With just a few days remaining until pitchers and catchers report and fans move on to ridiculing stories about their favorite fat players being in the best shape of their lives, the baseball world is weirdly focused on the Pirates right now. Pretty much nothing is happening anywhere except that the Yankees are trying to trade a guy and the Pirates seem like the likely trade partner. As a result, something like 99% of baseball news is currently revolving around AJ Burnett and thus, the Pirates. It’s very strange. Onto today’s AJ Burnett-related stories!
Joel Sherman says he thinks that the Yankees will trade Burnett and they’re just looking for the club that will make them eat less of Burnett’s salary, Pirates or otherwise. That sort of meshes with my theory about Jones yesterday. Jayson Stark mentions that John Lannan and Joe Blanton may also be traded before the season starts and that the Pirates could also be interested in them. That’s presumably contingent upon them not trading Burnett, which makes sense. Burnett represents a bigger risk, but I’d much rather have him than Blanton or Lannan. Jon Heyman says the Pirates and Yankees are currently negotiating how much of Burnett’s salary the Yankees will eat, and he makes it sound contingent upon whether or not the Pirates send a player to the Yankees. (Links via MLBTR)
I’m sure we’ll hear much, much more about this before the day ends because there’s literally nothing else happening in baseball right now. Except “truck day,” which isn’t a real thing and doesn’t count.
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