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Friday, December 5, 2008
Braves await decision from A.J.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Now what?
Well, we take a deep breath and wait.
The Braves made the first big offer to A.J. Burnett, a four-year deal with a fifth-year option and salaries that average out to about $15 mill per season if the deal is maximized by the vesting option.
Now, the Braves can’t do much else on the pitching-ace front until they get an answer from Burnett, who was expected to get an offer from the Yankees by today, if he doesn’t have one already.
At noon today I talked on the phone with A.J.’s agent, Darek Braunecker, who said he planned to meet with teams during the Winter Meetings that start Monday in Las Vegas.
He wouldn’t say how many offers had been made or how many teams were still involved, but did reiterate the Braves are “still squarely in the mix. We’ll continue dialogue with them at the appropriate time…. We’re not commenting on offers. Anything related to offers, we’re refraining from commenting on.
“Numerous offers, that’s the best way to characterize it… I can’t tell you that a decision is imminent, but we are progressing. We’re advancing in the process.”
We do know all the offers are from teams within driving distance of Burnett’s suburban Baltimore home. His wife, who is from that area, doesn’t fly and it was worked into his Toronto contract that the Blue Jays provided first-class ground transportation for his wife to make eight trips per season.
The first time Burnett went through free agency, there were more than 20 teams interested. This time he and his agent eliminated a lot of teams right off the bat because of location.
Hey, if you’re going to limit your market, sure is nice to have teams in New York, Philly, Baltimore, Toronto and Atlanta within reasonable driving distance of either your suburban Baltimore home and/or Burnett’s hometown of North Little Rock. A few of those teams are known to spend a little coinage.
The Yankees, Phillies, Orioles and Blue Jays were all expected to compete with the Braves for Burnett’s services, and some in the industry believe the Braves’ big initial offer put them alongside the Yankees in the lead in this potential sweepstakes (the Yankees have to be considered a front-seat occupant, regardless, simply because at any time they could blow away the Braves’ offer if they wanted to).
Braunecker said don’t believe what some have written about Toronto being “out of it” with Burnett after comments made Thursday by the Blue Jays GM indicating they believe they’re going to lose him to another team.
“Toronto is not out of it,” Braunecker said emphatically. “They may be a little surprised by where the market stands today versus where they anticipated it being a month ago, but by no means are they out of it. Fact of matter is, it’s a place that A.J. loved, and they’ve indicated to us they’ll be as creative as can [contract-wise] to bring him back.”
Will Burnett’s decision come down to money alone? Would Burnett and his agent consider the difference in cost of living between New York and Atlanta, or just take the highest offer?
We don’t know. But we do know Burnett wants to go to a team that has a chance to contend, and his agent said the Braves helped themselves in that regard with the trade this week for durable veteran starter Javier Vazquez.
“No question about it,” Braunecker said. “To me, for any free agent who believes winning is important, the Atlanta Braves should become a more appealing club now, because I think Javier Vazquez makes them a better club. That’s my personal opinion, and A.J. would echo those same sentiments. By all means, [Atlanta] is a more appealing situation today than it was two days ago.”
But what if Philly were to step up with a similar offer? One could certainly argue the Phillies are better equipped to win the East in ’09 than the Braves.
Then again, the Phillies might not be willing to pay anywhere near what the Braves offered for Burnett, which, if people will consider closely, is really a lot of money and years for a pitcher who’d never won more than 12 games before this season, a pitcher who’s missed time for elbow surgery, shoulder soreness and other injuries, and whose big seasons were the ones just before free agency.
(By the way, I believe the guaranteed years of the deal probably have higher average annual salaries than the option year, but am not certain of that. But it would explain why the first four years could average out to close to $16 mill per, not $15 mill.)
The Braves, frankly, are in desperate need of an ace. The World Champion Phillies are not. Burnett, when healthy like he was in 2008, is absolutely an overpowering ace.
So, the Braves wait.
They can’t exactly make a trade or a free-agent offer for a lesser pitcher, a guy not really an ace but the closest they might get after A.J., until they hear from A.J., right?
Let’s face it, you don’t want to sign Jon Garland and then find out that Burnett was about to say “yes” to your offer.
Will Burnett sign this weekend? Probably not. During next week’s Winter Meetings in Vegas? Perhaps. But it might take even longer than that.
Don’t know if it’ll be come full-fledged bidding war, but if the Yankees believe there’s a good chance they might lose out on CC Sabathia or Derek Lowe, then I’d expect Brian Cashman to step up and open the Yankee vault for Burnett.
When I asked a Yankees scout yesterday if he thought their team could afford both CC and A.J., he said, “Probably.” But at the same time, he pointed out how surprised he was that the Yankees hadn’t offered arbitration to Bobby Abreu, and how that made it clear to him that this horrendous economy was even having some effect on the
So the Braves give A.J. time to decide. No deadlines. And, of course, keep working the phones with other teams and player agents (and meeting face-to-face with them next week in Vegas) to explore other possibilities, letting other free agents know they’re interested (without making an offer yet) and talking to other teams about what it might take to get this pitcher or that hitter.
