A.J. Burnett isn’t retiring and is open to leaving the Pirates

By Aaron GleemanJan 28, 2014, 4:44 PM EDT
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For the past several months the assumption has been that A.J. Burnett would either retire or return to pitch for the Pirates, with calling it a career at age 37 seemingly being in the lead of late.

However, according to Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review the free agent right-hander “will return to pitch in 2014” and “will be open to pitching for a club other than the Pirates.”

As both Ervin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez would attest to the free agent pitching market was already very well-stocked for this late in the offseason and Burnett was one of the best starters in the NL last season, throwing 191 innings with a 3.30 ERA and 209 strikeouts.

It’ll be interesting to see if teams are willing to make a multi-year commitment for big money and/or if Burnett is even looking for multiple years considering he apparently gave strong consideration to never pitching again. And because the Pirates didn’t make him a $14.1 million qualifying offer they won’t receive draft pick compensation if he signs elsewhere.

Carlos Gomez gets ejected, rips umpire in Twitter rant

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By Craig CalcaterraSep 21, 2018, 10:45 AM EDT
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Carlos Gomez entered the Rays-Blue Jays game as a pinch hitter last night, struck out looking and was ejected because he argued the call. But though his time in the game was quickly over, his evening was just beginning.

Gomez didn’t even wait for the game to end before taking to Twitter to rip home plate umpire Andy Fletcher First thing he did was post video of himself being called out on strikes, saying “the only job they have is to call balls and strikes. Do you guys think that pitch is a strike?

He went on:

And more, saying that if he kept showing these he’d find ten more pitches like this called strikes that, he believes, were balls:

He also believes that strikes thrown by Rays pitchers were balls:

There were other tweets that he subsequently deleted, but when he got back to his hotel room, he posted a six-minute-long video apologizing for some of those posts, saying “I made a mistake” — it’s not clear what it was he had deleted or what he was mistaken about — but then he went on to say that Fletcher was “brutal” and that he was not doing his job, claiming that if you watched more video of the game you’d see that Fletcher missed more than 30 pitches.

You get ejected for arguing balls and strikes in this league. You get fined for saying bad things about umpires after a game. My guess is that saying LOTS of bad things about umpires after a game, along with video evidence publicly criticizing them, you’re gonna get a BIG, BIG fine and, possibly, a suspension.

Hope that all made you feel better, though, Carlos!