A.J. Burnett's Roller-Coaster, 'What If' Career Ending on Very High Note
May as well start with the obvious, so A.J. Burnett and I sit down in the dugout on the afternoon after he's run his record to 5-1 with a 1.81 ERA, and I immediately ask:
Seriously? Pitching like this, you can't retire after this season. You've got at least another six seasons in you. Right?
"I don't," the 17-year veteran says softly. "It's funny. I get asked those questions all the time because I'm doing well.
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"It's not going to change my mind, not with what's going on in my life right now."
Right on cue, at this very moment, James Shields walks over. The Padres ace cups his hands to his mouth and hollers into the dugout: "Hey, what are you, trying to play another five years, dude, or what?"
Yeah, apparently he really is getting asked these questions all the time.
Like magic, isn't it, how the view sometimes changes with the twilight?
He is 38 now and, at various points in his career, A.J. Burnett has been an enigma who failed to consistently live up to his potential (Marlins), a high-priced bust (Blue Jays) and a World Series champion (Yankees).
Now, he's a short-timer who is going out in a blaze of glory.
"If you ask me, one reason I'm doing so well is because I'm enjoying it," Burnett continues. "I'm leaving it all on the field and enjoying every moment. I'm taking everything in.
"I wish I had that approach a long time ago."
He didn't, and it would have been so much easier, perhaps, if he had; and yes, probably the ride would have been smoother.
But we all figure things out on different schedules, don't we?
"I really believe we prepare for our future by our past, if we've paid attention," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle says. "And he's paid attention."
Burnett will take the ball for his 11th start of the season Tuesday night in San Francisco on the best roll of his life. He went 5-0 with a 1.82 ERA in May. Only one other time has he produced a 5-0 month. That was in 2012, with Pittsburgh, when he posted a 2.84 ERA in June.
It is no coincidence that the Pirates, picked to contend in the NL Central this year, simultaneously are making their move. They've won eight of their past 10 games and, beginning on June 8, will play 24 of 32 games at home leading into the All-Star break.
Yes, it is a wonderful time right now, the season young enough to hold all sorts of promise and nearly every sinker Burnett throws biting like a fish on a hook.
Except, the nagging in Burnett's soul that started a couple of years ago continues to poke at him, pulling him back toward his family. Allan Jr. (14) and Ashton (11) are home in Maryland with their mother, A.J.'s wife, Karen.
"When I'm home on an off day, we go out and hit and play catch in the yard for hours, and they love it," he says.
"I know they wish I could do it more than one day a month."
He considered retiring following the 2013 season, but then the Phillies offered him a contract. They're close to his home and he figured, that'll work, let's do that.
Then he suffered a sports hernia in early May, pitched 213.2 innings anyway but, more often than not, got his brains beat in. He went 8-18 with a 4.59 ERA over 34 starts in Philadelphia.
"No way in hell I was going to end with a season like that," he says.
And so it was back to the Pirates, the club that acquired him from the Yankees in February 2012. In return, he helped lift them to their first playoff appearance in 21 years.
"He's always taken the ball," Hurdle says. "That's the last thing that people talk about with him, and sometimes they don't talk about it at all."
Indeed, there were any number of times he could have begged out last year in Philadelphia, taken a break on the disabled list, skipped a start here or there when the sports hernia was feeling particularly uncomfortable.
"You know what?" he says. "There were times it bothered me, and there were times when it didn't. I don't know if it was a mental thing where I knew it was there. I blocked it out as much as I could.
"I signed a contract to pitch. You're not going to drag me off of the mound."
According to FanGraphs, he is throwing his slider a whopping 52.2 percent of the time this season compared to 37.2 percent of the time last summer.
"That's all he throws, sinkers and curveballs," catcher Francisco Cervelli says, the latter referring to the pitcher's knuckle curve. "That's it."
Like Burnett, Cervelli was a Yankee for a time, and things are totally different now.
"Yeah, over there he used to be 97 mph, a lot of power," Cervelli says. "Now, it's 90 mph, and he controls the sinker on the corner all the time. It's amazing."
Says Burnett: "I'm executing pitches. I'm doing nothing different from last year. The ball might be moving more. I'm making less mistakes than I did.
"I ain't found the Fountain of Youth."
Burnett has earned roughly $145 million in his career, including the one-year deal he signed this year to return to Pittsburgh for the altogether paltry sum of $8.5 million. Relatively speaking, it is a bargain contract for the Bucs—especially if Burnett can help pitch Pittsburgh deep into October.
Which, of course, is what he's most concerned with now. Because, really, it won't be long now until it will be time for the rest of his life.
"I need to take my wife to Europe, and places we've never been," he says. "All of my summers have been taken up by my job. I want to coach my boys. You know what? I've missed a lot of them growing up.
"In my opinion, I could play three or four more years. I can honestly say, without bragging or boasting, that I could probably get 3,000 punchouts. And I know to a lot of people, that could get you in the Hall of Fame.
"But there are more important things in life."
Burnett currently is at 2,429 career strikeouts. Since his debut in 1999, among active pitchers, only CC Sabathia has fanned more (2,488).
He could have had a few more, too, had he managed even one in one of the most unusual no-hitters you will ever see: his nine-walk, zero-strikeout handcuffing of the Padres in May 2001.
"Embarrassing," he says now, before giving it a second thought. "Well, I wouldn't say embarrassing, but nine walks. Come on."
Still, he says, it was a special night. As so many of them have been when he allows himself the trip down memory lane.
The Marlins years (1999-2005)?
"I'll never forget John Boles," he says of the man who piloted the Marlins from 1999 to 2001. "He was a great man and a great manager. They believed in me, and I believe that's a big reason I'm still pitching today, because of the stuff I went through back then. A lot of guys you see today go up and down (to the minors), up and down. Bolesy stuck with me, and I'll never forget that.
"Besides that, it was a great group of men. I'm happy I came up with those guys. Guys like Mike Lowell, Luis Castillo, Derek Lee, Mike Redmond."
The Blue Jays (2006-2008)?
"Being around Doc Halladay," he says. "And being back with Brad Arnsberg (Toronto's pitching coach, who had that role with the Marlins when Burnett was there). Brad Arnsberg was big in my career, too. One of the best I've ever had.
"I learned so much from Doc, preparation and competing more than anything."
The Yankees ('09-11)?
"The '09 World Series," he says, smiling broadly. "I keep in touch with a lot of guys from that team. Alex Rodriguez, for one. We're always shooting funny texts at each other.
"I sent him one the other day, 'All-time RBI, who you going to pass next?' He answered, 'Ha ha, you're the best.' And always, he puts hashtag '09."
He appreciated the chance to play with pros like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in Philadelphia last summer, and he is thankful for this one last roundup in Pittsburgh.
"I was embraced by the city from the get-go," he says. "The way the guys in the locker room looked up to me as a leader…it was something I knew I had from talking to Doc, but these guys brought it out of me. They're the reason I came back.
"I've played on a lot of great teams, but these guys are special. And they always will be."
Yes, he is in the sweet spot of life right now: a family at home awaiting him and a family in the clubhouse reveling in—and buoyed by—his success. A sinker that could lift Pittsburgh to its greatest baseball heights in decades and a fishing boat docked and ready for his retirement.
"I'm kind of envious of the guy," Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage says. "Because he's going to go out on his terms, which is really nice.
"Really nice."
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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