We began the day with A.J. Burnett, and we’ll end with the day with him. Courtesy of the soon-to-be-on-vacation (but more on that tomorrow) Kat O’Brien comes a debunking of the A.J. Burnett rumor and news about another team’s interest.

O’Brien reports:

The Yankees still are preparing a formal offer for righthanded pitcher A.J. Burnett, a club official said yesterday, but the Red Sox have become serious competitors to land him.

The Red Sox’s pursuit of Burnett complicates the Yankees’ plans. A source close to Burnett said that a half-dozen teams are in contention for his services: the Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Braves, Phillies and Orioles. The Red Sox, the source said, have significantly increased their involvement in the pitcher in the past 36 hours and are now “fully engaged.”

The Blue Jays already have offered a four-year, $54-million deal to retain Burnett, according to the Toronto Star. The Yankees’ offer is expected to top the Blue Jays’ in average annual value. However, a source shot down a report that the Yankees would offer five years and $80 million. They will not make an opening bid of more than four years or anywhere near $80 million, the source said.

The Yankees’ source said, “We’re just talking parameters.”

That’s a lot to digest. Take it all in.

First, the good news. The Yankees don’t seem to be offering Burnett that ludicrous five-year, $80-million offer reported this morning. As any sensible team would do, the Yanks don’t want to extend a pitcher, 32 on Opening Day, more than four years. While O’Brien’s source said the deal wasn’t for anything close to $80 million, I wouldn’t be surprised at a four-year deal with the same average annual value of $16 million per season.

Now, the guardedly bad news. The Red Sox seem to be interested in Burnett and are supposedly very involved. Now, I’m on the fence with regards to A.J. Burnett. I think he’ll be wildly overpaid, and based on his track record, he probably won’t avoid the DL during the duration of the contract he is going to sign.

But at the same time, we saw this year what a healthy Burnett could do. He struck out better than a man an inning, and during the second half, he went 8-2 with a 2.86 ERA. In 14 starts, he went 94.1 innings and struck out 105 while walking 29. No one on the Yankees did that this year.

He has the stuff to be an ace. He doesn’t have the consistency or the health to be a dependable starter. But that doesn’t mean I want to see him land in Boston. Yanks GM Brian Cashman has a plan this off-season. I hope that plan doesn’t include watching the Red Sox get better as the Yanks come up empty and have to settle for a Derek Lowe type. As tentative I am of embracing Burnett, he’s clearly the second-best option out there.

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If there’s one site you can’t miss during the off-season, it’s MLB Trade Rumors (though I’m sure you all know that). Tim works his ass off to create a place where you can find on what’s going on with the Hot Stove. This morning when I checked the site, I saw the top item on his Yankees Rumors post: The Yankees are preparing “perhaps” a five-year, $80 million deal for A.J. Burnett. Thankfully I hadn’t eaten yet, else I would have wretched all over my keyboard.

Unlike some on this site, I’m not unequivocally opposed to signing Burnett. The guy has some lightning stuff, and if healthy could provide a solid boost to the rotation, at least in the first couple years of the deal. However, we’re talking five years here, and a massive amount of money. If this rumor is true, I have little doubt Burnett will find a better offer, meaning we’d be stuck with him for half a decade.

Thankfully, this rumor comes to us from He Who Shall Not Be Named, so we can take it with a grain of salt. In fact, his use of the word “perhaps” preceding the contract figure suggests that, like many of his other rumors, he is just making this up. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all. So “perhaps” we can rest assured that the Yankees aren’t going to make an offer of this magnitude.

At least Jon Heyman admits he’s guessing when he predicts a five-year, $75 million offer for Burnett. This doesn’t make the rumor more legit, really, as it’s just a guess. Still, we now have two guys close to the Yanks saying they’re going to offer A.J. Burnett a five-year deal. This is not good.

First, this, if anything, is overbidding. The Blue Jays offered four years at $54 million. A.J. is not CC. You don’t have to blow him out of the water. So why go an extra year at freaking $26 million more than the Jays? That seems a bit absurd at this point in the off-season for a pitcher of Burnett’s caliber.

Speaking of his skills, let’s talk about the risk of offering the dude a five-year deal. We know he has electric stuff, but he’s gone over 200 innings just three times in his career. One was six years ago. One was his contract year. The other was, well, another contract year. Granted, he’s pitched fairly well in almost every season, save for his 23 innings in 2003 — which, incidentally, was on the heels of his first 200-inning season. He then pitched 120 in 2004 before pitching 209 in 2005, only to drop back off to 135 in 2006.

The Yankees need guys who will eat innings. Joba won’t be able to pitch a full season. Nor will Hughes. As it stands right now, they have one pitcher who can give them over 200 inning, and he’s coming off a foot injury. With so many question marks in the rotation, why add another one with Burnett? If the Yankees offer is true, I can’t see any team topping it. And that would mean we’re stuck with him.

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A few months after the Yankees’ unceremonious loss to the Angels in the 2002 playoffs, The Onion, the nation’s finest satirical news source, ran one of their better sports articles. “Yankees Ensure 2003 Pennant By Signing Every Player in Baseball” screamed the headline. Kat O’Brien’s latest for Newsday could almost be that article, except Kat is dead serious.

She writes:

The Yankees have expressed strong interest in righthanded pitchers Derek Lowe and A.J. Burnett in the past couple of days, according to sources familiar with the talks, after offering ace lefty CC Sabathia a contract in the ballpark of six years and $140 million…

Although pitching is the Yankees’ priority, and they traded for first baseman/outfielder Nick Swisher last week, a source said the Yankees have expressed an interest in first baseman Mark Teixeira. The Gold Glover is, with Manny Ramirez, the top free-agent offensive player available. The Yankees might simply be trying to drive the price up for the Red Sox and Angels by indicating interest in Teixeira, or they could be hedging their bets in case something falls through on the pitching front and they have money to spend.

