Pirates, Please Don't Leave Without Taking This Pitcher With You

For Yankees fans, the biggest news of the off season has not been Jorge Posada's retirement, the trade for Michael Pineda, or it turning out that all of the those Mike Pagliarulo bobblehead dolls were counterfeit ("hey, this is Mike Blowers! I want my peanut shells back!").

No, as Spring Training begins we're concerned that this A.J. Burnett-to-anywhere-on-earth deal is not going as smoothly as we had hoped. A little over a week ago, the Yanks were working out a deal that would send Burnett to the Pirates in exchange for Pittsburgh eating some of the $33 million left on his contract and the Yankees eating a ham sandwich.

I don't know.

It doesn't matter what the Yankees were willing to eat, just that the Pirates were hungry for some 5 ERA, neck tattoos and 47-foot curve balls. The point was: someone was EAGER to take A.J. Burnett from the Yankees and my nightmares, and Vinny from Jersey's nightmares.

Now it seems the Yankees are quibbling over money, wanting the Pirates to take more than the $10 million they've offered or throw in top-level prospects. This has been a puzzling few days for me because I really thought the conversation would go something like this:

Yankees: "Hello Pittsburgh Pirates, what can we do for you?"

Pirates: "We'd like to trade for A.J. [phone disconnects, person on other line loses consciousness].

The staff at Offbase is here to help. The following is a list of Burnett trades we'd be willing to make if we were the Yankees.

1. A.J. Burnett to the Pirates for a case of hoagie rolls
2. A.J. Burnett to the Pirates for Trent Stevenson
3. Three-way trade: Pirates get A.J. Burnett, Padres get Murray Klein (12 HR for 2011 Bly's Bakery softball team), Yankees get a 1997 Pirates yearbook autographed by Midre Cummings
4. A.J. Burnett to the Henderson Valley 9-year old all-stars for a player to be named later
5. A.J. Burnett to the Indians for J.B. Arnett
6. A.J. Burnett to the Pirates for a goldfish to be named later
7. A.J. Burnett to the Kinsella family for the uncle that threw the kid off the bleachers
8. A.J. Burnett to the Royals for Glenn Gibson
9. Yankees get Taylor Garrison from Henderson Valley to complete an earlier trade
10. A.J. Burnett to the Orioles for B.J. Hernett
11. A.J. Burnett to the Orioles for some lettuce
12. A.J. Burnett to the Pirates for Midre Cummings