Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports reports that the Baltimore Orioles are waiting to hear if A.J. Burnett wants to pitch in 2014.
#orioles still waiting to find out whether A.J. Burnett wants to pitch in 2014. If so, they want to talk to him. Met with rep at meetings
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) December 13, 2013
Kubatko says that the Orioles want to talk to Burnett, and that they met with his representative at the Winter Meetings. The Pirates have seemingly moved on with the signing of Edinson Volquez. However, with James Loney signing a deal with the Rays, I can’t see them spending that much money on any of the remaining available first basemen. They said after they signed Volquez that they could still add Burnett. They definitely have the space in the budget to make that happen.
It seems like people have dismissed the possibility that Burnett could actually retire. The general feeling has been that the Pirates can just go give him X amount of dollars and he’d be on the team. What this rumor shows is that he actually is undecided. If the only thing required for Burnett to pitch again was money, then I would think he would have already signed with the Orioles. It appears that he is just undecided about returning.