Inside the Burnett Deal

Joel Sherman of the New York Post has been tweeting and typing away on the Burnett deal. Here's some of the thought processes involved by the Bronx Bombers:

• He said the New York timeline ran out "Because the Yankees have been shopping Burnett since early December, (and) the feeling in the organization is that it would be awkward for each side to have him report Sunday."
• The Yanks thought of selecting Diego Moreno, the hard throwing righty, in the Rule 5 draft, but had taken two guys before him and didn't want to use up another 40-man roster spot.
• NY considered Moreno one of the Bucs Top Ten prospects, obviously an assessment the Pirate FO disagreed with, especially with the discipline related problems he had. They hope he can become a low cost Scott Proctor or Brian Bruney type pitcher.
• They took OF'er Exicardo Cayonez as a throw-in. The Yanks don't think he has the power to play a corner or the speed to last in center.
• Jon Heyman of CBS Sports agrees on both physical assessments.
• Buster Olney of ESPN tweets that the mystery team in on Burnett was the Phillies, but they couldn't unload Joe Blanton to free up salary. Sherman wrote that the Phils were exploring a 3-way deal, but couldn't get it together.

So it ends up there was one other serious bidder, and the Yankees get both salary relief and a prospect they liked that the Bucs had given up on, while Pittsburgh added some needed depth to the rotation. The key, according to most sources, was the Pirates bumping up the cash component to $13M from their original offer of $10M. That gave the Yankees enough salary wiggle room to seal the deal and allowed the Pirates to hold on to their upper level prospects.