Lot of people ask me if the Braves might get back in the Jake Peavy negotiations. I still don’t think the door is as closed on those talks as the Braves say publicly, but I’ll take them at their word when they say there have been no discussions in more than three weeks.
And no, the Padres didn’t call the Braves before or after they traded shortstop Khalil Greeen to St. Louis, to see if Atlanta would revisit the last offer the Braves made for Peavy that included Yunel Escobar as the centerpiece.
The Braves say the Greene matter has no effect at all, no impact, on them or their offseason plans. In other words, they say it didn’t stoke the embers on the Peavy trade.
Again, I’m not certain that couldn’t change at any moment with a call from Padres GM Kevin Towers, who hasn’t had one of the more resoundingly successful offseason in GM history, for sure, and could certainly use a face-saving move about right now.
Oh, yes, a hitter: Amid all the pitching-centric news with the Braves, they continue to search for a power-hitting outfielder who fits their needs, a guy who doesn’t necessarily have to hit 40 home runs but does have to be a run-producer and be able to play adequate defense, and preferably better than adequate (but that’s admittedly tough to find).
They’ll take a guy who hits 20-25 homers if he’s a run-producer, a guy who scores runs and drives in a lot of runs. Even though they got a pathetic 27 homers from their outfield last year, the Braves haven’t made home runs the single most important stat they’re looking for in an outfielder.
But the guy does have to have power. And there aren’t a bevy of such players available who aren’t either owed a ton of money, are incapable of playing respectable defense, or looking to break the bank with long-term contracts.
“I don’t know,” Wren said yesterday, when I asked him about the prospects of getting that hitter anytime soon. “The tough part is there’s a very limited number of them.
“Pitching’s most important, but we do need another run-producing bat. It may come down to something that happens even during spring training or during the season. We’re focused on trying to do something obviously before that and putting our team together, but we’re not going to do something just for the sake of doing something.”
They could trade Kelly Johnson for St. Louis outfielder Ryan Ludwick, whose 37-homer season in 2008 contrasted sharply with his injury-plagued past seasons. He’s a gamble, and the Braves are reluctant to trade Johnson, who they really believe can be a well-above-average second baseman defensively, and one of the best hitting second basemen in all of baseball.
But if they don’t think they can get a power bat anywhere else, well, it wouldn’t surprise me if they pull the trigger on that deal, particularly if the Cardinals sweeten the pot just a bit with another young player or prospect.
Martin Prado will never be the hitter Johnson is, but he’s a solid defensive second baseman and a good line-drive hitter who plays the game the right way, has plenty of versatility, and could probably hold down the fort at second base for a season, or until the Braves could get a better player there.
Diversions: Couple of fine Texan singer-songwriters playing Atlanta in the next week, the venerable Delbert McClinton on Saturdy at Variety Playhouse and talented young troubadour Hayes Carll on Thursday at the Five Spot, just a couple hundred feet away from Variety and an intimate little joint that should be a great place to see Carll. Hopefully I’m back from Vegas on Thursday in time to make it out to that one.
The Shield finale: The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly had a brief Q&A with the creator of the sensational TV show The Shield, regarding a few points in the recent series finale. Since it’s stuff we discussed here with a bunch of big fans of the show (myself included) after the finale aired, I thought I’d give you two of the questions and answers that were particularly pertinent to our blog discussions.
EW interviewer: I understand Shane committing suicide, but did he have to take wife Mara and son Jackson with him?
Shawn Ryan: “To us, it made sense. It wasn’t fun to write. But in terms of the overall arc of the show, it felt like the place it should go.
EW interviewer: At the end, Vic left his desk job with his gun. Where was he racing off to?
Shawn Ryan: “We’ve always viewed Vic as a shark. He’s someone who, in order to survive, has to move forward. Is he going to search for his kids? Is he going to pursue his own sort of police work on his own time? Is he going to do something postal? I don’t know. But I do think the shark swims forward.”
(Me: Well said, regarding Vic. Love the analogy.)
Now, a tune: This one of my favorites from a brilliant, criminally underrated blues/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who put out a rich body of work before he died of lung cancer at age 46 in 2005.
“LIVING WITH THE LAW” by Chris Whitley
Brother runnin’ powder money
Daddy’s somewhere on a drunk
In the hours, after washing
I do my dreaming with a gun
Well I come down from the country
Find a lesson in the draw
There ain’t no secrets in the city
It’s hard living with the law
They got machines, mama I can’t figure
They got a romance made for doing time
Send me out child, running outside
Out along a world of crime
Gonna swing my scythe, got a hand upon the handle
Gonna shade my children ways I understand
Milk the trigger, kill the hunger
Staring down this broken land
So fetch on up your greasy apron
Spread your lover in the straw
Hear me baby, I’m nearly crazy
It’s hard living with the law
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