Saturday, January 26, 2019

The Yankees keep listing CC Sabathia as fifth starter. This is delusional

Friends, Romans, Yankeefans, lend me your fears...

I come not to bury CC but to praise him. The ERAs that men do live after them; the wins are interred with their bones...

Seriously. Nuthin' against CC Sabathia here. Everybody loves him. For $10 million, he's the best Yankee signing of the winter. If all he does is hang around the clubhouse, taking Lipitor and denying himself french fries, he's worth every penny. He's a great Yankee with a shot at the Hall, and we should render unto CC what is CC's: Maybe 100 innings in 2019. 

But fifth starter? No. It's an ungodly a leap of faith to believe Sabathia can pitch every fifth day... or that the Yankee rotation, with him slotted at No. 5, remotely compares to Boston's. Even if we are improved - and James Paxton has yet to be tested in NYC - our starters wither against Sales, Price, Porcello, Eovaldi, Rodriguez and the exceptionally frightening Stephen Wright (whose knuckler can kill us at any time.)

Our mere designation of CC as "fifth starter" should raise blazing red flags. If the Yankees are "done" for this winter, the truth is - unless Luis Cessa or Chance Adams becomes a huge surprise - they might be done for 2019.

Listen: CC's character and presence remain unimpeachable. If he were running this country, we wouldn't have had a shutdown. But here are some issues that cannot be avoided:

1. CC will turn 39 next July. This is probably his last year.

2. Last month, after suffering chest pains, he underwent angioplasty. He now has a stent in his circulatory system. He is surely on blood thinners and, while cardiologists may clear him for play, the Reaper's close call will always remain a ghostly presence. I know this, because I have a stent. Life can be normal, but pitching in the majors at 39 at a weight of nearly 300 pounds? I dunno. The regular sight of CC exploding with sweat - we've all seen perspiration dripping from the brim of his cap like an open faucet - will carry a new, disturbing reality: The guy might be endangering his future. 

3. CC's best shot at health and happiness would seemingly require him to lose weight. He has done this in the past. Unfortunately, his fastball lost its bite, and he was ineffective. Since then, he's figured out the art of pitching to contact, rather than strikeouts, but anyone projecting the workhorse he once represented is ridiculously stretching the odds.

4. The last time CC threw 200 innings was 2013. That year, his ERA ballooned to nearly 5.00, where it stood for two seasons. Two years ago, he seemed to figure out a new plan: He went 14-5 with an ERA of 3.69 in 148 innings. Last year, he fell off those numbers slightly. For all his guile and savvy, he is nothing like the pitcher of old. 

5. Nor can he be counted on in a big game. It hurts to note this, but it showed desperately last October. Against Boston in Game 4, he barely made 3 innings, giving up three runs. The Yankees lost 4-3. It was the pivotal game of the series. A quality start could have changed everything. He could not deliver. 

6. One characteristic of the Yankees in this last decade has been the willingness to offer nostalgia acts. (They played Jeter at leadoff for the entire season.) While it's nice to think of a franchise that honors heroes from the past - rather than jettisoning them in their twilight years - this usually leads us nowhere. Worse, it denies young players an opportunity to show what they can do. (Tulowitzki, for example, means Tyler Wade's chances are basically zero.) It's easy to imagine the Yankees going with CC well into June-July, always thinking he's going to magically regain his old stuff. In the meantime, whatever hopes we have will waste their arms in Scranton and Trenton. 

I'm not saying anything that we all don't implicitly know. The Yankees have made interesting moves this winter - Ottovina, Paxton, Happ, Tulowitzki - but if they actually believe CC Sabathia is their fifth starter, well, they are fooling themselves. 

Bear with me. My heart is in the dugout there with CC, and I must pause 'till it come back to me.

13 comments:

Local Bargain Jerk said...


Where do Jonathan Loaisiga and Jordan Montgomery fit in all this? Can we think of the season in terms of CC being a bridge to Loaisiga who might then give way to Montgomery?

