A. J. Burnett

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot includes 11 first time players. None of them are first ballot locks and some of them are guaranteed to fall off the ballot after one year of eligibility. So once again, we’re taking a look at all the ballot rookies, starting from the bottom. After covering and , this is episode three, so it’s time for…

A.J. Burnett

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 29

Career bWAR (17 years): 28.8

Stats: 164-157, 3.99 ERA, 2731.1 IP, 2513 K, 1.325 WHIP, 104 ERA+

Awards: All-Star (2015, NL), 2009 World Series Champion

League Leading Stats: Losses (18, 2014), Starts x2 (34, 2008; 34, 2014), Shutouts (5, 2002), Earned Runs (109, 2014), Walks x2 (97, 2009; 96, 2014), K (231, 2008), HBP (19, 2010), Wild Pitches x3 (14, 2002; 17, 2009; 25, 2011), H/9 (6.7, 2002), HR/9 (0.5, 2002), K/9 x2 (9.4, 2008; 9.8, 2013)

Teams Played For: Marlins (1999-2005), Blue Jays (2006-2008), Yankees (2009-2011) Pirates (2012-13, 2015) Phillies (2014)

Allan James Burnett is one of those guys who, when you think about him, your brain tells you that he must been great at some point, right? I DISTINCTLY remember him being a stud…that one time?

Yeah, nah. Burnett was, for almost all of his career, fine—there were even a couple of seasons when you could even describe him as pretty good. But over his 17 seasons of MLB toil, there were only three years that Burnett posted anything above 2.6 bWAR, eight total where he was above 1.9. Like I said, he was fine; nothing to sneeze about. He ate a decent amount of innings, had a lightening bolt for an arm, especially in his early days, and could usually be counted on to keep you hanging around a ballgame.

But almost all of the categories he managed to lead the league in were the categories you didn’t want your pitchers leading the league in and he could also be Nuke LaLoosh-wild at times: He was the active leader in fielding errors by a pitcher when he retired, and he currently ranks 25th all-time in HBP and 26th in wild pitches. During a game in September, 2001, the Marlins were doing…I don’t know. Some kind of stupid Marlins shit where they were driving their mascot around the perimeter of the field in the bed of a pickup truck. Anyway, it was a bad idea, because the path of the truck took it behind home plate while Burnett was throwing his warm up pitches and if you’re going to give a pitcher like Burnett that kind of an invitation, you know he’s hitting that damn truck. .

But what else? What other things can we say about Burnett, other than “he was with stamina”? Well, he was an eighth-round draft pick by the Mets. One who the Mets quickly decided to save the career of by trading him away from the Mets as part of a deal for Al Leiter prior to the 1998 season, after Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga won a World Series then decided that Everything Must Go! He would make appearances in the Bigs for parts of the 1999 and 2000 seasons, producing 20 starts of nearly league-average pitching: 7-9, 4.35 ERA, 101 ERA+, with 90 strikeouts over 124 frames of baseball. 2001 was his first full season in the majors and it was more of the same: 128 K in 173 IP, with a 4.63 FIP and 105 ERA+, though it also included a no-hitter: a typically Burnett, 7K, 9 BB outing against the Padres.

Then came 2002, his age 25 season and the year that—if we’re being honest—Burnett would essentially prop the rest of his career on. Burnett finished the season 12-9, 3.30. He paced all MLB starters with a 94.9 MPH average fastball, struck out 203 batters in 204 frames and led the majors with five shutouts. That season, he also led the league in H/9, HR/9 and, for the first of three times in his career, wild pitches. All of that amounted to a 3.19 FIP, 121 ERA+, 4 bWAR season that convinced everyone and their dog that Burnett was destined for greatness.

Burnett celebrated the 2002 season by blowing his arm out in early 2003, requiring Tommy John surgery and missing out on the Marlins 2003 Championship. He made it back for 120 innings in 2004, looking strong and topping out at 102 on the radar gun, before being shut down in September over more pitching arm concerns.

2005 was his first full season back and it kicked off what can reasonably be called Burnett’s peak: his age 28 to 32 seasons, where he combined for a 63-47 record, 3.85 ERA, 113 ERA+ and 14.6 bWAR, compiling 918 K’s in 938.2 IP. It also culminated in Burnett’s hilariously contentious exodus from Miami, where he was asked to leave the team a week before the end of the season after publicly calling out his Marlins teammates, coaches and manager, saying “"We played scared. We managed scared. We coached scared. I'm sick of it, man. It's depressing around here. A 3–0 ballgame, I give up one run and leave guys on base, it's like they expect us to mess up. And when we do, they chew us out. There is no positive, nothing around here for anybody."

Comments like that are likely to ruffle some feathers in any clubhouse, but pulling that shit around Jack McKeon is, as Shrek would say, heading the right way for a smacked bottom. In Burnett’s case, that spanking wound up being financial: by missing his last start of the year, Burnett finished one inning shy of triggering a $50,000 bonus in his contract. His final start of the season instead went to new AA call up Josh Johnson, who would go on to become the Marlins all-time leader in pitching WAR and ERA.

Burnett departed Miami after the season for the greener pastures of the great white north, inking a five-year, $55 million dollar deal with the Blue Jays. He wound up spending three months on the DL over the first two years of that deal, but still produced decently when he was in the rotation. He finished up his time in Toronto on a high note, finishing 2008 18-10 with a 1.342 WHIP and 104 ERA+. He also led the league with a career high 231 strikeouts in 221.1 innings of work.

Burnett opted out of the final two years of his deal, but stayed in the division, signing a five year, $82.5 million dollar deal with the Yankees, making him the fourth-highest paid player on a very expensive Yankees roster.

