Players · B · Pitcher · 2015 regular season

A.J. Burnett

Pittsburgh Pirates National League Central

Age: 38
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 230 lb
Number: #34

Born: January 3, 1977 in North Little Rock, AR, United States
MLB debut: August 17, 1999

dbWAR: 29.5
IP: 164.0
ERA: 3.18
FIP: 3.36
K/9: 7.8
FIP−: 85

A.J. Burnett was a starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2015 he struck out 143 batters over 164.0 innings across 26 appearances, 26 of them starts, going 9-7. His ERA of 3.18 was 19.7% lower than the league average of 3.96 — 8th of 14 on his team, and 137th of 513 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 3.36 FIP suggests the ERA was no fluke. He missed bats on 22.3% of swings (10.0% of every pitch he threw), walked 7.0% of the batters he faced and struck out 20.5%. His 3.0 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2015 regular season.

FIP3.36

K/97.8

WHIP1.36

WAR3.0

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below. Seasons on file run 2005–2015; his career began in 1999, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2015	PIT	26	26	164.0	9	7	174	58	143	49	3.18	3.36	1.36	7.8	2.7	80	85	3.0
2014	PHI	34	34	213.2	8	18	205	109	190	96	4.59	4.14	1.41	8.0	4.0	123	111	1.3
2013	PIT	30	30	191.0	10	11	165	70	209	67	3.30	2.80	1.21	9.8	3.2	85	72	4.6
2012	PIT	31	31	202.1	16	10	189	79	180	62	3.51	3.52	1.24	8.0	2.8	88	88	3.2
2011	NYY	33	32	190.1	11	11	190	109	173	83	5.15	4.77	1.43	8.2	3.9	131	121	0.4
2010	NYY	33	33	186.2	10	15	204	109	145	78	5.26	4.83	1.51	7.0	3.8	129	118	0.7
2009	NYY	33	33	207.0	13	9	193	93	195	97	4.04	4.33	1.40	8.5	4.2	94	100	2.3
2008	TOR	35	34	221.1	18	10	211	100	231	86	4.07	3.45	1.34	9.4	3.5	94	80	4.7
2007	TOR	25	25	165.2	10	8	131	69	176	66	3.75	4.33	1.19	9.6	3.6	84	97	2.1
2006	TOR	21	21	135.2	10	8	138	60	118	39	3.98	3.79	1.30	7.8	2.6	88	84	2.8
2005	FLA	32	32	209.0	12	12	184	80	198	79	3.44	3.11	1.26	8.5	3.4	80	72	5.1

Batting Regular season


2015	PIT	24	52	5	1	5	0	20	.119	.116	.190	.071	.182	0.0%	38.5%	.130	-7.7	-32	-0.1
2014	PHI	29	65	8	0	1	3	23	.133	.175	.167	.033	.216	4.6%	35.4%	.160	-7.6	-9	0.1
2013	PIT	29	67	4	0	2	2	33	.068	.098	.068	.000	.154	3.0%	49.3%	.082	-12.1	-67	-0.4
2012	PIT	29	71	4	0	2	3	36	.063	.106	.063	.000	.148	4.2%	50.7%	.085	-13.0	-65	-0.4
2011	NYY	1	3	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	66.7%	.000	-0.7	-116	-0.0
2010	NYY	2	3	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	33.3%	.000	-0.8	-119	-0.0
2009	NYY	2	5	1	0	0	0	1	.200	.200	.200	.000	.250	0.0%	20.0%	.180	-0.6	-4	0.0
2008	TOR	2	4	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	25.0%	.000	-1.1	-129	-0.1
2007	TOR	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	0.0%	.000	-0.6	-130	-0.0
2006	TOR	1	3	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	33.3%	.000	-0.8	-123	-0.0
2005	FLA	31	79	10	1	2	1	34	.147	.171	.279	.132	.273	1.3%	43.0%	.198	-8.6	10	0.2

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason A.J. Burnett's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2013 Post	PIT	NLDS	1	1	2.0	0	1	6	7	1	4	0	31.50	5.00	0.0
2011 Post	NYY	ALDS	1	1	5.2	1	0	4	1	1	4	3	1.59	1.41	4.8
2010 Post	NYY	ALCS	1	1	6.0	0	1	6	5	1	3	4	7.50	1.50	6.0
2009 Post	NYY	Postseason total	5	5	27.1	1	1	22	16	1	16	24	5.27	1.39	7.9
		ALDS	1	1	6.0	0	0	3	1	0	5	6	1.50	1.33	9.0
		ALCS	2	2	12.1	0	0	11	8	0	5	7	5.84	1.30	5.1
		World Series	2	2	9.0	1	1	8	7	1	6	11	7.00	1.56	11.0
2005–2015		Postseason total · 4 Octobers	8	8	41.0	2	3	38	29	4	27	31	6.37	1.59	6.8

Postseason batting

Postseason A.J. Burnett's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2013 Post	PIT	NLDS	1	1	1	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
2009 Post	NYY	World Series	1	1	1	1	.000	.000	.000	.000
2005–2015		Postseason total · 2 Octobers	2	2	2	1	.000	.000	.000	.000

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2015. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	319	274	69	4	32	57	.252	.351	.343	.317	17.9%
vs RHB	380	359	105	7	17	86	.292	.323	.409	.320	22.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2015.

Loading 31 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2015.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .254.

Pitch sequencing

What A.J. Burnett throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

SinkerKnuckle curveFour-seamChangeup

Select a count to see exactly what A.J. Burnett throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Sinker	49.9%	1,248	90.9	1,764	45.0%	11.5%	333	.291	.761
Knuckle Curve	29.2%	731	81.7	1,156	45.8%	39.9%	204	.245	.606
Four-Seam Fastball	11.7%	292	91.1	1,619	42.1%	17.1%	53	.283	.887
Changeup	8.8%	219	85.7	1,339	42.9%	20.6%	44	.273	.620

A.J. Burnett's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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A.J. Burnett

Similar players

Nearest 2015 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Tyler DuffeyMIN

ERA: 3.10
FIP: 3.24
SO: 53
WAR: 1.2

Very close

J.A. HappSEA

ERA: 3.61
FIP: 3.41
SO: 151
WAR: 3.0

Very close

Shelby MillerATL

ERA: 3.02
FIP: 3.45
SO: 171
WAR: 3.6

Very close

Alex WoodATL

ERA: 3.84
FIP: 3.69
SO: 139
WAR: 2.7

Very close

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.