- Fangraphs has a scouting comparison between Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon. They breakdown both pitchers’ fastball, breaking pitches, command, and a few other things. It’s pretty interesting. The article essentially concludes that both pitchers are exceptional, but they give the edge to Cole if they had to pick one of them.

- This week, it came out that the Pirates’ draft pool for 2012 would be $6,563,500. That was a lower number than most expected and goes to show that another Josh Bell type signing will just simply never occur again. It is a shame that the one part of baseball that the Pirates could actually exploit to their advantage is now gone. Tim at Pirates Prospects has a good, in depth breakdown of how this affects the Pirates draft.

- Yesterday, Baseball America released their Top 100 Prospects list. Four Pirates made the cut. Gerrit Cole led the way at #12, followed by Jameson Taillon at #15. Josh Bell was next at #60 and Starling Marte was shortly behind him at #73. Luis Heredia apparently was among the “next 10″ who didn’t quite make the list.

- Buc Town.

Burnett passed the physical and mlb approved the trade. Done deal.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) February 19, 2012

Now that the trade is official and approved by MLB, a corresponding roster move must be made by the Pirates to make room for A.J. Burnett on the 40-man roster. The likely candidates seem to be Duke Welker or Gustavo Nunez.

I’ll update this post to reflect the move when it is announced.

UPDATE:

Rule V draft pick Gustavo Nunez has been placed on the 60-day disabled list to make room for Burnett.

Ramon Cabrera

Cabrera is coming off a breakout season, where he won the Florida State League batting title with a batting average of .343. He is a switch hitter and hits equally well from both sides of the plate. Things will get interesting this year as Cabrera was always a level behind the organization’s top catching prospect, Tony Sanchez. However, Sanchez probably does not deserve a promotion this year and the two should now be at the same level. Somehow, playing time will have to be given to both players.

(For those interested, I saw Cabrera last season and have some video of him here. One thing you will immediately notice is his size, which is one reason why he doesn’t rank high on prospect lists.)

Jake Fox

Fox is listed as a catcher on the Pirates website, but he has only played there in 32 of his 193 Major League games played. He’s more of a corner outfielder, but is capable in case of emergency to catch. Fox will be competing for one of the bench spots on the Pirates’ Major League roster and is coming off a 2011 campaign where he posted a .756 OPS.

Eric Fryer

Fryer had to be called upon last season with all the injuries the Pirates suffered at this position last year. He really didn’t get enough playing time though to come up with any conclusions. He is still someone who has only played 85 games above High-A ball and I was actually pleasantly surprised to see him clear through waivers when he was designated for assignment. So far, Fryer looks like he could have a future as a ML catcher, probably in the backup role. He’s a bit down on the depth chart still, but as we saw last season, who knows? He may be needed.

Jose Morales

Morales is the guy to watch on this list as he will be directly competing with Michael McKenry for the club’s backup catcher. His defensive numbers thus far are astounding as he has caught 16 out of 31 attempted base stealers over 58 career ML games. He’s hit pretty well in AAA and has a .709 OPS in 252 career plate appearances at the ML level. Compare that to the .577 OPS McKenry has put up over 210 PA.

Tony Sanchez

Sanchez, as you all know, was the 4th overall pick in the 2009 draft. Going into last season, it looked like the Pirates draft strategy of reaching for Sanchez was paying off. Last season, though, Sanchez’ stock took a hit when he hit .241/.340/.318. Now, due to Sanchez’ on base skills and receiving skills, he still projects to be a big league catcher. But that isn’t exactly what we are hoping for out of Sanchez. This will be a big season for him as he looks to regain his top prospect status.

Gerrit Cole

The Pirates have made it a tradition that their 1st round draft picks from the previous year gets invited to the big league camp and you can 100% expect that Cole will be starting the season in the minor leagues, but this should still be a great experience for him and will provide him some competition against Major League caliber talent. Cole made his professional debut in the Arizona Fall League last season and in 5 starts, went 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA in 15 innings where he struck out 16 batters.

