10:50am: A team source disputes that any offer was made to Burnett, tweets Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore Sun.
10:15am: The Orioles have extended an offer to free agent righty A.J. Burnett, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports on Twitter. Though nothing is close at the moment, Passan notes that Baltimore will be a player in the starting pitching market.
Baltimore was strongly rumored to be a destination for Burnett last year, before he signed on with the Phillies. That was due in large part to the fact that the veteran was said to prefer to pitch for a team close to his Maryland home. This time around, however, he is said to be willing to play anywhere for a contender.
The O’s had a surprisingly effective rotation last year, in spite of the struggles of major free agent signee Ubaldo Jimenez. In terms of bottom-line results, the club’s rotation landed at the back end of the top dozen teams by measure of earned run average. ERA estimators, however, were generally less favorably inclined.
Please, for the love of bacon, NO!!!
Don’t bring bacon into this please Burnett will go somewhere just not the os
Oh, yuck!
No, No, No!!!!!
NO!
Please join Baltimore
Signed, Every other AL East fan
NO! NO NO NO!
I would stay far away from AJ. He lost 1 MPH on his fastball, threw way more sliders than ever before in his career and as a result his walks jumped and his strikeouts dropped in 2014. AJ doesn’t know how to pitch without a power FB.
While I’m not saying he’d be a good signing – he did pitch with a hernia for 90% of last season. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where the drop in velocity went (and caused him to try and go with other pitches that may have not caused as much effort/pain at delivery).
Yep and he had the strength to pitch through the pain and make every start necessary to secure all the bonuses in his contract.
Yeah, and the bonuses turned out to be a non factor when Burnett declined the 13MM he earned with those starts.
This must be false… There’s absolutely no reason to sign him. All 5 starters are better than him and we have another starter who is a top prospect so there’s no use for this walk machine. This would be such a bad move and a waste of money. He couldn’t pitch well in a decently big NL ballpark so what makes you think he’s going to do well in Baltimore. Ubaldo is already severely overpaid so this is just idiotic.
It was also previously reported that the Orioles offered a three-year deal to Butler. That apparently was not true. We can only hope this is no more accurate
Very true, DD seems to keep all his moves very close to the chest…. very different from the McPhail years when everything was transparent
MacPhail Transparent? Wait, what?
Unless, someone out there just simply doesn’t like Jimenez.
As for me, I am not ready to give up on Jimenez and holding onto him for one more season isn’t going to cause the ‘O’ in Orioles to fall off into the Chesapeake.
I remember reading about every move McPhail wanted to make, tried to make, and missed out on. DD’s moves seem to come out of nowhere
Must be a minor league deal or convert him to the pen. Don’t see the match here unless Norris, Chen, and/or Umbaldo are traded.
That makes absolutely no sense!
From Roch Kubatko at MASN: Texted Duquette about A.J. Burnett report. His response; “That’s news to me.”
It’s time for the Orioles to move on from their pursuit of Burnett; he turned them down many times before and the Orioles have many arms in the farm and already on staff that can accomplish more. Burnett, you had your chance to be on a winner last year…you blew it…you need to move on as in retirement.
From Roch Kubatko:
“Texted Duquette about A.J. Burnett report. His response; “That’s news to me.”
Passan is usually reliable so I’m surprised he whiffed on this one”
why? O’s have too many starters as it is.
We dont need him….Just Sign Markakis ..Cruz and Andrew Miller
Not Miller… to expensive
Yeah… who needs a dominate left handed pitcher out of the pen that can get out both left and right handed batters??? Plus they do need to stay under the salary cap.
Just because we are not close to the luxury tax does not mean that the O’s have unlimited funds. Relievers are really odd players who tend to have 1 or 2 outstanding years then disappear. Plus do you really want one of the higher paid players on the team to be a guy who only pitches 60 inning a year? Money is better spent elsewhere. Also we have a dominate left handed pitcher out of the pen that can get both left and right hand batters out…. his name is Britton and he’s getting paid league minimum.
If we are going to bring inanother arm, go for Cole Hamels or Cliff Lee. Hamels would be a long term addition and Lee for a year or two if you want to add a veteran arm. AJ is a waste in my opinion.
Lee is just to expensive for how much of an unknown he is now
“Baltimore was strongly rumored to be a destination for Burnett last year, before he signed on with the Phillies. That was due in large part to the fact that the veteran was said to prefer to pitch for a team close to his Maryland home.”
This reasoning doesn’t make sense…. he wouldn’t reject Baltimore to be closer to his Maryland home. I think he joined Philadelphia because it was in the National League (where most of his success has been)..
Do you think the Orioles offered Burnett a contract as strong as the one offered by Philly (90 miles away from his home)? In Philly, he was plenty close to his home and didn’t have to deal with the AL East in what figured to be the last one or two seasons of his career.
I do think that the O’s offered a comparable contract, though I don’t know.
I think that the appeal of the NL, not being in the AL East, and joining a pitching staff with Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Jonathan Papelbon, and a roster with 3 MVPs was the reason behind picking Philly.
If his home is in Maryland, you can’t be any closer than Baltimore.
If you don’t know that one of the main reasons that AJ signed with Philly was proximity to his home, that’s your fault. He has been quoted multiple times by multiple sources stating the ninety mile drive to Philly was as close to ideal as can be (while making tons of money and not having to pitch in the AL East).
O’s won’t learn from the Ubaldo contract.
If they did sign Burnett (which I doubt), it wouldn’t really have much to do with the Ubaldo contract since this one would be for 1 year most likely.
Since they denied it, I guess that means the signing will be made official by the end of the day…
If the O’s are looking to move Jimenez because they don’t need him, want to shed salary or a combination of both why in the world would they pursue Burnett? It makes ZERO sense. Passan is completely missing the boat on this or he’s letting Burnett’s agent yank his chain.
I think Passan may have just opened an email/text that he got last off season and mistook it for new information.
The only reason why these rumors keep coming up year after year is because he lives in the area. It’s getting old. The O’s are not interested in Burnett, end of story.
You work for the Orioles?
No but I follow the local media and ALL of them are saying there is no truth to this rumor.
You said that the Orioles have no interest in Burnett. That’s not the same thing as this rumor being false. Turning the validity of this rumor into a blanket statement of no interest isn’t intellectually honest.
DD, don’t sign Big Bird, please.
I like AJ, but he isn’t the pitcher he used to be from even a year ago. Plus, I don’t wish the 3 to 4 month saga of Burnett deciding whether or not he wants to play this year. He’s earned the right to take his time to decide, but it’s no fun as a fan.
This makes no sense. Burnett is old, had a bad year and has spurned Baltimore more than once.
Lots of pitchers make sense for the Orioles. Burnett does not.
We can safely assume this is probably his last year playing. My guess is any team that signs him will benefit from his performance and leadership.
Any guy that can go out injured, make all his starts, log all those innings, pitch for a horrible team, forego surgery to relieve the pain, then turn down the 13MM guaranteed to him by logging starts and innings says something to me. That something is; he’s due for a solid year.
I just don’t see it.
Wasn’t Burnett supposed to have surgery this off-season?
He’s a good teammate, but I would avoid him if I were the O’s. His ERA and whip increased in Philly last year, and I think a return to the AL East would spell disaster fo the O’s playoff aspirations.
With Duquette was asked about Burnett at the GM Meeting, his reply was “That’s news to me”.