Burnett Elects Free Agency – Official

Transactions

And the Phillies finally announce that A.J. Burnett has declined his option and has elected free agency.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/a-j-burnett-declines-player-option.html

53 thoughts on “Burnett Elects Free Agency – Official”

  1. Probably an inaccurate post on the MLB site.

    The transaction date was yesterday, which is when both sides turned down the mutual option. This event has been well publicized.

    However, Burnett has not announced if he will turn down his player option yet.
    We should learn about that sometime today.

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    2. Looks like an error by the MLB folks. They’ve taken it down, and added Burnett’s name back on the roster pages. We’re still waiting.

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  2. If Burnett is leaving that will free up a little extra cash. Plenty of quality arms to choose from in free agency that should be relatively inexpensive and could add depth to the rotation. There are also guys coming off poor years and injuries who could be had at a lower rate.

    I wonder what kind of trade value Rollins has. Oakland apparently is not committing to Lowrie long term and traded Russell so they are thin at SS. If we ate money in a deal Rollins could hold down the position for another year or two until they can find a better option long term.

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  3. Perfect spot is last year spent in NY. Yanks can take their time finding their next SS. JRoll will be great there. Can we send them Jimmy and Byrd?

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  4. I cant blame burnett for leaving. I can’t see any top fa wanting to come here. While amaro is running the team. Word gets around, guys know what is going on, and some will take less to avoid this situation.

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    1. But Burnett wants to stay close to home and Maryland is only an hour or so south on I95 for him to travel when not pitching.
      Maybe try and trade him to the O’s at some point for a low level prospect in the 20 area range of their prospect list

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      1. romus I think your right he will go to Baltimore. they could use a veteran starter. I think he will sign a heavy performance deal with a contender. like orioles

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        1. Or he could easily go to Washington. I think Burnett was significantly affected by his hernia injury and tried to pitch through it due to the unique circumstances in play (short term contract with big money). Burnett has had a weird career to say the least, his annual performances bob up and down much like a relief pitcher. Some years he’s dominant and pitches like a strong #2. Other years, he gets lost in the mix and pitches like a 4 or a 5. We got the latter version year. Oh well. Time to move on.

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  5. I am hoping he doesn’t come back. It is not my $, but I would rather take a flyer on 2 guys like Morrow and Gavin Floyd. And spend less.

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  6. Per john Heyman: aj burnett turns down $12.75M player option. the phillies’ payroll says thank you.’ ‘burnett made the decision to turn down phillies because he wants to player a contending club, i hear’

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  7. I prefer to believe that the transaction page entry was accurate but posted before their press releases were prepared; and my tweet and report forced the Phillies to pull it until they had their releases ready. Just call me “Scoop”. Or maybe “Felt” (Former FBI DD; Watergate reference)

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  8. I know there was a 155M number thrown around in the other thread but now that Burnett is gone that would drop that to about 142M if that 155 number was accurate. Should be interesting to see how management handles things going forward.

    Has anyone heard for how long Pat Gilick is going to be on the job? Any chance he sticks around?

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    1. I know what they will do Daniel. New car for Montgomery. clothes for giles. Betz a new summer home. And the rest is to make sure middleton doesnt get control. They will seek more legal counsel to stop Middleton.

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  9. I think Burnett gave the Phillies a break.
    He really wants to stay around his family and home.
    And I am wondering if his agent, Darek Braunecker, himself and Ruben have decide to elect him to test the market locally, I assume the O’s and nats to begin with, and if he doesn’t get what he wants, the Phillies re-sign him at a lower cost then last season’s contract.

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  10. maybe he’ll retire? He has made $135 million through his career, so maybe to him money isnt important (one of the rare, it is not always about the money guys)

    best of luck to him

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    1. Or he could do the Roger Clemens Precedence….sign with a team after June for the stretch drive of 3 months or so..

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      1. Sorry, but my gut reaction to this is the famous Lloyd Bentsen quote to Sen. Dan Quayle in the ’88 VP debate, “Senator (Burnett), you’re no Jack Kennedy (Clemens).”

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  11. Glad he is not coming back; I would take a chance on Masterson and Morrow, as well as sig Tomas. One for the future and the other 2 to hope 1 gets you something in July.

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  12. madden signing with cubs makes them a more desirable team to play for. cvubs have a lot of good young prospects. may be the phillkies might be able to pry a couple top prospects for hamels, who might not turn down trade

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  13. I am happy for both Burnett and the Phillies. He can retire and spend time with his kids and the Phillies avoid the embarrassment of having yet another player fall apart while on their team – well, that happened this year, the falling apart. That is a lot of money for a broken down ballplayer.

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    1. .”A.J. BURNETT’S decision to turn down a guaranteed $12.75 million from the Phillies – and what could have been as much as $14.5 million if he had reached incentives – was apparently due to the pitcher’s preference to play for a playoff-hopeful team in 2015. Through his agent, Burnett, who turns 38 in January, said he plans to pitch next season. Burnett flirted with retirement last winter; this offseason, he wants to land on a contending team”
      —–Ryan Lawrence, CSNSports.philly

      ….looks like retirement will be put on the backburner for another year.

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  14. I wonder if Ruben will get involved with the bidding for the Korean influx of talent, especially pitchers like ….Hy Yang and Kwang Kim.
    Getting one of the two will be helpful in stabilzing the rotation for 2015.

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  15. I just don’t get it. the Phillies have a ton of cash. They draw great when they are winning. The owners screwed this up, and now telling the people of Philadelphia that it will take three years or more, is imo inexcusable. They should say the hell with the tax. If we can bring in a Tomas, and a Lester then do it. Unload howard, and still draft well and spend the money in Cuban and international market then do it. we don’t deserve to hear, rebuild, when it was there fault we are bad.

