A.J. Burnett mentioned several times Friday that he spent the past several years around Toronto ace Roy Halladay. He noted that his locker was next to Halladay's and that he learned a lot from himIt sounds nice, but I don't know about how much validity there is to this what Burnett is saying. He did have a healthy year last year, but the previous two seasons he started only 21 and 25 games, and in 2008 Burnett has his worst ERA and ERA+ since 2003. So I wonder, what exactly has he learned?
"I learned my lesson in Toronto about trying to do too much," Burnett said. "I'm pretty much just going to be me and not try to do too much."
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Thursday he was encouraged about Burnett, 32, by "hearing him talk about how he's matured, he's learned over the last couple of years that it's not just throwing the ball through a wall. It leads me to believe that he's going to do well."
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Girardi Impressed With New and Improved Burnett
From Kat O'Brien:
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6 Comments:
Defense independant ERA showed Burnett to be one of the top 10 pitchers in baseball last year. CC was even higher on the list and might have been #1.
Where can that stat be found?
I'm not saying you're lying or anything like that, I'm just having trouble finding it on Fangraphs, Bill James Online, etc...
Nevermind, I found it on ESPN.... But they have him ranked 13th for pitchers with a minimum of 160 innings pitched.Here.
13 is pretty damn good
The point is, that's LAST year.
Only time can tell what's gonna happen this season.
I'm still not sure I'm ready to trust Joe G and AJ's health record is quite scary.
Yes 13 is pretty damn good, I'm not arguing that.
But that doesn't mean that Burnett is any better or smarter than he used to be.
My question is what exactly has he learned from Halladay, or is this just a case of Burnett hyping himself up?
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