Burnett traded to Pirates

Well after several days of speculation the Yankees and Pirates completed a trade that sent AJ Burnett to the Pirates in exchange for $13 Million in salary relief and two small time prospects. The deal had seems to work for both sides as the Pirates provide $13 million in salary relief and get a starter who can eat 200 innings from the Yankees who have too many starters and need to clear some salary. The Pirates will pay $5 million this year and $8 million next year, leaving the Yankees to pay the remaining $20 million. The Yankees will get Outfielder Exicardo Cayones and Right-hander Diego Moreno, they are both the ultimate blah prospects and neither have a very high ceiling. This now clears up the 5th starter question as it will be a direct competition between Hughes and Garcia with the loser getting the long relief role. It appears that the Yankees will use this money to sign Raul Ibanez as the Left handed half of the DH platoon and resign Eric Chavez.

Burnett may not have endeared himself to Yankees fans the last two years as he had two of the worst statistical seasons for a Yankees starter ever, but the Yankees probably would not have won in 2009 without him especially his amazing game two.

Yankees trying to trade Burnett

The Yankees are trying to move AJ Burnett and the only team that has been reported to have any interest is the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have been trying all offseason to get a pitcher and they really have had no luck in attracting any free agents. They offered Edwin Jackson a three year $30 million deal and he turned it down for a one year deal in Washington, Roy Oswalt has also told them that he has no interest in signing with them. This is really the only reason they are looking at Burnett as his ability to eat innings would be very useful for the team and they would probably hope that a move to an easier league would make him pitch better. The Yankees are willing to pay a substantial part of the $33 million that Burnett is owed over the next two years, but they want a player in return and reportedly asked the Pirates for Garret Jones. Jones would fill the Yankees need at lefty smashing DH and can still play 1^st base and the corner outfield. Even though Jones is going to be turning 31 in June he still has three years of team control after 2012 and is one of the Pirates few decent bats so it seems unlikely that they will acquire him. However the Yankees and Pirates are still negotiating and a deal can still get done, I think the Yankees will keep trying for Jones but if they can not get him they will probably ask for a player like Brad Lincoln who can either start or relive and who the Yankees almost acquired for Francisco Cervelli last season.

Other than the Pirates Burnett has not been linked to anyone, but the Orioles are a possibility even though he probably would be worse with them than he has been with the Yankees. However some of Dan Duquette’s moves this offseason have been questionable and he could pull out a trade like this.

A.J Burnett for Mark Reynolds: In idea that will never happen but I will write about anyway

Without AJ Burnett the Yankees never would have won the world series in 2009 but he has been beyond bad the last two years and he still has two years left on his contract. The Yankees have better options in their rotation than him and they have been hoping to dump him on somebody else all off season, especially now that the Yankees have a logjam for the 5th starter. The idea is that the Yankees will try and trade Hughes or Burnett for a DH type who can platoon with Andruw Jones. River ave blues had a list of possible trade candidates and one that I thought might warrant some consideration is Mark Reynolds.
Now to be clear this deal is very unlikely to happen but the Orioles are faced with the issue of having two first baseman and one of them they are paying $7.5 million and the other isn't arbitration eligible for another year. The Orioles have no shot of contending and they wanted to have Reynolds play 3rd but his defense was so bad that he had to be moved to 1st. Reynolds was traded to Baltimore last offseason and has led the league in strike outs the last four seasons. He can however mash the ball and has hit 158 home runs in his five seasons including 37 last year. He is a right handed bat but he hits right handers a bit better than left handers. Reynolds would be good to have for the DH spot especially since he is a free agent after this year. The problem though is that the only way the Yankees would add Reynolds is if they traded AJ Burnett and unfortunately its very doubtful that he will get traded this season especially not to the Orioles who have enough mediocre pitching. Its also the fact that the Orioles don't like trading in the division and it doesn't make any sense for them to trade Reynolds and take on all of Burnett's salary especially since they won't be contending this season. Its a nice idea but it wont happen.

The Case for doing nothing

The Yankees have been linked to numerous free agents and trade candidates this winter but all they have done so far is resign Freddy Garcia. There are still some free agents out there and the Yankees could still trade for a starter, but the Yankees could very well end up doing what they unintentionally did last year which was stand pat. The Yankees already have five starters in CC, Hughes, Nova, Burnett and Garcia  and they also have plenty of depth at AAA with Warren, Phelps, Noesi and Mitchell all ready and Banuelos and Betances right behind them. CC is CC and will continue to be the ace of the staff while Hughes will look to bounce back from a poor 2011 and pitch like he did in 2010. Burnett for all his faults did eat inning last season and if he can bounce back to a sub 5 era then it would be very appreciated. Garcia will look to make his smoke and mirrors style of pitching work for another year and Nova will try and keep doing what he had been doing last season. The Yankees won 97 games with that rotation and Bartolo Colon so its not that strange of an idea. Also if one of the starters falters then Noesi is ready to move into the rotation, as the Yankees have been saying that he will be the next guy up to the Bronx and they aren't going to waste him as the long man this year.
The Yankees can still make a move for a starter but they have some young starters with high upsides and I think that's why they aren't that interested in  spending a lot of money or trading for a starter. They also could be hoping to pursue some of the 2012 free agents like Greinke, Hamals or Sanchez. The Yankees do want to get their payroll down and building their own starters is the best way to do that.