Michael Crotta

Crotta surprised us all last season when he made the trip north with the club following a successful spring campaign. His first taste of the bigs didn’t go great as he posted a 9.28 ERA over 10 2/3 innings. Injuries sidelined him for a while and he was later designated for assignment and made it through waivers. Last season was the first year in which Crotta did not start, so it will be interesting to see how he does as a reliever for a full, healthy season.

Juan Cruz

Out of everyone on this list, Cruz has the best chance of making the team right out of spring training, and if I had to put a team together right now, he would be going north with the club. Cruz, now 33 years old, has put together a pretty successful career and he proved last year with Tampa Bay that he is still effective. His velocity is a bit down (92.8 mph avg) but he posted a 3.88 ERA over 48 2/3 innings for the Rays last year with a K/9 of 8.51.

Ryota Igarashi

Igarashi is coming off 2 seasons with the Mets where he posted a 5.74 ERA over 69 innings. He did, though, put up a 0.87 ERA and a 9.87 K/9 over 31 innings in AAA last year. He will mostly serve as depth in AAA, but you never know. With success there and if there are multiple injuries at the ML level, he is someone who we could see this season.

Logan Kensing

Kensing hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2009, and that season wasn’t very pretty (8.92 ERA in 35 1/3 IP). Last year in AAA, Kensing had a 4.28 ERA over 27 1/2 IP but showed he could still strike batters out with a 10.54 K/9. Be surprised if you see him this season.

Shairon Martis

Martis, like Kensing, hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2009. He is also the first guy on this list (other than Cole) who is a starting pitcher. He is also the youngest player (other than Cole) on this list (25). After 3 seasons at the AAA level for Washington, he spent the year last season in AA. His numbers definitely benefited from pitching at the lower levels. At this point, he just looks like organizational depth.

Jo-Jo Reyes

Reyes spent all of last season in the AL East between Toronto and Baltimore where he posted a 5.57 ERA over 140 2/3 IP. Surprisingly, in his 5 seasons in the Majors, that was the lowest ERA out of all of them. Reyes will likely start out in AAA, however could be called upon if there a few injuries in the rotation.

Doug Slaten

Slaten battled injuries last season in which he only pitched in 16 1/2 innings for the Nationals. But his 2010 campaign was pretty good. He has a lot of ML experience with as he has pitched in parts of 6 different seasons while posting a 3.60 ERA over 137 2/3 innings. The southpaw has held lefties to a .239 batting average over that time frame.

Tim Wood

We saw some of Wood last season, but his great stuff did not translate into great numbers. His control seemed to be his main problem with 8 walks in 8 IP. He did, however, put up good numbers in AAA while serving as the Indians’ closer. In 44 1/2 innings at Indy, he posted a 2.84 ERA with 23 saves. Look for him to have the same role this season.

The Yankees will send right handed pitcher A.J. Burnett along with $20 million in cash to the Pirates for minor leaguers Diego Moreno and Exicardo Cayones.

I’m not going to go into much about Burnett because we’ve discussed it non-stop for about a week now, but Rob Biertempfel says that out of Burnett’s $13 million that will have to be paid by the Pirates, $5 million will be paid this season and $8 million next season. That leaves the Pirates with a lot of financial flexibility still this season if (big if) they are looking to add some production at this year’s trade deadline.

Now to the players the Yankees will receive:

Diego Moreno was thought of as a pretty nice prospect a few years ago as a reliever who consistently threw in the high-90′s and posted excellent numbers in Single-A. The problem with the now 25 year old righty is that as soon as he hit AA (in both 2010 and 2011), he hit a wall. He was also demoted and suspended in 2010 for undisclosed reasons. He was eligible for this year’s Rule V draft, but went both unprotected and undrafted.

