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Some closure, Re: Burnett choosing Philly


avdeuph

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I knew you would remember, weams. I am just surprised none of the anti-Angelos posters has picked it up yet.

Btw, I don't think it's meaningful one way or the other.

My earlier post from 1/28...."Read somewhere that Scott Proefrock, Assistant GM of Phillies, is a neighbor of AJ's and that AJ and Cliff Lee both have the same agent. Don't discount the Phillies."

I think the neighbor angle AND the agent angle turned out to be in the mix, if for no other reason than keeping communications open.

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It came from A.J Mouth is that not good enough for you?

In this sense, no. You have your mind made up, and I am not going to change it. But I don't care how much interest we showed, I don't think that the interest was ever mutual. So if he never really cared about Baltimore, I don't expect him to say something like "man, the Orioles made a really hard push and they made the decision difficult." If he already had his mind made up a while ago, why waste the breath? If was reported last week that he had no interest in playing in the AL East, so I don't think it is a stretch to say that we were never strongly considered. Maybe he is discouting the level of interest because, as looks to be the case, he never had any in Baltimore himself. And Burnett is not exactly the most charismatic and engaging guy, he probably wanted the discussion to be over with quickly.

And while we may not have directly showed a great amount of interest directly to A.J., I am sure we did to his agent. That is what they are there for. Maybe it was not fully relayed to A.J. because he already told his agent what he wanted and that was not Baltimore. So why would his agent waste time going back and forth when he knows that is not what his client wants?

So no, I don't believe there "wasn't much" interest just because a few tweets say so. If he would have said, "they had absolutely no interest at all," that is one thing. But he said "not much." All of this is subjective, and it probably has a lot more layers than some would like to admit. Not everything is simple and everything does not fit in the same box. Call me naive, say that I am rationalizing, I don't really care. But I don't think this situation is as simple as just saying that we did not show interest or that we are cheap.

I really wanted A.J., and I thought he would have been a perfect fit for our rotation. But I never really thought we had a legitimate shot, and it has nothing to do with the FO, or money. I am not necessarily pleased that he did not come here, but I don't think it is from lack of effort.

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Ah great, he gets to work with his neighbor, whos kid goes to school with his son. Meanwhile, on homestands he gets to stay at a hotel in philly rather than sleep in his own bed at home with his wife and kids.

Maybe the "AJ wanting to be near his wife and kids" angle was overblown. Afterall, Philly is such a family oriented city.

Monkton to Philly is 90 minutes top. He could easily sleep at home if he wanted to.

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Monkton to Philly is 90 minutes top. He could easily sleep at home if he wanted to.

He made it clear that he did not want to come to Baltimore. He also got the benefit of getting Philly's offer up. Good luck to him. He was never one of us.

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A. J. Burnett said that he would either retire or sign with the Pirates. Which one of those did he do?

He is spinning his friend Proefrock so nice in the press. I wonder if Scott knows that he would have sold him out if only the Pirates would have approved his NT demands ;) Of course Scott knows - this is the baseball monopoly. It's like the mob. But nastier. There are only 30 "families" in the world.

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