by Ken Rosenthal

Burnett reached his decision after his agents met with Blue Jays officials on Tuesday afternoon.

The pitcher will forfeit $24 million and can file for free agency. His contract called for a $6 million signing bonus, a $1 million salary in 2006 and $12 million in the remaining seasons.

However, the pitcher's lead agent, Darek Braunecker, said that the Blue Jays continue to express strong interest in Burnett and remain a serious player in the bidding.

"Our talks with them have been productive and we will still continue our talks with them," Braunecker told The Canadian Press. "This is something we needed to do just to give us the opportunity to assess the market and who the other interested parties are."

Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi said talks will continue on the possibility of a new deal for the hard-throwing right-hander, who turns 32 in January.

"We have a good dialogue going," Ricciardi said at the general managers' meetings. "They're going to get back to us later in the week.

"If we weren't a possibility, he (Braunecker) wouldn't have said it."

The Red Sox and Yankees are expected to be among the teams that will pursue Burnett. And another AL East team, the Orioles, is likely to at least show interest.

Burnett went 18-10 with a 4.07 ERA in 34 starts this season and led the American League with 231 strikeouts. He went 10-8 in each of his first two seasons with Toronto, and injuries limited him to 21 starts in 2006 and 25 the following year.

Burnett lives in Monkton, Md., outside of Baltimore.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.