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    1. So you want them to continue to hang on? Under your scenario, we would still be holding on to the likes of Rollins, Utley, Ruiz, etc. Adding Lester and Tomas is not enough, not even close. Instead of develpoing a plan years ago to gradually move on from those “core” guys, like they should have, they decided to ride it out for the sake of a buck. While I agree with you that it is squarely on their shoulders and it is completely unacceptable, their only option now is to re-build.

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      1. Well you can do both, rebuild and still stay somewhat competitive.
        If you sign a Lester or Scherzer, then like I said before, Hamels because the bait for additional rebuilding assets.
        Signing Tomas solves one corner OF spot for 7 years and the need for the power righthanded bat.
        Then let the chips fail as they may for movement of current players, though Rollins and Utley stay IMO, for stability and/or until JP Crawford is ready and whoever at 2nd base…but we are only looking at 2 years max with JRoll and Utley anyway.
        Byrd is being talked about by some other clubs, especially the O’s if Cruz departs.
        Even Asche would be attractive to a team like the Sox, if Sandoval and Headley are not there for them.
        Dom Brown and Revere…one may have to stay but the other can be packaged.
        In all the moves, other then Hamels, net return is negligible.

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      1. Hopefully Theo and Ruben can work out a deal that can will bring some nice prospects our way. Good link Romus.

        I did see the following comment there however and it made me laugh:

        “Kris Bryant and Addison Russell will be the price. The Cubs might get substantial money along with Hamels, but they’re giving up the jewels, not Vogelbach and Junior Lake”

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        1. Kris Bryant is suppose to be a real stud. I just wonder if they would move him. even for hamels. I would not do the deal without him but don’t think cubs would do it. I just think teams value young kids too much. I believe it cost the tigers not getting better bullpen help. I wonder how people think, lets go back to the pence deal. if the giants gave us belt and another lower kid for pence. and belt becomes really good with us, wasn’t it worth it, they won two championship with pence,??

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          1. rocco…..not sure the Cubs will ever let Bryant go….they have a surplus of OFers, so my inclination would be someone like a Soler or Almora as the headliner, and then someone that they did not draft or sign and who did not come thru their system, but obtained thru the Jeff Smar. deal from the A’s….maybe Russell. The third abd final piece would be a pitcher , either Pierce Johnson or CJ Edwards….not top of the rotation guys but mid-to-end guys..

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            2. I’d be happy also … I think it’s right at the edge of being unrealistically optimistic. Which is to say unlikely but not impossible. That’s assuming Russell. Substitute the lesser prospect from the A’s deal, whose name, embarrassing enough, escapes me, and that’s a pretty realistic expectation, albeit obviously much less exciting from the Phillies’ perspective.

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        2. Ruben doesn’t get to make deals like this anymore. A deal for Hamels will go down if and only if it is a deal which Gillick thinks will hasten the Phillies return to the post-season. RAJ may have general parameters and help work the phones, but he most definitely is not going to be deciding whether a specific deal is proposed or accepted.

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          1. Agree….Gillick has more knowledge and experience on these type of things then Monty had. Ruben is more or less now subjected to as an asst GM.

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          2. Allentown I really hope your right. I hope they don’t let him try this rebuild without help from gillick and new director of scouting.

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            1. I tend to think that Amaor and Gillick will be working together both in initiating deals and negotiating packages but I completely agree that a big trade won’t get done unless Pat approves it and thank goodness for that!

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  16. Kris Bryant is really interesting, Obviously he is a great stud prospect. I don’t really know anything about him other than the stat line but just looking at that he looks like a third baseman that can hit 40 HR’s a year like Pedro Alvarez or who could completely implode like…well…Pedro Alvarez. I just have a hard time seeing the Cubs giving up two of their top three near major league ready prospects when Lester is available for only money, and Shields, and Scherzer would cost only money and a first and second round pick combined. Yeah Hamels will have a cheaper and shorter contract than the Lester and Scherzer, but the have plenty of money to burn. I think they’d still be netter off in six years with an aging Lester and Scherzer with Russell and Bryant than with the greater financial flexibility they would have with trading for Hamels. If I were them I’d definately go all ’09 Yankees this year and grab the top two or three free agents since the Cubs aren’t carrying all the other bad contracts the Yankees were in 2009.

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    2. I wonder if the Cubs would even trade Russell now after looking at some of Javier Baez’s stats from last year. His strikeout numbers are scary. I wonder if they might rather deal him and move Russell to second.

      The deal I would do is: Hamels plus another player (Bastardo?) for Russell, Edwards, Mckinney, and Vogelbach. That’s four top 10 prospects, two of which are blocked at the Major Leagues. It’s a fairly unrealistic deal but that’s what I would shoot for it I was Ruben. Maybe you could substitute Russell for whichever short stop or middle infield the Cubs are less high on.

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    3. There is another aspect of acquiring Hamels vs the signing of Lester/Scherzer or Shields.
      If in three years or so, the team that acquired Hamels from the Phillies this off-season, decides to move on with out him, with his current and at age 34 he could still be a very attractive asset for a contending team. And could bring back valuable assets for the trading team.
      Whereas, Lester/Scherzer or Shields, with 6/7-year high-cost contracts in-hand starting from 2015, will be very hard to move.

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  17. I see the Marlins have opened contract discussions with Stanton. This guy scares me and I’m not sure the Marlins will pay him. I think the Phils might jump in and send the prospects received from a Hamels deal to the Marlins for him. After getting hit in the face with a pitch, I’m not sure what he’ll be. I remember Tony Conigliaro like it was yesterday. How about Barry Ashbee or Chris Pronger (hockey [layers but similar injury)? It not only ended their careers but it also shortened 2 of their lives. The book is still out on Pronger. Does anyone want Stanton right now and what would you pay him?

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