Pending a physical and Bud Selig's approval, the Pirates and Yankees have finalized the deal that will bring pitcher A.J. Burnett to the Buccos. Now we all now that Burnett has been generally pretty bad in his years with the Yanks, but I like the deal. It has been cynically pointed out that facing the NL Central on a daily basis as opposed to the AL East will probably serve to improve Burnett's performance. Well, so be it. Burnett will also most likely immediately jump to at least the role of #2 man in the Pirates pitching staff. He strikes out a lot of batters, and pitches a lot of innings, something lacking in the Pirates starters last year. Also, as Bob Smizik pointed out earlier in the week, acquiring Burnett, and the pursuit of Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt that preceded this trade, if nothing else, shows to the Pirates players that the team really is interested in improving and winning, and not just an inflated bottom line, and that is not an unimportant thing.
What will be interesting to see is what kind of attitude Burnett lugs with him into Bradenton and PNC Park. He has been known to have been a sometime knucklehead while in the Bronx, so let's hope he doesn't become another in the long line of ageing ballplayers with bad attidudes brought in by the team in the last several years.
And while on the subject of Pirates pitching, Frank Coonelly spoke to the Highmark Retiree Club a few weeks back, and one very interesting tidbit that he dropped that day was the it was "quite possible" that Gerritt Cole would be pitching in Pittsburgh in 2012. As I said, interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment