This week’s docket has several marquee matchups, but we respect your intelligence enough not to explain why Shane Bieber vs. Lucas Giolito or Yu Darvish vs. Dustin May is worth watching. Instead, turn your attention to three games where the visiting pitcher will return to their old stomping grounds, and don’t gloss over Tuesday night’s game in Atlanta either.
Joe Musgrove is baseball’s hottest pitcher at the moment, and after becoming the first Padres pitcher to throw no-hitter, he’ll try to become the latest ex-Pirates pitcher to make Pittsburgh look silly for having traded him. Musgrove, who Pittsburgh traded to San Diego in January, is looking to join Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow as the latest pitcher to take another leap forward ditching his black and gold threads, and his early-season showing has been superlative. Still only 28, Musgrove was deemed unlikely to help the next good Pirates team (he’s a free agent after the 2022 season), and was traded for prospects. Over his three-year stay in Pittsburgh, during which the team had the majors’ seventh-lowest winning percentage, Musgrove was the Pirates’ best pitcher by nearly two wins. Now, he’s part of a San Diego team built to win a championship, which would already be the second of Musgrove’s underrated career. Read the rest of this entry »
Joe Musgrove came into the season viewed by many as a breakout candidate, and it’s easy to see why. The 28-year-old Pirate-turned-Padre possesses plus stuff, and the change of scenery — from Pittsburgh to his hometown of San Diego, no less — portends more success…. particularly in the won-loss column. Musgrove went a paltry 1-5 with the N.L. Central cellar-dwellers in 2020, while his new club is poised to win, per our projections, 94 games in the current campaign.
By and large, the breakout has already happened, and not solely because the 6-foot-5, 235-pound right-hander hurled the year’s first no-hitter on Friday night. His 2020 peripherals were those of a pitcher who’d turned the corner. With the caveat that it was a pandemic-shortened season, Mugrove set career-bests in ERA, FIP, and strikeout rate, and more importantly, he did so with improved pitch profiles. Per StatCast, the spin and movement of his offerings were better than they’d ever been.
I asked the righty about that in a spring-training Zoom session.
“I’m not really a big analytical guy; I’m not big on the Rapsodo numbers,” responded Musgrove. “I look at that information more as a benchmark. When I have real strong outings, or I have real poor outings, I look at the numbers to see where they’re at when I’m good, or when I’m poor. But by no means am I going home and saying, ‘I need to get 200 more RPM on my curveball,’ or ‘I need to change the spin axis on this pitch.’ I kind of just let our analytical guys coach me up a little bit on that, and offer suggestions where they can.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the latest spring exploits of Shohei Ohtani, the Royals extending Salvador Perez, rooting against injuries in spring training, and a mysterious former major leaguer known only as “Lewis,” then preview the 2021 Mets (37:09) with Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News and the 2021 Marlins (1:14:26) with Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald.
JJ Bleday was drafted fourth-overall in 2019 after breaking out at Vanderbilt. Swinging from the left side, the now-23-year-old outfielder bashed an NCAA-best 26 home runs, putting up a 1.005 OPS along the way. And the Miami Marlins brought more than just a slugger on board. As Eric Longenhagen wrote in his prospect profile, Bleday is “a complete offensive package” who possesses “a superlative feel for the strike zone.”
Bleday didn’t get game action last year due to the pandemic, but his advanced tools and mature approach are impressive enough that the Marlins are giving him a long look this spring. Ranked 35th on our 2021 Top 100 Prospects list, Bleday is close to big-league ready despite having just 151 professional plate appearances, none above A-ball.
Bleday talked hitting prior to getting into the cage yesterday afternoon.
———
David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebreaker questions: Do you view hitting as more of an art, or as more of a science?
JJ Bleday: “I view it as more of an art. It’s definitely an art, because it’s your own craft. Everyone has their own style, and kind of mark on their swing, or variation of approaching the game.”
Laurila: A lot of the guys I’ve asked that question to have said “art,” but then talked about the science of hitting. Analytics are obviously a big part of the game now.
Bleday: “Oh, yeah, absolutely. With every sport. I mean, it’s big-time in golf nowadays.”
Brady Singer played in the SEC for three seasons before being drafted by the Kansas City Royals, so he faced a ton of talented hitters prior to starting his professional career. Pitching for the University of Florida from 2016-2018, Singer matched up against the likes of JJ Bleday, Nick Senzel, Bryan Reynolds, and Evan White. Easy marks were few and far between.
Which of his collegiate opponents does Singer recall respecting the most? More specifically, which hitter had him laser-focused on making quality pitches, lest an errant offering result in serious damage?
“One that really stands out wasn’t in the SEC, but rather in Omaha,” Singer told me. “I believe it was the first game I pitched there, in 2017 when we went on to win the [College] World Series. It was Brendan McKay, from Louisville. When he got in the box, I knew I had to dial in. Just the bat path he had, and how he stood in the box — how he presented himself — was tough.”
McKay’s hitting future is obviously in limbo. Ostensibly still a two-way player, he pitched 49 big-league innings for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019, and logged just 11 plate appearances. Last season, a positive COVID test and subsequent shoulder surgery squelched his opportunities to do either. McKay’s Ohtani aspirations remain — he’s taking cuts in camp as he rehabs — but what happens going forward isn’t entirely clear.
Singer was correct when he told me that McKay could “really swing it back in college.” As the record shows, the fourth-overall pick in the 2017 draft slashed a snazzy .328/.430/.536 as a Cardinal. Singer — the 18th-overall pick a year later — is another story. Read the rest of this entry »
Pete Alonso didn’t duplicate his stellar rookie season in 2020. There wasn’t one obvious problem to point to, though. He trimmed his strikeouts slightly. He hit the ball as hard, both in frequency and in terms of maximum exit velocity, as he did the year before. He made more contact in the strike zone, and he swung less at pitches outside the strike zone. That all sounds pretty good.
Despite all those glowing facts, there’s no way around it: Alonso was a lot worse in 2020. His BABIP dropped from .280 to .242. His slugging percentage fell by nearly 100 points. He fell off of his 2019 home run pace, but not by as much as you’d think. He lost far more doubles, though, and didn’t make up for it elsewhere. He wasn’t bad, but a 118 wRC+ out of your bat-first first baseman is par for the course rather than spectacular.
What if I told you I could explain what went haywire? You’d probably tell me I’m lying, and you wouldn’t be wrong. I can tell you what I think happened, though, and that will have to be good enough. You know how I said his contact was just as loud? It’s time to delve obnoxiously deep into that data. Read the rest of this entry »
This week may be Prospects Week here at FanGraphs, but for MLB, this has been Minor Signings Week. The long offseason dance is just about over, and everyone’s now at risk of going to homecoming alone. So rather than a long spiel that sees me reference a historical battle or obscure 18th-century literature, let’s get straight to the moves.
In 2020, for the first time in three seasons, the Miami Marlins finished above dead-last in the majors in home runs. You can blame some of that bad stretch on Marlins Park, which is decidedly pitcher-friendly in the way it suppresses homers. But mostly, it’s because the team just hasn’t had good power hitters. From 2018-19, just three players logged 20 homers in a season, with the highest total being Starlin Castro’s 22. The additions of Jesús Aguilar and Corey Dickerson helped to bolster the team’s totals in 2020, but the Marlins still only out-homered four other teams. It isn’t as though the team can’t hit — Miguel Rojas, Jon Berti and Garrett Cooper were all well above-average hitters last year despite combining for just 12 homers. Miami just lacked an true established slugger in the middle of the order.
On Tuesday, the Marlins took a step toward remedying that by signing free agent outfielder Adam Duvall. The deal is an interesting one — it guarantees Duvall $5 million, but will only pay him $2 million in 2021. The rest will come in 2022, either in the form of a mutually agreed-upon second-year at $7 million, or a $3 million buyout. The mutual option cost, if exercised, would award Duvall a decent chunk of money — the same amount that Adam Eaton and Joc Pederson signed for this winter. Even if it isn’t, however, the $5 million guarantee itself isn’t bad for a slugger in his 30s who just two years ago spent the majority of the season in Triple-A.
The Marlins are hoping the version of Duvall they get is similar to the one who broke out with the Reds back in 2016. That year, he was a surprise All-Star, and finished the season with a .241/.297/.498 line, 33 homers, a 104 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. He knocked out 31 more homers and notched 1.6 WAR the following year, further establishing the kind of player Duvall could be when things were going his way. He was a right-handed power bat capable of good defense in an outfield corner, but one who was also going to strike out a lot without walking enough to salvage a league-average on-base mark.
In 2018, we found out what kind of player Duvall is when things aren’t going his way. The power that comprised all of his value fell off considerably, and he finished the year with just 15 homers and a 69 wRC+. He was particularly bad after being traded to Atlanta in July (.132/.193/.151 with zero homers in 57 PAs), and started the 2019 season in Triple-A. It seemed like a sign of where Duvall’s career was headed — his weaknesses exposed, he was now a luxury power bat for playoff teams to keep on the fringes of their roster, never to be trusted with a full-time opportunity.
And yet, he’s since earned that trust back. He was a force at Triple-A, hammering 32 homers in 101 games. The Braves couldn’t fit him into their crowded outfield until the last week of July, but once they did, he was suddenly an everyday player in the majors again. He hit .267/.315/.567 with 10 homers in 41 games to finish the season. With the helpful addition of the DH in the National League, Duvall kept that everyday role in 2020, slashed .237/.301/.532, and homered 16 times, making him one of just 14 hitters to hit at least that many last year. That included one torrid stretch during which he recorded two three-homer games just one week apart.
Being able to capitalize on his power with this kind of frequency is what helps Duvall make up for his low batting average and walk rates. Because of the limits placed on his playing time over the last couple years — first because of the Braves prioritizing other outfielders, then because of the pandemic — his 26 big league homers since the start of 2019 have him tied for just 124th in the majors. But if you take all players with at least as many home runs as Duvall in that time and divide those totals by their number of plate appearances, he emerges as one of the best bang-for-your-buck power hitters of the last couple seasons.
Keep in mind, this leaves out the 32 homers he hit in 429 Triple-A plate appearances at the start of 2019 — a HR/PA rate of 7.45%. And as you may have noticed in the last video clip above, the Marlins have had a front row seat to Duvall’s most explosive performances. That kind power output is what Miami is hoping to acquire in this deal, and while the transition to the more pitcher-friendly ballpark may pose some challenges, there’s some reason to believe it shouldn’t hamper him too much. According to Statcast’s Expected Home Runs by Park feature, the number of home runs Duvall would have hit in Miami since the start of 2019 (28) is the same number he actually hit for Atlanta.
As for as the rest of the Marlins lineup, there are all sorts of effects signing Duvall can have. Right now, our RosterResource page has him starting in right field, with Dickerson in left and Starling Marte in center. Such a construction, however, would signify a huge step toward giving up on Lewis Brinson, the former top prospect who headlined the Christian Yelich trade return, but has been 2.8 wins below replacement level in three seasons with Miami. Abandoning plans for Brinson could prove too unnerving for management to go through with, though, and the above arrangement would also leave out Magneuris Sierra and Cooper. Instead, it seems likely that without the designated hitter in 2021, the Marlins will platoon the outfield quite heavily — with Dickerson and Duvall splitting up left and some combination of Brinson, Sierra and Cooper taking right, with Cooper also splitting first base reps with Aguilar.
The logistics of adding Duvall, then, are a headache the Marlins didn’t really need to volunteer for. He does, however, make them better, which makes this a fun move. Even after a surprise entry into the second round of last year’s playoffs, a run at contention for Miami in 2021 still feels far-fetched, and Duvall doesn’t change that. But for an offense that managed to be close to league-average last year while getting by on little more than spunk, his muscle will be a welcome addition — especially for Marlins fans who have waited years for another fearless slugger to swing it for their side.
It’s become a common narrative in baseball recently: the veteran player, struggling to secure a job in America, heads overseas to play in Japan or Korea. They spend some time there, rediscover or reinvent part of their game, and return to America to find much greater success in the majors than before. Anthony Bass made his way to Japan in 2016 after toiling away for five years on three different teams. In his one season in Nippon Professional Baseball, he played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters during their championship season. He ended up pitching in five of the six games in the Japan Series that year and was the winning pitcher in the championship clinching Game 6.
After getting a taste of winning in Asia’s highest league, he returned to the States in 2017 but continued to struggle to earn a regular job in the majors until latching on with the Mariners in May of 2019. By the end of the season, he had worked his way into high-leverage innings for Seattle. He was claimed on waivers by the Blue Jays after the season and continued to work as a late-inning reliever in 2020. On Friday, he signed the first multi-year contract of his career, a two-year deal with the Marlins worth a guaranteed $5 million with a club option for 2023. The 33-year-old has taken the journeyman moniker to it’s extreme but finally found a school to call home in Miami.
The success he found in Japan gave Bass a huge boost of confidence. Getting over that mental hurdle was a significant step toward realizing his talent on the field. In an interview from February of last year, he recounted that mental process to Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic:
“Cause I was having success there and I was like, ‘I can do it. I can come back to the States and do exactly what I’m doing here in the States and have success. When I really started telling myself I’m a really good pitcher, and just attack the strike zone with everything I have, a switch turned on in my head and it just completely changed my career from pitching almost passively and a little timid, trying to stay in the major leagues versus, ‘No, I can do this and I want to dominate at this level.”
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
2021 BBWAA Candidate: A.J. Burnett
Player
Pos
Career WAR
Peak WAR
JAWS
W-L
IP
SO
ERA
ERA+
A.J. Burnett
SP
28.8
21.7
25.3
164-157
2731.1
2513
3.99
104
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
A.J. Burnett’s stuff was never in doubt. The owner of a mid-90s fastball and a devastating knuckle curve that he threw from multiple arm slots, he could make batters look foolish and miss bats aplenty, but his command and control were another matter. When Burnett no-hit the Padres as a member of the Marlins on May 12, 2001, he walked nine batters — the most by a pitcher ever in a nine-inning no-no — and hit another.
Burnett spent parts of 17 seasons (1999–2015) in the majors with the Marlins, Blue Jays, Yankees, Pirates, and Phillies. He struck out at least 190 hitters in a season half a dozen times, led his league in strikeouts per nine twice, played a key role in helping New York win a World Series and in ending an epic postseason drought in Pittsburgh, and went through an impressive late-career reinvention there that culminated with his only All-Star berth in the final year of his career. Yet he also ranked among the league’s top 10 in walk rate nine times, leading once and placing second twice. Three times he led his league in wild pitches and once in hit batsmen. From his tattoos and nipple rings to his penchant for self-immolation on the mound, he earned an unenviable reputation by the middle of his career.
“When his head’s not right, then his body won’t follow. But his head goes first. Then his body gets all out of whack,” Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland bluntly told ESPN’s Johnette Howard in 2010, as Burnett suddenly devolved into yet another pitcher who couldn’t handle the Bronx. It took a change of scenery and mastery of a two-seam fastball to get his career back on track. Once he did, he became a favorite of teammates and fans — an outcome that at one point appeared so remote.
Allan James Burnett was born on January 3, 1977 in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He played mostly third base at Central Arkansas Christian High School, and when he pitched a bit during his junior year, “more of his pitches ended up at the backstop than in the strike zone,” wroteESPN Magazine’s Eric Adelson in 2001. Filling in for a teammate in a key game as a senior, he broke through, and the Mets chose him in the eighth round of the 1995 draft; he signed for a $60,000 bonus. By FanGraphs’ version of WAR — which at 42.5 is well beyond the value estimate of Baseball-Reference’s version (28.8) — he’s the most valuable eight-round pick ever, though Paul Goldschmidt will soon surpass him.
Burnett struggled with his control and his temper from the outset of his professional carer, walking 77 batters (but striking out 94) in 91.2 innings in his first two seasons. He began harnessing his stuff after coming under the tutelage of Pittsfield Mets pitching coach Bob Stanley (the former Red Sox reliever) in 1997. Via Adelson, Stanley once sent Burnett back to the mound with bloody knuckles after Burnett had repeatedly punched a dugout ceiling in anger; he struck out the side.
In February 1998, Burnett was traded to the Marlins — who were in the process of tearing apart their World Series-winning roster — as part of the Al Leiter deal. Despite missing the first seven weeks of the season due to a broken right hand suffered while playing catch (he was protecting himself from an errant throw), he made an indelible impression with his performance at A-level Kane County, posting a 1.97 ERA with 14.1 strikeouts per nine in 119 innings. The performance rocketed him to No. 21 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list; the publication lauded his stuff (mid-90s fastball that touched 97, two other average or better pitches) and his makeup (“not afraid to make a mistake, loves to challenge hitters and won’t back down… willingness to make adjustments and correct mistakes on his own”).
Promoted to Double-A Portland, Burnett struggled, with high walk and homer rates pushing his ERA to 5.52, but he responded well to a detour to the bullpen, and the Marlins called him up to debut on August 17, 1999. He threw 5.2 innings and allowed one run in beating the Dodgers, the first of seven starts over which he posted a 3.84 ERA but walked 5.4 per nine.
Expected to make the Marlins out of spring training in 2000, Burnett ruptured a ligament in his right thumb and was sidelined until July 20. He pitched quite well initially but faded in September, finishing with a 4.79 ERA in 82.2 innings. He continued to develop over the next two seasons, throwing that ugly 129-pitch no-hitter against the Padres in just his second start off the disabled list following a right foot fracture (suffered after he stepped in a gutter while bowling, naturally).
Burnett enjoyed a significant breakout in 2002, when he posted a 3.30 ERA and struck out 203 in 204.1 innings while leading the NL in shutouts (five), hit and homer rates (6.7 and 0.5 per nine, respectively) and wild pitches (14). His usage was heavy even in the context of the time; his 12 outings with at least 120 pitches over the 2001–02 seasons tied for fourth in the majors, and at 24 and 25 years old, he was the youngest pitcher among the top eight in that category. Thus it wasn’t much of a shock when the elbow trouble he developed in early 2003 led to Tommy John surgery. He missed the Marlins’ championship run, but given how awash the team was with young pitching — Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis (his rotation replacement), Brad Penny, Carl Pavano — the team barely missed him.
Even so, Burnett made a strong return in June 2004, highlighted by a 14-strikeout effort against the Rockies on August 29. Despite posting solid numbers in 2005 (3.44 ERA, 116 ERA+, 198 strikeouts in 209 innings), he lost his final six decisions amid a race for a playoff spot and was sent home during the final week of the season after a clubhouse outburst regarding the negative attitude surrounding the team. “We play scared. We manage scared. We coach scared and I’m sick of it,” he told reporters. “It’s depressing around here. It’s like they expect us to mess up, and when we do they chew us out. There’s no positive nothing around here for anybody.”
Though Burnett apologized, and manager Jack McKeon was replaced, the skids were greased for his exit via free agency, not that the Marlins were going to pay market rate for his services. As one of the top starting pitchers in a weak field, he signed a five-year, $55 million deal with the Blue Jays, reuniting with pitching coach Brad Arnsberg, with whom he’d worked well in Florida. He pitched reasonably well in Toronto and benefited from the guidance of teammate Roy Halladay, who helped him evolve from a thrower to a pitcher. Asked about his approach by the future Hall of Famer, a flummoxed Burnett couldn’t come up with more than, “Umm… I just try to throw heaters by guys. And if I get ahead, I throw my curveball as hard as I can.”
“Roy just started laughing. Like for a while. And I’m just shaking my head, like, What? What! Dude, what’s so funny?” a sheepish Burnett recalled in 2018.
Elbow inflammation (2006) and a shoulder strain (’07) limited Burnett to 46 starts and 301.1 innings in his first two seasons as a Blue Jay, the latter amid some high pitch counts. Though his 4.07 ERA (104 ERA+) in 2008 was the highest mark of his Toronto tenure, he went 18–10 while leading the AL with 231 strikeouts (and 9.4 per nine) in a career-high 221.1 innings, then exercised an opt-out clause and hit free agency again.
The Yankees, smarting from missing the playoffs for the first time since the 1994–95 strike, signed the going-on-32-year-old Burnett to a five-year, $82.5 million deal on December 12, kicking off a spending spree that would also include even more lucrative deals for CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. They won 103 games and the AL East in 2009 while Burnett pitched to a 4.04 ERA, struck out 195, and livened up a staid clubhouse with at least 10 celebratory pies-in-the-face of teammates who collected walk-off hits. In the postseason, he made three strong starts and two lousy ones, most notably sparkling in a seven-inning, nine-strikeout, one-run effort against the Phillies — and opposite Pedro Martinez — in Game 2 of the World Series, but getting roughed up for six runs in two-plus innings when starting Game 5 on three days of rest. Still, he did a lot more for his World Series ring than he’d done in 2003.
