Our long national nightmare is finally over. A.J. Burnett is officially a Pittsburgh Pirate.
I’ve never claimed to be an expert on the Pirates or their pitching situation, but I’m having a hard time understanding why they seemed to want to do this deal so badly.
News of this trade has been slowly building for what seems like weeks. After picking up Michael Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda, the Yankees clearly felt that Burnett was extra baggage, especially considering his 2010 and 2011 numbers.
On the other side, the Pirates were looking for veteran starting pitching. After missing out on Edwin Jackson and being turned down by Roy Oswalt, they set their sights on Burnett. Today they finally got their man, to the relief of many Yankees fans, I’m sure.
Burnett has always had a hard time in New York. While he has failed to live up to his 5-year, $82.5-million deal, it isn’t exactly fair to hold it against him. If anyone should take criticism, it should be the Yankee front office for giving him the money in the first place.
Burnett was brought in as part of a Yankee makeover that included CC Sabathia, Nick Swisher, and Mark Teixeira. He performed well in 2009, but wasn’t nearly worth the $16.5-million the team was paying him.
New York should have known what they were getting when they signed him. Burnett has always been a start-to-start pitcher, one that would either meltdown in the middle innings or have nearly unhittable stuff. The problem is that you never know which pitcher you’re going to get on any given day.
Yankees fans are bothered because they got exactly what they paid for, but assumed they were getting a solid number 2 that would further anchor their rotation. Of course, now they don’t have to worry about it.
As part of the deal, the Pirates have agreed to pay $13-million of Burnett’s remaining salary, while the Yankees pick up $20-million. New York also gets two minor leaguers, but no one that could be called a top prospect.
As I said above, I’m not sure exactly why the Pirates interest in Burnett was so strong.
His lifetime ERA is over 4.00 and his best year was probably 2008. If it’s a matter of finding someone to eat innings, somebody cheaper probably could have been found on the scrap heap. If they wanted veteran presence, they probably could have kicked the tires on someone like Kevin Millwood back in December.
If all Pittsburgh really wanted was a warm body, they overspent by a lot to get one.
Of course, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Burnett’s got something left in his arm. Maybe he’ll turn things around now that he won’t be constantly dissected by the New York media. Maybe he’ll be the pitcher the Yankees always wanted and lead the Pirates to their first winning season in nearly two decades.
Until we see more, though, it’s fair to say that all Pittsburgh’s done is help New York back out of a bad deal.
Press on, baseball fans.