There's several issues with Burnett. 1) He hasn't been any better than Jason Marquis this season. Could he suddenly get better moving to the NL? Probably. How much better? Unknown. He's got great career numbers, but he hasn't shown any consistency this year. In his last 7 starts, he's given up 2 runs or less in 4 of them, but in the other 3 he's given up 8 runs a start. 2) He has an opt out clause after the season. So if he's good, the Cubs lose him. If he stinks, the Cubs have to keep him for 2 more years at 12 million per year. 3)He does still have that long injury history, so even if he is good, he could get hurt the day after the trade. Of course the main positive is that he has proved that at times, he has been a very dominant pitcher. Is that worth all the issues? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't trade Hill to go get him though. I'd rather take the risk on Hill suddenly finding it than gamble on Burnett suddenly finding it, especially since Burnett's gamble if gone wrong also puts a significant dent on the payroll and requires us to also lose our only backup SS. Burnett only looks like he's been as bad as Marquis because Marquis has a great defense backing him up. They have similar HR rates, and Burnett smokes him at K/BB. I don't judge a pitcher solely on DIPs/FIP but when you have a glaring difference like there is for Burnett compared to Marquis I take notice. Burnett's never been this bad before and he's only 31. There's no reason to believe he won't be at worst league average the rest of the way and his peripherals point to him being much better than that. Best of all he's cheap. Cedeno + junk should get him.