After cruising through the first two months of 2010, Burnett began spiraling downwards during an 0–5, 11.35 ERA June, his inability to self-correct on the mound apparent to teammates, opponents, media, and fans; the boos rained down. Even after turning things around, he cut both of his hands hitting a clubhouse door in anger after a July start, prompting Eiland’s unflattering assessment. While he held opponents scoreless in six of his 33 starts, he allowed six or more runs 10 times and finished 10–15 with a 5.26 ERA. He was similarly bad in 2011 and clashed with manager Joe Girardi when he was pulled early from games. Even so, the Yankees gave him playoff turns in both years, and he notably beat the Tigers in a must-win Game 4 of the 2011 Division Series.
That turned out to be Burnett’s final start as a Yankee. On February 19, 2012 he was traded to the Pirates for two minor league non-prospects, with the Yankees sending along $20 million to cover his remaining salary. Before he could make his first official appearance for Pittsburgh, he fractured his right orbital during a spring training bunting drill and needed surgery, delaying his debut until April 21. Nonetheless, he quickly took to his new surroundings and was embraced as a clubhouse leader and mentor as well as a fierce competitor. A clip of him telling the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez to “Sit the fuck down” after a strikeout still circulates on the internet:
This day in #PGHistory: A.J. Burnett strikes out Hanley Ramirez, before telling him to “Sit The F*** Down” at PNC Park. (2012) pic.twitter.com/F1VoHqScO8
“He wanted to impact an organization,” manager Clint Hurdletold the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2016. “He was going to be our ace. I don’t know if he had been ‘the guy’ before, but he was going to be our guy.”
With his average fastball velocity having dipped from 95.0 mph in 2008 to 93.4 in ’11, Burnett became more reliant upon his two-seam fastball, which helped him keep the ball in the park. His ground-ball rate jumped from 49.2% to 56.9%, his home-run rate dropped from 1.47 per nine to 0.8, and he turned in a 3.51 ERA while helping the Pirates to 79 wins. He was similarly strong in 2013: Despite missing four weeks due to a calf strain, he struck out 209 hitters in 191 innings for an NL-high 9.8 K/9. More importantly, he helped the Pirates clinch their first postseason berth since 1992. Alas, his lone postseason start was a disaster; after two scoreless innings in the Division Series opener against the Cardinals, he allowed seven straight batters to reach base in the third, all of whom scored before he could retire a hitter. He didn’t get another turn, bypassed in favor of Game 2 starter Gerrit Cole as the series went five games.
Having completed his five-year deal — during which he made at least 30 starts annually, something he had done just twice prior — the going-on-37-year-old Burnett was mulling retirement. The Pirates didn’t issue him a $14.1 million qualifying offer, and by the time he decided to return in January, the team somehow wasn’t interested despite making no significant additions to its roster. Burnett instead signed a one-year, $16 million deal with the Phillies, but things went poorly for both him and the 89-loss team. While he made an NL-high 34 starts and pitched 213.1 innings, his highest total since 2008, he was lit for a 4.59 ERA and took a league-leading 18 losses. Pitching the entire season with a hernia that required offseason surgery couldn’t have helped.
Not wanting to end on such a sour note, Burnett returned to the Pirates via a one-year, $8.5 million deal ($4.25 million less than the Phillies offered). He was stellar in the season’s first half, posting a 2.11 ERA while allowing two or fewer runs in 15 of 18 starts. For the first time in his career, he made an All-Star team, though manager Bruce Bochy somehow couldn’t shoehorn him into the game. After struggling in his first three starts of the second half, he missed six weeks due to elbow inflammation. He returned and helped the Pirates secure their third straight Wild Card berth, collecting his 2,500th strikeout (the Cubs’ Jorge Soler) on September 27, and his 2,507th (the Reds’ Todd Frazier) on October 3, tying Christy Mathewson for 31st on the all-time list; he surpassed Mathewson an inning later by striking out Tucker Barnhart.
That turned out to be Burnett’s final outing, as he didn’t appear in the Wild Card Game, where the team was eliminated at the hands of the Cubs. Though he believed he could still pitch — and the numbers clearly say so, with 3,000 strikeouts an outside possibility — his desire to spend time with his wife and children won out. In his retirement, his Pirates teammates lauded him for his effect on his teammates. Said pitcher Jeff Locke, “There’s just nothing that any one of us in this clubhouse are going through, or are going to go through, that he really hasn’t been through.”
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