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.