On the surface of things, that might seem silly. Up to that point of his career, Burnett was about 10% better than league average, and he’s suddenly the highest paid pitcher on a staff that included CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. Part of that is just the economics of baseball; salaries rise. But also, therein lies the mystique of A.J. Burnett: for the entirety of his post-2002 career, Burnett’s agents managed to convince teams that they weren’t paying for A.J. Burnett: they were paying for 2002 A.J. Burnett.

Fans in New York, Philly and (to a lesser extent) Pittsburgh would all get their turns being frustrated with Burnett because he never seemed to quite live up to the expectations his salary set up, but he kept making that cheddar—nearly $145 million of it—because that cannon arm and the potential for something great was always to tantalizing. Even as Burnett edged into his mid and late 30’s, front office people still had that kid from 2002 in the backs of their minds. Potential is a hell of a drug.

So what did the Yankees get for their money? .500 baseball! Burnett’s time in pinstripes amounted to 34-35, 4.79 ERA, 92 ERA+ and 3.7 bWAR. Ho to the Hum. Burnett got his only World Series ring with those ’09 Yankees, even though his contribution to the cause got worse as the pressure mounted. He pitched six innings of three hit, one run ball in the ALDS, posted a 5.84 ERA over 12 ALCS innings, and was 1-1 in the World Series, with seven earned runs on eight hits over nine innings of work.

After back to back seasons of an ERA+ in the 80’s, the Yankees tried to trade Burnett to the Angels for Bobby Abreu; a move that Burnett vetoed with his limited no-trade clause. Instead, the Yanks shipped Burnett off to Pittsburgh in a deal that reeked of urgency: the Yankees agreed to pay $20 million so that Burnett could pitch for someone else, and all they asked for in return was 2019 Mexican League participant Diego Moreno and Exicardo Cayones, which is actually not the name of a player, but rather a typo that was created when Pirates GM Neal Huntington’s cat ran across his keyboard. Rather than cop to the mistake, the Pirates put a baseball cap on the nearest hot dog vendor and sent him to New York, never to be seen again.

His first two years in Pittsburgh were fine, but we’re already 1,500 words deep on AJ Fucking Burnett, so let’s skip ahead to my favorite portion of Burnett’s career: his last two seasons. So after the 2013 season, Burnett said that he would either return to the Pirates or retire. After Pittsburgh called his bluff, Burnett flinched and signed with the Phillies. Where Burnett proceeded to shit just every portion of the bed.

In exchange for $15 million dollars, Burnett led the league in losses, earned runs AND walks. He also hit 16 batters, posted a career low ERA+ and was worth negative bWAR for just the second time in his career. Burnett pitched with a hernia most of the season, which obviously didn’t help his ability to throw a baseball really hard, but it still should be no surprise at all to hear that Philly decided to decline his $15 million option for 2015. Burnett had a $12.5 million player option, but he turned that down as well, instead choosing to return to Pittsburgh for one final season for less money.

And, wouldn’t you know it, once Burnett left Philly—the Mets of Pennsylvania—he was pretty decent again! In what he had announced was going to be his final season, Burnett won nine games in 26 starts, putting up a 3.18 ERA, 122 ERA+ and 2.6 bWAR. In a move that was as much a tip of the cap to him as it was recognition of his ability that season, Bruce Bochy named Burnett as his final All-Star reserve, giving him his lone All-Star nod.

Burnett pitched for 17 seasons in the majors, with roughly half of that coming in South Beach, and the rest divided evenly betwixt NYY, PITT and TOR. We won’t say anymore about Philly. Though he won a World Series as a Yankee and became an All-Star as a Pirate, he goes into the Hypothetical Hall as a Marlin, in recognition of his place in Miami’s record books, including 6th all time in pitching WAR (12), first in Shutouts (8) and first in wild pitches (44).

Chances of making the Hall: Worse than his chances of making an opening day first pitch in Philly.

Chances of leaving the ballot this year: 100%.

Going to pick this card up tonight but this card looks unreal and is decently priced. Would you with the SP that are currently out, could he hang with the top 5?

After the reports the A.J Burnett would either come back and play for the Pirates or retire, I wondered why someone would already consider retirement after a great season with the Pirates and since he wasn't THAT old, I was a bit surprised. The moment for me when I started to wonder about this ordeal was when the Pirates replaced Burnett with Cole in game 5 of the NLDS. Burnett was the Pirates workhorse all year and veteran pitcher who really helped the Pirates stay in contention and even though it wasn't said, I feel like Burnett was hurt by this. As reports started to come in that Burnett would retire, I thought "ok, he must be done with baseball, nothing was personal". Now that reports are coming in that he might come back to a team other than Pittsburgh, I wonder now, did he want to get away from the Pirates all along? Did he use excuses and retirement talks to avoid dealing with the Pirates or the media questioning why he would leave? Did he actually feel betrayed by Hurdle in the playoffs? I could be totally off by this notion, but I wonder if anyone feels the same way?

Every start was a big question about whether good AJ or bad AJ would show up. He could be cruising through a game and give up a HR or a couple of walks in a row and almost in the blink of an eye the wheels come off and he gives up 3+ runs in the inning. Towards the end of the season he was moved to the bullpen to get straightened out, I think he only made a couple of appearances though. People kept talking about his mechanics and his pacing and not trusting the game his catcher was calling.

I’ve been feeling this most of the season, his stuff should be better than it is, sometimes it is better. He can’t seem to string together a consistent series of good starts and the reasons keep shifting. After 2011 is when AJ was traded to the Pirates, I don’t even remember for whom, and AJ suddenly became good again. Maybe Sonny just isn’t “made” for New York, there have been countless players before that were in the same boat.