll see some of the young arms in the system when Burnett goes on the shelf.
MJ: wanna give up some of them tickets?
27th are you paying attention? Ajerk had problems with media lite Toronto(which is a hockey town). He couldn’t handle the pressure there ,what makes you think he’ll handle the deluge of negative press here? He won’t, he’ll buckle under the pressure. BTW Ajerk was fired at the end of the 2005 season in Florida. AND 5 years for someone who is Pavano Jr with a touch of Milton Bradley? You’re kidding right? BTW, Ajerk has never even pitched in the playoffs, Pavano at least did and excelled! Can we say Ajerk clubhouse cancer and unreliable…….. In Toronto, he had a great comfort level because he had his Marlin’s pitching coach Arnsberg there. Now,
As I have stated many times, the Yanks had a bad year offensively. A great even good front office makes those adjustments. Instead they are obsessed with pitching? Someone like Teixeira is tailor made for the Yanks but they want Ajerk. Last year their middling rotation wasn’t that bad BUT their offense absolutely sucked! Jeter was in the top five of GIDP for last season. They need a couple of clutch hitters. They should have attacked on all fronts not just pitching. Whatta bunch of fools…..
Does this help the Yanks? NO, because their offense still sucks AND they want Sheets,too? Look 2 years of Sheets is better than 5 years of Ajerk because that is a high risk/high reward situation. Ajerk has never won more than 12 games in his career until last year. He is never healthy, how does that help the Yankees? They will have to look for Ponson types again because of AJerk and if Sheets come on board. And once again, he was injured during the 2003 magical Marlins season and didn’t pitch in the playoffs. And who thinks that CC might get hurt,too?
All in all, another bad pickup for the Yankees who are outspending everyone and making themselves a bloated superstar team with mercenaries like CC and Ajerk! Hopefully, Cash Man will finally lose his job when and if they flop this year. That is the silver lining to this cloud…
Ajerk had problems with media lite Toronto(which is a hockey town). He couldn’t handle the pressure there ,what makes you think he’ll handle the deluge of negative press here?
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Seeing as he performed above league average during his time in Toronto (115, 119, 105 ERA+), I don’t think “handling the Toronto media” was that much of a problem.
I’ll say this Cashman. He’s got nerves of steel…
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Or is stubborn like a mule…
I still think Burnett is a solid pitcher with the potential to be better than that.
When he’s healthy.
I was discussing this very topic at another Yankee website, and someone who actually bothered to count that if you begin with the notion that a top of the rotation starter will make about 34 starts a season, on average, the total number of starts Burnett has “missed” over the last 5 years is about 39, or a little more than one season’s worth.
That’s not very good, as it means that he missed anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 the season in 3 of the last 5 years, but it’s not really anything like what Pavano pulled in the last 4 years (To be accurate, Burnett “missed” roughly 23% of his starts the last 5 years, while Pavano missed 80% of his starts in his 4-year deal with the Yanks, and about 91% in the last 3 of those years.)
Poor Poor signing… CC, Burnett, Wang, Joba .. Joba has to prove he can stay healthy as a starter… Burnett.. theres no way he stays healthy 5 years… Wang.. we donno how effective hes gonnab post rehab and CC.. i hope he puts some thought abt fitness… this rotation if healthy can be good… but it has a chance of being unhealthy and injury prone…
Raf, you don’t seem to be paying attention. Do you just watch YES, WCBS’s games and that’s it? The newspapers in Toronto and the Fan 590 (the radio game broadcasts and Mike Wilner, their blogger and talk show hosts) have documented how much of a cancer he has been. Cito even said that Burnett has better stuff than Burnett but mentally he is not as good. Raf, once again you take the irrelevant and try to make a habitually contrarian point. BAD JOB, this time. AJerk is an asshole AND part of the reason that he has been on the DL has been his selfishness. My point (which passed you by) is that he was in a non savage media market and he was/had a problem there. And you have the gall to mention ERA? The chump was injured the first two years years in soft media market Toronto and they were not that critical. That’s great that his ERA was so low, but he was injured too! After two years of his bullshit, he will be begging for a trade after Sherman and Co rip him a new one. Ricciardi even made a crack about his ability to pitch and be healthy in 2007. When does a GM slag one of his star signings? Then Again Jp says a lot of things, unlike Cash Man who spews out the typical GM speak.
My favorite thing will be when the Yankee shills like Waldman,Kay, Sterling and Jones start the reheated Pavano Jokes. Evan, your point about AJerk is nice, but the Yanks don’t need someone injury prone even if he misses 23% of his games. AJerk has never pitched in the playoffs so did he deserve this 5 for 80 something salary based on one year of 18 wins?No! Only two teams were vying for his services and one was stupid enough to sign him. Sweeney Murty mentioned that a lot of GMS and baseball people were worried about his injury history (many teams were not that impressed with his work as a whole) AND that is why basically two teams wanted him. Evan , even when he is healthy , he wasn’t that dominating against the rest of the AL. He was mediocre at best. BTW Pavano missed that much time when he was on the Yankees, wait until AJerk hits NYC and see Pavano look successful by comparison. He will melt under the pressure.
In essence, this will be another Cash Man blowup. He keeps on wasting time and money on the wrong adjustments time and time again. Third place is looking real good this year again…..
I meant that Cito said that Burnett had better stuff than Halladay but his head is not as on straight.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/aj-burnett-to-the-yankees
also,
Matt (Yardley, PA): I’m with Bryan. Burnett to me is Pavano ver2.0.
SportsNation Keith Law: Not even close. Pavano in the NL in his only two healthy years, right before signing with the Yanks: 423 IP, 272 K’s, 35 HR allowed. That’s in a big ballpark, facing opposing pitchers to boost his K total. Burnett, in the AL East, in a slight hitters’ park, last two years: 387 IP, 407 Ks, 42 HR. You can’t make a performance argument that he’s like Pavano. You can’t make a health argument that he’s like Pavano (who was hurt in some part of every year until his sixth season). You definitely can’t make a stuff argument that he’s like Pavano. That’s a completely unfair tag to place on Burnett.
Five years of Burnett is ridiculously stupid. He’ll be 32 next year – that’s guaranteed to be a terrible contract long before it ends. If he’s pitching that is. And if this means that the Yanks won’t be involved in Teix, than this a red-letter day for Red Sox fans everywhere.
Butchie is right about his attitude.He had a bad rap with the Marlins too. He once trashed the management and the coaches in the newspapers in 2005 after a game. He is going to have a meltdown with the media and the fans. Once he got booed by the fans when he had a bad game against the Orioles and he tiped his hat to them. The Yankees are going to regret this contract.
Geez, you guys, I know the memory of Pavano is fresh in our minds, but not every free agent with a history of health problems is going to be another Pavano. I’m pretty shocked at all this negative reaction considering how good Burnett is and that our alternative option was signing Derek Lowe through age 40.
No, I think your option was helping the offense long-term by blowing away the competition for Teixeira, while filling out the rotation with Pettitte & Sheets. Then you can think about the long-term pitching options when you really know whether or not you’ve got something in Hughes and Kennedy.
If the answer is Burnett it was probably a stupid question.
I found this in one of the Blue Jays blog.
I can’t blame AJ for getting injured because each time he has been injured doing his job. He didn’t do anything stupid to get injured like punch a bat, he just threw hard which is what he’s being paid to do.
Love hate relationship with the fans? You mean the fans booing him after he’s had a rough outing and him tipping his hat? Not only did he apologize for that but it was such a non issue. I’m pretty sure he was more frustrated with himself than all the people in the stadium combined. That is one of the reasons I suspect he would want to leave. Toronto fans and especially media have been busting his chops since he arrived here. He finally gives us the year we’ve been asking for and still people give him crap. What more does the man have to do.
The comment he made about playing for the Cubs was also blown out of proportion. Not his fault reporters are vultures. He just answered a question and good for him letting it roll off his shoulders.
Raf, once again you take the irrelevant and try to make a habitually contrarian point.
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This is what you wrote genius;
“27th are you paying attention? Ajerk had problems with media lite Toronto(which is a hockey town). He couldn’t handle the pressure there ,what makes you think he’ll handle the deluge of negative press here? He won’t, he’ll buckle under the pressure.”
You ramble about how AJ Burnett can’t handle the media, and how the media here is going to eat him alive here, I merely pointed out that if Burnett has a problem with the media, it’s not showing up in his stats.
Try to keep up.
Raf:
1) At the very least, we’ll see some of the young arms in the system when Burnett goes on the shelf.
2) MJ: wanna give up some of them tickets?
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1) Doubtful. The Yanks just closed the door on the young pitchers. This is their way of saying that it’s better to go back to 1980′s style management. I doubt very much if we ever see a young Yankee again (at least until the reactionary brass reverts course again).
2) Yes. I don’t want to give out my email address on here but if you can figure out a way for us to get in touch, I’ll sell.
Doubtful. The Yanks just closed the door on the young pitchers.
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I’ll believe it when Chamberlain, Kennedy & Hughes are traded.
As for the tickets, as we get closer to the season, I’ll drop you a line.
I’d like in on that as well (if you don’t mind of course)