Burnett – Who’s To Blame?
Via Joel Sherman today -
This is A.J. Burnett, so of course it did not work out how the Yankees imagined.
The Yankees did not want to give him more than a four-year contract because he was a health risk. But once the Braves offered a fifth year, the Yankees blinked, convincing themselves to do so largely because they thought Burnett could excel in the AL East.
Now he is being traded to the Pirates, and his greatest asset is, of all things, his durability. Meanwhile, the Yankees felt forced to move him because of his problems within the AL East, notably against Boston. After three years in New York, it is obvious Burnett is much more a Pittsburgh and NL Central kind of guy.
The five-year, $82.5 million contract was a mistake — though not a Kei Igawa or Carl Pavano kind of mistake. Burnett at least had some high moments, namely Game 2 of the 2009 World Series. And no matter how much derision he received in the media or from the crowd, he kept taking the ball, didn’t fake his way to the disabled list or beg out of starts.
Injury-ravaged early in his career, Burnett had managed to start 32 or more times just twice before doing so in each of his three Yankees seasons. His 98 starts in that time frame were the 11th most in the majors, tied with Tim Lincecum and Ubaldo Jimenez.
But Burnett’s worst enemy receives his paychecks. He does about everything possible to diminish his effectiveness. He walks too many, throws too many wild pitches, hits too many batters, does not control a running game. He fights his mechanics and his confidence. He never fully developed a third pitch or anything recognizable as pitching IQ, so as some vitality drained from his fastball, Burnett too often was weaponless, especially against AL East foes.
One reason the Yankees conned themselves into the five-year contract was because Burnett was 5-0 with a 2.56 ERA in eight starts against Boston. But as a Yankee he was 1-4 with a 7.29 ERA in 10 starts against the Red Sox. The rules of engagement in The Bronx forbid such failure against the chief rival.
But it wasn’t just the Red Sox. Burnett figured out how to be an under-.500 pitcher (34-35) for a Yankees team that over the past three years won more (295) and lost less (191) than any other club.
So he had to go.
Typical. When a player move bombs in the Bronx, it’s “The Yankees” who failed. But, when something works out, “Brian Cashman” gets all the credit.
We should all have this skill/gift when it comes to workplace performance.
The premise/article is flawed. There’s no reason to assign blame for the Burnett signing. They wanted Burnett, they signed him. They didn’t want him for whatever reason, someone else did, they got rid of him.
The Angels, Indians, Pirates were all in on Burnett, with the Pirates eventually winding up with him. He has value despite the bad season he had last year.
Burnett was signed to a reasonable contract. It wasn’t a mistake by any stretch of the imaginiation.
It wasn’t a mistake?? The guy was a .500 pitcher except his walk yr in Toronto when he went 18-10. So, the Yanks (Cashman for you, Steve) sign him to a 5 yr $82 mill contract! What was he for the Yanks? A .500 pitcher. Please.
When I read the headline of the post – who’s to blame, my thought was anyone but AJ if you asked him. It was always Jorge, then the coach. Who was left after these 2 were gone?
Cashman and the Yanks are fortunate to be able to carry these expensive mistakes. They have i huge one now, Arod, and CC will be one as he ages into that expensive contract extension.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/free-agent-values-aj-burnett/
How much should teams spend for Burnett’s future, though? Let’s go through the calculations one more time.
Thanks to the new Marcel projections that were just added to the site last night, we can estimate Burnett’s 2009 performance pretty easily. Marcel projects him at 187 innings with a 3.87 FIP for next year, but we’ll round that to 190 innings and a 3.90 FIP just to make the math easier. Once again, we’re going to use a 5.50 FIP as replacement level for a starter and cap his innings at 160, and use a 4.50 FIP as replacement level for a reliever, who will make up the 30 inning difference. So here are the totals that we’re projecting:
Burnett: 190 innings, 82 runs allowed
Replacement Level Starter: 160 innings, 98 runs allowed
Replacement Level Reliever: 30 innings, 15 runs allowed
We’re projecting the replacement level pitchers to allow 113 runs, or 31 more than what we’re projecting for Burnett. That would translate to +3 wins for whoever signs him. We can once again add a bit of a bonus to account for his extra innings saving the bullpen, so let’s call Burnett a +3.3 win pitcher.
3.3 wins * 5.5 million per win = $18.15 million in projected 2009 value. We again factor in a 10% discount rate to make up for the fact that he’s going to get a long term deal, and that gives us an annual average value of $16.4 million. Given Burnett’s history, it’s unlikely he’ll get more than four or five years. That puts his projected contract at 4 years/$66 million or 5 years/$82 million.
Burnett signed a five year $82.5 million contract, with an AAV of $16.5M…
Doh!
blockquote, instead of quote…
oops!
Raf wrote:
Good catch finding that article. In addition, the Braves, you know the “pitching guru” Braves, made the same judgement, and were the Yanks main competition for AJ at the time. Several news outlets reported that they offered Burnett an $80 million deal for 5 years, with the fifth year not guaranteed, but an “easily reachable” option. In the end the Yanks guaranteed the 5th year, and threw in an extra half-million a year, and got him.
The Braves then signed the next best alternative on the free agent market that year, which was Derek Lowe at $15 million a year for 4 years.
Those were the choices. Or let Hughes, Kennedy (and later in the season, Joba) sink or swim again, as they did in 2008.
AJ had averaged 4.1 WAR above replacement over his 8 seasons in the big leagues when the Yanks signed him, and was coming off the best season of his career, WAR-wise (5.5 fWAR). He was also turning 31, and was just reaching the decline phase of his career. As a general rule, power pitchers decline more slowly, because they start out with “more stuff to lose” as pitchers age and lose stuff. In his case, because he was essentially a 2-pitch pitcher, when he lost the high-quality fastball, he was done as any sort of elite starter.
Was this predictable? Maybe. But the Yanks wanted another top free agent starter, there was nobody better, and they had competition for him. They looked at their choices and took the gamble most likely to work. It just didn’t work for as long as they figured.
Steve L. wrote:
I’m not a Cashman fan, but I don’t think he’s to blame here or even if anyone is to blame. Sometimes you can do a lot of things right, you can make a decision that makes a lot of sense, but sometimes it doesn’t work out like you expected.
It’s like doing this great design for some web portal, but you didn’t take into account one big feature users wanted. Sometimes things just don’t work out, I don’t see how this is a “Cashman Fail!”
Blah, blah, blah….
Blame/no blame game stuff aside, I’m glad he’s gone. We got one decent year out of him and a ring with him on the roster. Since then, on balance he was less than good and sometimes awful. I rarely thought we had a good chance to win on his start days over the past two years, and I figured we were going to burn up some bullpen most of the time. We are better now, we’ve got depth, youngin’s ready to knock on the door, and we’ve trimmed some payroll.
The question for me is how does this pitching staff (1 through 5 starters and 1-4 in the pen) rank against the rest of the league (I think pretty damn good), and how does it rank compared to other Yankee staffs over the past 30-35 years (I think pretty damn good)! I think this pitching staff is good enough to make, and succeed in, the playoffs. Good on the organization for constructing this staff. For me the year will come down to 1) how A-Rod and Tex’s bats perform, 2) can we get another year out of Jeter like the second half of last year, and 3) can Grandy, Swish and Gardy, combined, give us what they gave us last year?
i just don’t get all this blame stuff.
the yanks have been in the playoffs every year but one since, what, 1995? five world series titles, i think. seven series appearances.
and brian cashman does’t get enough “blame”? sheesh.