The Yankees like this September so far

I know its only been 5 days but what a September the Yankees have had so far especially compared to  September 2010 when the Yankees went 12-15 and scored 5 fewer runs than they allowed. Lets hope we continue the winning because last year we won the first 4 games and so we really went 8-15 after September 4th. The Yankees looked like they were trying to lose this game with Garcia giving up a season high 7 runs in just 2.2 innings as Garcia himself said "I got my ass whooped". The Yankees would have been really screwed if the Orioles pitching wasn't equally terrible with Matusz giving up five before Buck yanked him but then Jakubauskas came in and gave up Cano's grand slam Eyre, Johnson and Patton pitched the rest of the game with Johnson giving up two Home runs to Montero and nobody gave up anything else but the Yankees needed all 11 runs. After Garcia Scott Procter came in and pitched 2 innings giving up a game tying home run in the 5th to Robert Andino and Laffey actually did a decent job and got the two lefties out but walked hardy before Ayala came in and despite giving up a walk and a hbp he pitched 1.2 scoreless innings. Logan i guess retired the two lefties when he got Hudson to ground out and the Yankees got Nick Markakis out trying to advance to third on Dickerson's error. Rivera came in and had a very interesting 9th with two singles a HBP and 3 I don't give a fuck despite it being a one run game Stolen bases before striking out JJ Hardy. Mo is only 3 saves away from 600 and there is a decent possibility that he breaks the all time saves record this year.

Jesus is Loose

 The Yankees called up Noesi and George Kontos who has been very good out of the bullpen this year, Ramiro Pena and Greg Golson also got called up today. Brackman, Garrison and Whelan also have a possibility of getting the call but garrison or Whelan will likely get DFA for Kontos and apparently Cashman wants to get Betances up.
The Yankees started off the month with not a lot of hope, we were facing the Red Sox and John Lester and were sending out A.J Burnett who had not inspired confidence with an ERA over 11 in August and was looking like he would be the odd man out in the rotation. Russel Martin hit a double to put the Yankees ahead in the 7th and Mariano Rivera struck out Adrian Gonzalez with the bases loaded in the to save the game. Come from behind wins would be a theme of this first week as only CC Sabathia's  Sunday start wasn't  a come from behind victory. Ivan Nova started the Series against the Jays with giving up two runs in the first and was only limited to two thanks to two big defensive plays from Brett Gardner. Gardner also tied the game with one of his rare home runs and Robinson Cano hitting a go ahead single in the 5th. On Saturday the Yankees knocked around the very good Rickey Romero behind a shaky Colon and Robbie Cano put the Yankees ahead in the 7th with a clutch double, but we got another clutch home run from Francisco Cervelli. Cervelli doesn't get cheated on his home runs as all three of his this year have been absolute bombs. On Sunday Carston Charles Sabathia went 7.1 and gave up just two to earn his 19th win of the season. Soriano tried to make it interesting in the 8th by giving up a home run to Bautisa but the Yankees scored 4 in the 8th with a 2 runs Swisher bomb and a captain 2 run single.
The Yankees have three more games against the Orioles with the Friday game being at Camden to make up the rain out from Hurricane Irene and then they head off to a west coast trip against the Angels and Mariners. The pitching rotation for this week will be Phil Hughes, A.J Burnett, Ivan Nova facing the Orioles and then Colon, Sabathia and Garcia. Hopefully the only bad start of this week was Garcias because the offense, especially Robinson Cano, have been great and we will need that when we play the Angels this weekend.

I think he knew

Remember how awesome the Red sox rotation was going to be? Well Josh Beckett sprained his ankle in his start against the Jays today and so now their next time through the rotation will be Lester, Wakefield, Miller, Lackey and somebody for Beckett. The Yankees need to pad the lead right now and with a great week they could get several games up. The Yankees need to keep their foot on the gas because they could pick the Red Sox in the rear view this week.

Not backing up Good A.J

A.J Burnett has had 20 starts this year and in classic A.J Burnett fashion the Yankees have won ten of the games Burnett has started including last nights game and he has recorded ten quality starts or at least had a positive WPA. After this the stats of his starts this year become a little strange. Predictably in his 4 worst starts of the year he has registered a loss in each and his record overall in his 10 non-quality starts has been 2-5 with the Yankees going 4-6 in those ten starts overall. In Burnett's 10 quality starts he has gone 6-2 and the Yankees have gone 6-4 in his quality starts. Whats really strange is that in Burnett's 3 best starts of the Year against the Royals, White Sox and Indians all at home and he is 0-2 in those starts with the Yankees going 0-3. In those three starts the Yankees have generated just 3 runs in those three starts all three of them in the start against the Royals and one of those runs came in the 10th inning of the game. In fact in his eight best starts the Yankees have 3.25 runs per game and every one of those wins has required Mo to come in. We all know that Burnett is inconsistent and that it is important to win his good starts when we have them which the Yankees have failed to do because of a lack of run support. In the third year of his five year deal it is very obvious that Burnett is not the number two that they hoped he would be. His last three starts have been poor, but with his next two starts coming against the offensively inept A's and the overall inept Orioles and he needs to get wins in both of those starts and hopefully lower his ERA as right now it is higher than Ivan Nova's was before he was sent down. Burnett may not be as good as we thought he might be but he is not getting the run support he needs and with the Red Sox as good as they are this year we need to win every start from Good A.J.

