New York Yankees: Can They Do Anything with A.J. Burnett Going Forward?
August 4, 2011 · Doug Rush · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
Wednesday night was supposed to be an easy win for the Yankees and A.J. Burnett.
By the bottom of the third inning, the Yankees had handed Burnett a 13-1 lead, chasing out starter Gavin Floyd by getting nine hits and 10 runs off him in 2.1 innings.
Burnett just had to get through five innings of work to even qualify for the easiest win possible.
And yet, he couldn’t even get that done.
Burnett proceeded to give up five runs in the bottom of the fourth inning and another run in the bottom of the fifth, which made the score 13-7, and it could have gotten even worse if Joe Girardi had not pulled Burnett out of the game.
Once Burnett was pulled from the game, the White Sox stopped scoring runs. The Yankees still went on to win 18-7, but Wednesday night should have been a cake-walk victory for Burnett.
Hell, even Phil Hughes, who lately I have been very critical of, was able to shut down the White Sox in the start before on Tuesday and got the win in a rain-shortened game.
The Yankees have a major problem on their hands with Burnett.
He’s in the third year of the five-year, $82.5 million deal they gave him before 2009, and each season he keeps getting worse.
Right now, he’s 8-9 with a 4.54 ERA.
He hasn’t won a game for the Yankees since June 29 against the Milwaukee Brewers.
In the month of July, he was 0-3 in five starts.
He does have 123 strikeouts, but he also has 63 walks, so for every two strikeouts, he walks a batter.
His ERA has also ballooned up, going from as low as 3.86 on June 1 to the 4.54 it is now, which is bad.
I think it’s quite safe to say that Burnett is not worth the money the Yankees gave him three years ago.
He might have pitched well for them one season in 2009 and in the playoffs as well.
But since then, not so much. He’s been a disaster since the Yankees won the World Series in 2009.
Another thing, too. He hasn’t beaten the Red Sox once while pitching for the Yankees. Not once.
A lot of no decisions, and a lot of losses. Yep, you can look it up. Go ahead.
It’s quite clear this guy can’t be trusted in the rotation, and it’s definitely clear he can’t be trusted with the ball in a big game because he will implode if he doesn’t get a call or walks a batter.
So, what do the Yankees do with him?
I know you can’t really take him out of the rotation because he makes $16 million dollars, but honestly, if it were up to me, Burnett would find a nice spot on the bench and not move from it right now, because he’s doing more damage than good.
Burnett will still be the reason why the Yankees will still search and look at the trade market in August for another starting pitcher, because he simply isn’t getting the job done.
And, quite frankly, the whole pie-in-the-face thing has gotten old. Sure, it’s clever, and it was fun for awhile, but Burnett isn’t winning, and if smashing a pie into someone’s face is the only thing he does right these days, the Yankees have a serious problem.
Just watch any of his starts. He’ll start out fine. He’ll make batters swing and miss in the beginning.
Then he walks a batter. He gets a little discouraged. Then he won’t get a call for a strike three. He’ll get really irritated and stare at the umpire. Then he’ll either walk the batter or give up a hit.
That’s where you see Burnett unravel. And after that is when you see Burnett give up a really big hit, a home run or walk a few more batters.
That trend is about the only thing that is consistent about Burnett right now. His pitching certainly is not.
Take the game on July 29 against the Orioles.
He went eight innings and struck out 10 batters. You would think he should have won this game.
He also gave up home runs to Derrek Lee and Mark Reynolds and lost the game, the only game the Yankees lost in the four game set with Baltimore.
He made two horrible mistakes in giving Lee and Reynolds nice, fat pitches to crush over the wall when he could have struck them both out. Reynolds has 120 strikeouts this season and over 200 of them in the last two seasons.
What do you do with this guy? What can you really do, honestly?
Stephen Meyer of Bleacher Report had a suggestion back on July 18 that the Yankees trade Burnett to the Chicago Cubs for Carlos Zambrano.
At that point, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea. Now, I think it’s a great idea.
The Cubs even called the Yankees before the July 31 trade deadline asking them to take Zambrano and they would even pay his contract. The Yankees, at the time, had zero interest in Zambrano.
But at this point, I think I would take Zambrano over Burnett, as crazy as that sounds.
Zambrano is going on 31, and I think, if you put him in the Yankees current clubhouse, with his former pitching coach Larry Rothschild and former teammate Joe Girardi (teammates from 2001-2003 on the Cubs), maybe they can figure out something with Zambrano.
Burnett is going on 35, he is on the decline of his career and, to be quite frank, two more years of Burnett doing the same thing over and over again is enough to make me sick.
So, again, what can the Yankees do?
They can continue to pitch him and wish for the best, which is really risky.
They can simply cut him, and eat the rest of the contract.
They can go the San Francisco Giants route with Barry Zito and put him in the bullpen.
All of these ideas sound a little crazy, especially the last two, considering how much Burnett makes each season.
The Yankees put Burnett on waivers this month, and he is free to be claimed by any team if they would want him.
The way he is pitching, nobody in their right mind would claim Burnett off waivers.
So, in all likelihood, the Yankees are stuck with Burnett for now, and at least for another two seasons.
I think, personally, either releasing him or putting him on the bench is the best route to go. Sure, the Yankees lose a lot of money owed to him, but the Yankees have more than enough money to cover their losses with him.
Will the Yankees do that? Probably not.
But one thing is for certain: Burnett is a bust for the Yankees. He can’t be trusted with the ball in any game anymore.
And unless he gets his head out of his rear end and stops self-imploding on the mound, he will be no better than the career .500 record he pitches at, maybe even worse.
Do the Yankees want to see that version of Burnett after he turns 35 and older?
That’s something the Yankees upper management needs to figure out really soon.
Until then, the Yankee fans all over get to enjoy, or not enjoy, the roller-coaster ride we all know as A.J. Burnett.
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