Breaking news: Pat Burrell DFA'd by the Rays

Pat the Bat was hitting .202/.292/.303 with two homers in 96 plate appearances with Tampa Bay. The 33-year-old former Phillie has been a huge bust since signing a two-year deal to become the Rays' DH. Burrell is owed $9 million for 2010 as part of the two-year, $16 million deal he signed in January of 2009. The move clears room for the Rays to promote veteran Hank Blalock from Durham.

Comments

[Laurel]

Not suprised...

[SH291]

Good luck Pat. It's always good to see reunions, but Pat is playing more like a 43 yr old not a 33 yr old. It stinks to see good people get old real fast.

[awh]

Too bad. Always like Pat. Hopefully he'll find his swing again.

Signing Raul is looking really smart right now, no?

[GTown_Dave]

(RP From Previous Thread)

It's a shame that it ended this way for Pat, but then again he's got a WFC Ring & $9 Million still coming to him courtesy of Tampa, so I'm not exactly crying in my beer over it.

[MG]

Never did have that patented "Burrell hot streak" last season I thought he might where he gets hot for at least 3-4 weeks.

He won't be missed in TB either. Went to a game earlier this season and some late last season when I was down on there on business. One of the few guys that got booed notably and loudly. Wasn't a fan favorite by any stretch.

There are a bunch of teams with some really weak production of their DH/benches in the AL but I would be shocked if another team takes a flyer on Burrell given his horrible career numbers as a DH:

567 AB with a line of .208/.304/.344

For whatever reason he just never could hit as a DH including horrendous numbers with the Phils in Interleague play as the DH.

[Old Phan]

Sorry to hear about PtB. Hopefully it is a temporary setback.

[Old Phan]

Re: previous thread.
Is that a picture of him in the Phillies off season production of Cyrano de Bergerac?

[MG]

I will always wonder if Burrell really was offered a 2 yr/$22M contract or not by Amaro right after the season ended. Got conflicting reports on that last season from both sides.

Frankly, if Burrell was offered the deal then I don't remotely in the least feel sorry for his release. He was just another athlete who are largely completely full of sh!t about his desire to play here. Money as it almost always does talks first and foremost with athletes.

Burrell thought he could make more money elsewhere & then the FA market dried up on him forcing him to sign with TB.

Also never understood why Burrell was generally more popular with the fans than Abreu either. He was a clearly inferior player all around yet he was generally more well received in this town despite some really ugly stretches of baseball.

[Klaus]

Well awh, a few threads ago we learned that everything that the phillies have ever done was correct, because in 2008 the team won the World Series and in 2009 the pennant. Gillik's signing of Adam Eaton, by the way, is vindicated.

[TBex]

MG: Because almost everyone seems to have their own unique Pat Burrell story of something ridiculous he has down while out on the town.

[GTown_Dave]

MG: That last one is easy - Burrell always played hard, never made any excuses for his failures, never complained when the fans called him on those failures & materialized into the veteran leader that the Phils really needed in '07 & '08.

[Old Phan]

Nothing will ever vindicate the Adam Eaton signing. However, all teams make mistakes.

[MG]

My favorite posts on a Rays' blog about Burrell and the DFA:

- "Jobu answered my prayers"
- "We should get a refund from Philly for a clearly defective product"
- "Pat is the first guy here every day," Maddon stated. with a response of Easier to cut him when nobody else is around…
- This just in PtB has been picked up by the International Wiffle Ball League:
Quote from the manager of the Venezualan whiffle ball team, “we are thrilled to have Pat on our team, his swing is picture perfect for whiffle ball”.

[Old Phan]

G-town, absolutely agree with you re: PtB

[johnnysanz3]

I may have forgotten but I don't remember Abreu "making excuses" and not "playing hard"..oh ya that's right, if you don't smash yourself against walls you aren't playing hard..Even though PtB never had to crash into a wall because the ball bounced off of it by the time he was even remotely close to it.

[MG]

Dave - I was never a Burrell basher but I wasn't a big fan either. He was a good player here who had some real up and downs.

He never did make excuses but he never developed into a real leader either. You also have to wonder too just how many of his chronic injuries that seemed to plague him his last 3-4 years in Philly were largely self-inflicted from years of partying & not really taking good care of himself.

[Old Phan]

He looked like he was in pretty good shape during his years in Philly.

[clout]

Hank Blalock is also an ex-Phillie.

[Jack]

The fact that Pat took a whole lot of crap from fans and never complained about it (and his subtle digs like having "Dirty Laundry" be his song were actually pretty awesome), and the fact that he was quietly a clubhouse leader and really seemed to like living and playing in Philadelphia makes a lot of people like him. I know I certainly do.

There's also the Billy Wagner "rat" story.

[clout]

Oh, wait that was Jake Blalock.

[GTown_Dave]

MG: Mostly all valid points, esp. RE: Pat's conditioning. I wouldn't consider myself a Burrell "fan", either, but I will definitely remember him more fondly than not. It would have been easy for a guy who had so much success in college, & of whom so much was expected, to flame out spectacularly in Philly. However, he kept plugging away & never gave off the same "this is all the organization's fault, I can't wait to get out of here" vibe that other privileged young athletes do when put in the same position. I also feel his contributions in the clubhouse are sorely underrated. I can't count how many times in '07 & '08, no matter how poorly he might have been doing at the time, that Pat was one of the first guys on the dugout steps waiting to congratulate &/or encourage a teammate. Those qualities are almost impossible to quantify, but tend to get noticed & appreciated more in Philadelphia than in other places.

[krukker]

clout: I think you mean Jake Blalock, Hank's brother. Another in the long line of Phillies-got-the-wrong-brother guys (Garciaparra, Giambi, et al). Don't recall the Phils ever having Hank Blalock.

[RSB]

How many seasons was Burrell hitting .200 on May 15 while with the Phillies? I'm sure he's got some production left in him, probably plenty.

[clout]

Nobody calls out Beerleaguer's mental midgets better than klaus:

"Well awh, a few threads ago we learned that everything that the phillies have ever done was correct, because in 2008 the team won the World Series and in 2009 the pennant. Gillik's signing of Adam Eaton, by the way, is vindicated."

[clout]

krukker: Yup.

[clout]

Burrell suffered a bit from "Von Hayes Syndrome," which is when a prospect is wildly overhyped and then incurs fans wrath for most of his career when he doesn't turn out as advertised, despite being an above average player.

Burrell was a number one draft pick and stardom was forecast by all. His 11-year career average stands at .253, his OPS+ at 115. That makes him a good player, but not the superstar that was projected.

Von Hayes' career OPS+, incidentally, was 113.

[Dukes]

RSB...one year he was hitting around .200 on May 15 and got it all the way up to .209 by the end!

I loved his heart and he made no excuses ever, but I also thought he had one of the worst swings in baseball. I still think he closes his eyes when he swings.

[Bo Diaz]

1 day retirement contract - let him retire as a Phillie.

I don't quite know how this works: let's say a team needs a matt stairs type player at the end of the season and they decide to give burrell a shot, do they have to pay him in addition to the 9m or whatever the rays are paying him? how does that all work?

[A-Train]

Bo,

I believe any club signing Burrell will only have to pay him a pro-rated portion of the 2010 MLB minimum. The rest will be paid by the Rays.

[A-Train]

It's a real shame Burrell can't DH b/c he really can't play LF any more. Hard to believe he won't catch on somewhere though.

[Shane]

I remember when PtB first came up to the club and everyone had high hopes for him. He actually lived up to it a few times, but there were more years of not. Yeah, he put up good numbers......if it was the 80's. We just expected him to hit about 35 HRs instead of the about 25 HRs he actually averaged.

I really wanted that last ball he hit for us to be a HR. So close.

[Mikemcsaudi]

Mark my words ... he will end up in the land where all ex-Phillies live ...Houston. Ed Wade signed him ... Ed Wade will give him a shot for a Houston lineup that is short on power. Question is where do you put him?

[Dave]

G_Town Dave, so what you're saying is that he was the starter's version of "scrappy."