Jon Heyman:

$13 million is real money, so I wouldn't expect the prospects to be particularly good. Not that we were expecting otherwise.

UPDATE: Dejan Kovacevic's column says something similar about the details of the deal, and also praises the Pirates' front office for the way it has handled negotiations with the Yankees. He also does a nice job explaining why Burnett is a better acquisition than his baseball-card stats make him look. It's a very good column, overall.

I personally couldn't care less about this, but since some people do, here's a thread for it. The two sides are fighting over a difference of a quarter of a million dollars -- Jones wants $2.5 million, and the Pirates want to pay him $2.25 million.

One quarter of one million dollars!

I suppose it's a shame that they couldn't manage to settle this before arbitration, but I'm not ready to criticize the Pirates for that. A quarter of a million dollars isn't much to a major-league baseball team, but it isn't nothing, and I can't fault the Pirates for fighting for it. Arbitration certainly isn't the kindest process in the world, but Jones will get over whatever hurt feelings result, and if he doesn't, oh well -- the Pirates probably won't have much use for him beyond his arbitration years anyway.

And the rest of us aren't even going to remember this a week from now. We'll have moved on to discuss issues that will be more pressing, like the Pirates 'banning' some player from Twitter, or a local restaurant owner getting a call from Frank Coonelly, or the precise timing of a leak that the Pirates will raise luxury-box prices 19 cents in 2013, or a shocking new twist in the impending Chris Gimenez signing, or any of what I'm sure will be about 82 minute variations on the A.J. Burnett trade rumor. (And yes, each of those 82 will have its own thread, in case you're wondering.)

Anyway, Garrett Jones! Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Go!

UPDATE: The Pirates won their case against Jones, and settled for $2.5375 million with Casey McGehee.

Ken Rosenthal has the latest on the A.J. Burnett situation. He notes that the Yankees want a deal to be made by Saturday, which is a day before their Spring Training begins. He describes talks between that Yankees and Pirates as being "at an impasse," but notes that the Pirates are really the only serious contender for Burnett at this point. The Angels might have been another possibility, but they're on Burnett's no-trade list, and Burnett would not approve a trade there. (Hooray for Burnett's wife, I guess.)

It sounds like we may have a stalemate for a couple more days, but I don't see too much incentive for the Bucs to budge.

-P- Also, the Pirates signed third baseman David Valesente out of independent ball. WTM thinks he could start the season at Bradenton. Players like this are generally organizational guys.