The upcoming Toronto series 4/19-4/20/11 and Notes

The Blue Jays came into the season strong with a 4-2 record, but they now stand at 7-9 with several poor performances from their starting pitching and their offense sputtered after the series opener against the Red Sox and they only managed one run in each of the three games they lost to the Red Sox. The Pitching matchup will be featuring Kyle Drabek going against A.J Burnett. Drabek is 1-0 with an 1.93 ERA in 3 starts while Burnett has a 3-0 record with a 4.67 ERA in his 3 starts. Wednesdays game will feature the very uninspring pitching duel between a Bull frog that has found his way into Pinstripes, aka Bartolo Colon who has posted a 3.97 ERA in 3 relief appearances and Brett Cecil who has a 1-1 record with a 6.19 ERA in 3 starts. There is no official word of whether or not A-Rod will play in Tuesdays game but it has been stated that he will play in Wednesdays game. A positive for the Yankees is that if they need to exhaust the bullpen they have Thursday off before heading to Baltimore for an Easter weekend series. The Blue Jays have really struggled the last 3 games and lets hope the Yankees will spoil the Blue Jays home opener.

*If you haven't heard about the J triplets tearing up the international league.  Jesus Montero, Jordan Parraz and Jorge Vazquez have been absolutely destroying AAA pitching Jesus Montero is hitting .452   and Jorge Vazquez has a very impressive .340 with 7 HR and 17 RBI's in only 11 games. Jordan Parraz who I wrote about in a previous article is hitting .356 with 3 triples and 2 HR. Also if Justin Maxwell raises his BA to match his .435 OBP then I can start calling them the J Quintuplets.
*Curtis Granderson is hitting .333 against lefties and .194 against eighties. I never thought I would have to say this but Granderson you need to start hitting RHP as well as you are hitting lefties.
*Check out CC's Commercial

4/3 Yankees and other notes

The Yankees failed to sweep the tigers as Hughes and Colon both got roughed up by the Tigers 10-7. The two teams combined for 14 HR, with 7 of those coming in today's loss. Here are some notes on the Yankees:

• Burnett looked okay, but he was apparently sick during the game so hopefully that means he will be even better next time around as he should likely be facing off against Francisco Liriano and the Twins.
• This first series was utterly forgettable for Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter as both combined for 4 hits and those all came in Saturdays game. But it is only 3 games so should be nothing to worry about.
• After Eduardo Nunez's error in Saturdays game I already want Ramiro Pena back.
• Russel Martin is hitting .455, A-Rod .400 and slow start Tex has 3 HR and 7 RBI's after 3 games. (He had 9 RBI's all last April) check it out
• I know its one start and its one start against one of the best offenses in baseball, but I am really concerned about Phil Hughes. He looks like he did last year after the all-star break and his velocity is still down. He gave up 5 runs on 5 hits in 4 innings. He could not put batters away racking up 1 K in 90 pitches.He needs to make a change NOW because his next start is against the Sox in Fenway.
• Bartolo Colon was a mixed bag with 5K's in 4 innings, but he gave up 4 runs and 6 hits in 4 innings. Mitre did better than that. However its only April, but I still would prefer Aceves.(who is in Sox AAA to start the season)
• The Sox got swept by the Rangers and while both teams offense's looked good the Red Sox pitching was very poor and their $142 million dollar man got bumped down to 7th today. Dropping Crawford in the order from 3rd to 7th really surprised me as its the 3rd game and they just payed him 142 million small market scrappy dollars and i wouldn't want to start off 7 years by dropping him down after two games.
• Bad news for the Rays as Evan Longoria was put on the DL for an oblique strain and he will miss at least 3 weeks according to Joe Madden. Also Manny and Damon have combined for a grand total of 1 hit and Damon was scratched today due to calf tightness.
• O's are in first, Toronto and the Yankees are both tied for second and the Sox and rays are on pace for 0-162 seasons.
• All that confidence that Brewers fans about this season was crushed by the Big Red Machine. Its only April, but the Brewers looked really bad in Cinncinati and so does my pick of them to win the NL Central.
• Matt Holiday had an appendectomy. Could the Yankees try and trade for Chris Carpenter?
• The Astros look awful. Is Brett Myers as good as that one start suggests and could the Yankees target him?
• The Yankees play the Twins for the teams only meeting in the Bronx this season. Lets hope the Yankees take over from where they left off in the ALDS.