Exicardo Cayones was signed by the Pirates in 2008 out of Venezuela for $400,000, which at the time, was the highest bonus paid by the Pirates for a Latin American amateur. He is now entering his age 20 season, which will be his 3rd season in the US. He suffered a setback last year with a very poor campaign in State College (.063/.189/.063) before being sent back to the GCL. He’s still somewhat interesting because he’s young, but his stock isn’t where it was at this time last year.

barring something unforeseen, aj trade will be completed w/i a few days. pirates to pay $13M of $33M, give up 2 non-roster minor leaguers

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) February 17, 2012

It looks like we are now just waiting on this thing becoming official. If the Yankees are paying $20 million of Burnett’s remaining salary, this is a trade that will need to be ok’d by the MLB commissioner’s office.

Also, if the Pirates are taking on $13 million, one should not expect the two “prospects” that are going to New York to be all that interesting.

Dejan Kovacevic is also hearing the same thing based on his column today, which praises the Pirates for getting the deal done.

We discuss a little bit of everything going on from A.J. Burnett to Gustavo Nunez. Definitely worth a listen. It will be up on iTunes shortly.

Click here to listen/download.

Also on iTunes. 

It’s pretty amazing that they couldn’t settle with the two sides being so close, but hey, I guess it saves $250,000.

After the Jones ruling, the Pirates avoided arbitration with Casey McGehee as the two sides agreed to a $2.5375 million deal. McGehee was set for an arbitration hearing today.

This leaves everyone on the roster with a contract going into spring training as these two players were the only ones still being negotiated.

He also added that the “soft” deadline for a deal to be done is Saturday, which is when Yankees’ pitchers and catchers report to Tampa for Spring Training. The Pirates now stand as the only team where a deal is likely to get done as it was leaked that there was a little interest by the Indians, but that ended very quickly. Also, the Angels are willing to make the trade, but thanks to Mrs. Burnett (who lives in Maryland) and is afraid of flying, Burnett will not approve a trade to the West Coast (Hooray Pteromerhanophobia). There was also a fourth team interested, but they aren’t very serious about the deal.

It looks like the Yankees are just going try to milk this negotiation for all it’s worth. I can’t see the Pirates budging much on the offer as they currently have all the leverage in this thing. We should know soon enough, though, if Burnett will be a Pirate or not.

Pirates and Yankees have a framework of a possible AJ Burnett deal in place, and they are now working through conditions of that framework.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 12, 2012

The Burnett deal is not done, but the Yankees and Pirates have a lot of common ground, and Pittsburgh is the clear frontrunner as of 2/12. — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 12, 2012

The Pirates and Yankees haven’t agreed on final players or dollar amount, but they’re talking within that common ground to settle details. — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 12, 2012

Could something happen today?

UPDATE – 11:18 AM:

From new Pirates.com beat writer Tom Singer:

We’ll soon know if #Yankees bluffed about AJ market. Potential deal with #Pirates in place, NY just asking around 2 see if some1 beats it

— Tom Singer (@Tom_Singer) February 12, 2012

Looks like something could be happening really soon.

UPDATE – 11:58 AM:

From CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman:

#yankees don’t love the 2 minor leaguers #pirates offered for aj. best guess, it still gets done, with pitt paying $13-15M of aj’s $33M

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) February 12, 2012

It’s good to see that the Pirates aren’t giving in much. The money here sounds fine and if the Pirates don’t have to give up anything all that great in return it is a steal. The Yankees really don’t have much leverage here as they are desperate to get rid of Burnett’s contract, so the Pirates are definitely negotiating from a position of strength and should be able to get Burnett for very little.

Also, Joel Sherman from the NY Post just tweeted out that he feels a deal getting done today is doubtful.

UPDATE – 12:59 PM:

Ken Rosenthal reports that signs are pointing to a deal getting done but that both sides are still trying to get the most out of each other. He expects the Yankees to pick up $19-$23 million of Burnett’s remaining $33 million contract and receive “multiple” minor leaguers in return, none of them being on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster.