A.J. Burnett had some interesting comments after his first outing of the spring today.
“I don’t feel like I’ve had the success that I should have,” he said. “I’m a .500 pitcher and there’s a reason behind that. I know I’ve battled injuries in the past, but over three-quarters of my career I’m a two-pitch pitcher, so there’s got to be some theory behind it. Why not learn another pitch? It’s only going to help.”
Sounds like Burnett did a lot of thinking over the offseason. In 207 innings, he went 13-9 with a 4.04 ERA and struck out 195 hitters. That’s not terrible, but it’s not worth the $16.5 million he made last year.
He said only one of the five hits he allowed today came off a changeup — the rest off fastballs. I think Burnett has a lot to work on if he wants to add a changeup to his repertoire, and I hope he’s talking about it with CC Sabathia.
I wa