Or am I hoping for too much?

Anonymous said...

THE ENTIRE 6-POINT REASONING IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEEDED TO CUT THE CORD ON CC.

ESPECIALLY #5 AND #6...

JM said...

I'm in Europe for a couple of in-law funerals, and nobody, I mean NOBODY is talking about Harper. It's shocking.

These people just don't get it.

13bit said...

CC and Gardy are dead weight. We'd be better off with Bernie and Moose coming out of retirement.

We have a mediocre rotation, at best.

This season is probably going to be middling.

Who cares? I don't. Hal doesn't. Only Brian cares. Only Brian loves us. He alone can fix this.

All hail Brian!

Alphonso said...

Well one point is for certain; Tyler Wade has no shot.

Also, I applaud your generosity in categorizing the Yankee's off-season as " interesting."

The last time I used that terminology, I was describing one of he worst dates I ever had, to the parents of the victim.

Anonymous said...


Gotta agree with LBJ on this. You get out of him what you get out of him and then Lasagna and Montgomery I ate at a "Lasagna and Montgomery" once in a mall. Sort of an Italian British fusion place. I had the Bangers and Meatballs. Not good.

We will get out of him what we do and hope he doesn't die. Seriously - he should have retired - not for lack of effectiveness but for the reasons Duque stated.)

As to matching up with Boston. While not as good as their five, more than good enough. The match ups only come to the forefront during the playoffs and that's a long long way off.

I know we play them the requisite 18 times but there's a lot of flow, injuries etc. that will determine those.

Plus last time I checked Sale's arm looked like it was going to fall off and Nathan's arm is as questionable as Paxton's. Plus Price is an injury waiting to happen as well.
Wright scares the crap out of me. Always has. Why don't we have a knuckleballer? Like, EVER?

13 Bit,

Gardy is supposed to be our back up CFer. We don't have anyone to spell Hicks. In that role he is OK. Yes, we could have taken the money and done better but we will get at least 1/2 a year out of him (as usual) and who knows, if he sees limited use he might last the whole year.

If he is our starting LFer I will be pissed. (Because there is another starting LFer who is great and can be had with just money. You know, the son of the woman who played the neighbor on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.)

Doug K.

13bit said...

Doug, I know, I know. I'm just tired and frustrated and, if I can't complain, I'm afraid I'll lose interest. I still think we're going to be average. We'll have some hot streaks maybe, but nothing has changed to make us anything but the team that, for the last ten years, can't hold a lead, can't produce a run, and fades, fades, fades in the stretch.

Also, Boone...

13bit said...

"Honey, I'm going to go see if I can find us a used pitcher down at the old Scrotum Emporium..."

HoraceClarke66 said...

You guys are en fuego today, as usual.

Doug K., love the idea of a "Lasagna and Montgommery." Back about 50 years ago, Montgomery Ward kept dunning my father for a bill that read "$0.00." They would not listen to reason. Finally, my mother wrote back that his estate had no record of the bill. The dunning notices stopped.

I like Gardy as a back-up, but you're right Doug: he should NOT be our starting left fielder.

John M., right you are. What IS it with those people? They're probably just talking soccer again.

Alphonso, you have to tell us more.

HoraceClarke66 said...

And Duque, the reason this team can't get going again is because it seems that nobody there ever sits down and logically figures something out the way you just did—and the way that we do on this site ALL THE TIME.

One gets the feeling, for instance, that Coops truly believes he has "six outfielders" ready and waiting to rip into the 2019 season, and a staff that's the best in creation.

And yes, our willingness to indulge nostalgia acts is a really, really dangerous sign.

HoraceClarke66 said...

And oh yeah, sorry, we should have all shouted:

"Read the will! Read the will!"

TheWinWarblist said...

He is on dual antiplatelet therapy. He will bleed like stink if he is injured.

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