New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

[IlliniM1ke]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

From Ken Rosenthal:

Posted: 21 minutes ago



DALLAS - Around the lobby at the winter meetings:

The Blue Jays received a new contract proposal late Sunday night from Darek Braunecker, the representative for free-agent right-hander A.J. Burnett. The Jays and Cardinals are believed to be the leading contenders for Burnett. If the Jays increase their five-year offer from $50 million to $60 million, it could distance them from the Cardinals, who reportedly have offered Burnett a four-year deal for just under $40 million. The Rangers, Mariners and Nationals remain on the fringes of the Burnett sweepstakes.

[theaub]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

From Ken Rosenthal:

Posted: 21 minutes ago



DALLAS - Around the lobby at the winter meetings:

The Blue Jays received a new contract proposal late Sunday night from Darek Braunecker, the representative for free-agent right-hander A.J. Burnett. The Jays and Cardinals are believed to be the leading contenders for Burnett. If the Jays increase their five-year offer from $50 million to $60 million, it could distance them from the Cardinals, who reportedly have offered Burnett a four-year deal for just under $40 million. The Rangers, Mariners and Nationals remain on the fringes of the Burnett sweepstakes.

Yikes...I wouldn't want to go that far. Maybe 55 million.

[Nivek]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Yikes...I wouldn't want to go that far. Maybe 55 million.

11 million a year is insane for a #2 guy, how much is Doc getting a year? I know he signed an extension last year.

[remix]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Burnett's agent wants to raise it up to a 5-yr $60 mil contract? Is that guy nuts? Halladay signed a 4-yr $42 million contract after winning the friggin CY Young award in 2003. Burnett doesn't even have a winning record..

[CoRruPt-]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

11 million a year is insane for a #2 guy, how much is Doc getting a year? I know he signed an extension last year.

Something like 10.5M a year. I might be wrong though.

[theaub]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Burnett's agent wants to raise it up to a 5-yr $60 mil contract? Is that guy nuts? Halladay signed a 4-yr $42 million contract after winning the friggin CY Young award in 2003. Burnett doesn't even have a winning record..

If the Jays sign him to that contract, I will be very upset to say the least.

[IlliniM1ke]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Burnett update from ESPN
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2248966

I wish he would just sign with someone already

[Yosemite Dan]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

What I am missing here? Why the hell is J.P. opening the vault to a #3 pitcher with prior arm trouble and an attitude? Newsflash J.P. get some friggin hitters. The Jays pitching is fine. The team ERA was in the upper part of the league even with all the injuries last year and the only real problem was a closer and that's been taken care of already with someone being overpaid.

Halladay will have a full season, Chacin is poised to become a #2 pitcher and Lilly should bounce back to be at least a .500 pitcher. They have Towers, Batista and McGowen and other good young arms to shore up the 4th and 5th spot. That's a pretty damn good staff right there. They sure have better pitching than the Yankees and Red Sox right now. You can all say that you can't have enough pitching but scoring 1 or 2 runs a game only ensures the pitchers you have better all be Cy Young worthy day in day out which is highly unlikely from guys like A.J. The Jays power hitting is putrid and is nowhere near what the Braves used to have.

As soon as pitching coach Arnsberger gets fired (they always do), A.J. will get his attitude back and his wife will be carping in his ear about living in Canada and we are gonna pay 11 Mil over 5 years for this. We don't need another Antonio Davis here. Once was enough.

The Jays have enough trade bait with Hudson and prospects to get a semi-decent power hitter or 2 which will instantly make Wells a more valuable player.

What is it about the air in Toronto that make all our GM's ********. Signing A.J. will be the worst mistake since Bill Caudill. The Cards can have him. Move on J.P. Forget about Zito too.

[SPTO]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Look the most i'm willing to spend for AJ is 55 mil over 5 years. If i'm JP i'd tell Brunnecker to F off and look for cheaper pitching and bats.

BTW Dan I think Arnsberg will be here for a while yet. He seems to have a good working relationship with the pitchers and Gibbons. I don't see the criticisms that he recieved while in Florida but then again it's only been a year or so.

If the Jays indeed sign Burnett for 60 mils over 5 years i'll be one very upset Jays fan.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

For the most part I don't understand why fans get so pissed off about proposed contracts for FA's. It's not your money.

The question that has to be asked is does AJ improve the Jays?

The answer is yes.

Whether he gets 50 or 55mil, it doesn't make a big difference to me.

The Jays have enough arms to try to swing a few deals for bats.

People love to point to his career sub .500 w/l record but if you look closely at his numbers, they are excellent. Frankly I'm surprised why his ERA isn't around the 3.00 mark. His strikes a lot of batters out, is a groundball pitcher, and doesn't give up a lot of homers.

NL pitchers moving to the AL usually see a spike in the ERA (i.e. Clement) because they face the DH instead of the pitcher, but I still think AJ will be successful next season. Some people worry about his health, but he has pitched more innings in the past 2 seasons combined than Doc.

[Yosemite Dan]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Look the most i'm willing to spend for AJ is 55 mil over 5 years. If i'm JP i'd tell Brunnecker to F off and look for cheaper pitching and bats.

BTW Dan I think Arnsberg will be here for a while yet. He seems to have a good working relationship with the pitchers and Gibbons. I don't see the criticisms that he recieved while in Florida but then again it's only been a year or so.

If the Jays indeed sign Burnett for 60 mils over 5 years i'll be one very upset Jays fan.

T.O. Why spend 55 mil for this guy. The Jays are caught up in the hype because of the lack of free agents this year. Best case scenario he gets 15 wins and that's with great run support. Is that worth 11 mil a year. With our anemic offense I'd say he gets 12 wins and that's hoping he stays healthy. Chacin as a rookie got that many wins and he got lousy run support last year.

Burnett is not strong mentally and he gets streaky as a result. We need consistent starts from our pitching when you can't score and the Jays wouldn't even be looking at him if it wasn't for the Arnsberg\Burnett love affair which has ruined thier objectivity. This guy has always been a .500 pitcher and I don't see how that's going to change now. Every guy has potential but you don't see any teams paying 11 Mil for that, even the Yanks only overpay for established players, most of the time they're long in the tooth.

This guy reminds me of Matt Clement, oh so average pitcher at the right place at the right time. If it wasn't for the Bosox run support Clement would have struggled to get 10 wins last year. There's a reason why there are only 2 teams serious about signing this clown, all the other teams look at his asking price and

[SPTO]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Well when you have money you have to make a gamble. This would be the biggest risk that JP could make. It could either go great or go bad. If Burnett does well and the Jays make a run at the playoffs then JP will look like a genius.

[Yosemite Dan]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

For the most part I don't understand why fans get so pissed off about proposed contracts for FA's. It's not your money.

The question that has to be asked is does AJ improve the Jays?

The answer is yes.

Whether he gets 50 or 55mil, it doesn't make a big difference to me.

The Jays have enough arms to try to swing a few deals for bats.

People love to point to his career sub .500 w/l record but if you look closely at his numbers, they are excellent. Frankly I'm surprised why his ERA isn't around the 3.00 mark. His strikes a lot of batters out, is a groundball pitcher, and doesn't give up a lot of homers.

NL pitchers moving to the AL usually see a spike in the ERA (i.e. Clement) because they face the DH instead of the pitcher, but I still think AJ will be successful next season. Some people worry about his health, but he has pitched more innings in the past 2 seasons combined than Doc.

The Jays aren't the Yankees we can't afford to spend 55 Mil to experiment. The Jays hit like a national league team so that spike in his ERA isn't going to get him any more wins. Yeah it's not my money but as a fan I'm sick of hearing excuses of shaving payroll in the future because we have albatross contracts that handcuff us. The guy was .500 last year with a better team in Florida and totally tanked the 2nd half of the season.

J.P. is so blinded with this guy that he didn't even know Beckett was available whose cheaper and better and lacks the skill to try and get a cleanup hitter thru a trade.Hell they should of went after Delagado at least the team would have improved with him batting clean up protecting Wells. With A.J. I don't see how we really improve.

[SPTO]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Hell they should of went after Delagado at least the team would have improved with him batting clean up protecting Wells. With A.J. I don't see how we really improve.

Hell would've frozen over if JP made an offer to Delgado. The guy gets lynched by some fans for letting Carlos go. It'd be like admitting that he was wrong if here to offer to trade for CD.

[Yosemite Dan]

Re: New Burnett info- Looks like it's down to Jays and Cards

Well when you have money you have to make a gamble. This would be the biggest risk that JP could make. It could either go great or go bad. If Burnett does well and the Jays make a run at the playoffs then JP will look like a genius.

The Jays won't be making the playoffs when you have your best hitter not even getting 30HR-100RBI and is streaky, your lazy RF hits single digit homeruns, LF's are scrubs, 3B is a .250 hitter whose injury prone and your 1B would have trouble hitting college pitching. Oh yeah and who is the DH this week? When's the last time a team was playoff bound with that lineup?