So based on O’Brien’s sources, the Yanks have contacted every top free agent except for Manny Ramirez in the last few days. I wonder when Manny gets his phone call.

Meanwhile, these unnamed sources also answered Joe’s overnight query. CC is reportedly “mulling things over” while in Houston this weekend. As the Yankees turn, so baseball turns. The dominoes, I predict, won’t fall until someone signs with the Yankees first. So we wait.

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This is nothing more than a formality, but now it’s official. According to Ken Rosenthal, A.J. Burnett has opted out of the two remaining years on his contract with the Toronto Blue Jays. The right hander, who will be 32 just after the new year, is foregoing $24 million to seek further riches. We can expect to hear plenty about the Yankees interest in Burnett, as we already have this hot-stove season.

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The Yanks may have to look for a new Plan B. According to reports out of Toronto, the Blue Jays have offered to extend A.J. Burnett’s current deal by two years and $30 million, bringing his contract to four years and $55 million. Burnett can probably get a bit more on the open market, but he’s expressed his comfort with Toronto. While there’s no doubt that CC Sabathia is the better pitcher, if the Yanks were to miss out on both Burnett and the Brewers’ current ace, the off-season would start to look rather bleak.

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A topic we’ve hotly debated in the comments over the past few months is A.J. Burnett. He’s eligible to opt out of the five-year, $55 million deal he signed after the 2005 season, and most people think he will. After he made his final start of the 2008 season last night, many Blue Jays bloggers bid him adieu, admitting that the chances of his return are slim. The Jays are rumored to be negotiating an extension, but at this point, this close to free agency, it’s not probable.

It’s not difficult to concoct an argument against signing Burnett. He’ll be 32 for the start of the 2009 season, and will likely require a four- or five-year contract with an average annual value of around $15 million, possibly more. That’s quite a risk to take on a guy who has just three 200-inning seasons in his career — and followed two of them up with injury-shortened campaigns. In short, taking on Burnett would be a considerable risk.

When he’s on, though, he’s nearly unhittable. Even with his ERA north of 4.00 this season (though just barely), he’s still struck out 231 in 221 innings, walking 86 in that time. His 19 home runs is quite low, too.

One case I’ve heard for signing him is that he’s a Yankee killer, so it makes sense to have him pitching for us instead of against us. He does, after all, hold a career 2.43 ERA against the Yankees in 77.2 innings of work. That alone, though, isn’t good enough a reason to ink him. Yeah, he might hurt us if he’s pitching for another AL team, though that damage is far lessened by just getting him out of the A.L. East.

You know what other team he’s succeeded against? Yep. The Red Sox. In 56.1 career innings against Boston, he’s pitched to a 2.56 ERA, including a 2.60 mark over 27.2 innings this year. In four starts, two of them in Fenway, he allowed just two homers, striking out 24 and walking 13. They hit a paltry .206 against him this year, and have managed just a .212 average over his career.

Does this mean that we should sign Burnett? Hardly. It does provide another point for the team to consider, though. Not only does he pitch well against them, but he pitches well against the Sox — and wasn’t too shabby against the Rays this year, striking out 26 to 8 walks in 20 innings (3.15 ERA). Which, of course, makes me wonder if the Red Sox will be in on him. While I’m open to the idea of Burnett, I’m not too keen on a bidding war over him. I hope the Yanks front office isn’t, either.

Image from flickr user Larry Coor under a Creative Commons license.

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The Yanks have been doing a lot of window shopping lately. They’ve been said to be looking at Damaso Marte, Jason Bay, and Xavier Nady of the Pirates. They’re supposedly keeping up with Freddie Garcia’s rehab assignment. Now we’re hearing, via MLBTR, that the Yankees are interested in A.J. Burnett. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the Yanks won’t necessarily make a big move before the deadline, they’re certainly exploring what’s out there.

That the Yankees sent two scouts solely to see Burnett doesn’t mean that they’ll land him. As we’ve discussed before, it’s not likely that J.P. Ricciardi would dish him within the AL East. However, this is a unique case. Burnett can opt out of his five-year, $55 million contract after this season. So Ricciardi, knowing he could lose Burnett at the end of the season anyway, might be willing to send him to whomever bids the highest.

This brings to the forefront a number of problems. If the Yanks trade for Burnett and he smokes the competition in the second half, he’ll opt out and the Yanks will have wound up with a two-month rental. If he sucks it up, not only will the Yanks have paid for a lemon, they’ll be stuck with him for another two years, owing him $24 million. The only way this really works out is if he pitches well and agrees to stay with the team.

Then again, given his injury history, maybe the Yanks would be best served to have him as a two-month rental. We know he has the stuff to succeed. It’s a matter of his ability to stay healthy. And yeah, he’s pitched poorly this year, though he’s done well against the Yanks and the Rays in his past two starts.

Which brings me to another point: Burnett is a Yankee killer. In 53.2 innings career against the Bombers, Burnett has struck out 46 to 19 walks, and has allowed just 17 runs. Since the beginning of the 2006 season, Burnett’s first with the Jays, only Roy Halladay and Scott Kazmir have better numbers against the Bombers (minimum 45 IP). Make the minimum IP 35, and Burnett slides one slot back, to Jarrod Washburn, another guy the Yankees could conceivably target.

No, I don’t think they’ll land Burnett. No, I don’t think it’s worth adding Washburn and his $9 million salary for 2009. But Brian Cashman is certainly peeking into the window. If there’s a deal to be had, it seems the Yanks will be prepared to take it. But I wouldn’t go betting on an acquisition before July 31.

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