Jamie Insalaco
Our own Yankees ace CC Sabathia came to us in the fabled 08-09 off season and immediately helped propel the Yankees to a World Series Championship. Sure, he had been handsomely rewarded with a big contract, but his worth to the team is immeasurable as a true ace in every sense of the term: innings eater, high strike out totals, low ERA. CC Sabathia is a great pitcher.
Sabathia spent most of 2010 answering questions about the opt out clause in his contract, which can be exercised after this coming season. His answer had been a resounding no, he had no intention of opting out of his current contract with the Yankees. Then he was asked again and again. And again. Finally in 2011 Spring Training, he was asked again, and he said something that sounded like he’s keeping his options open.
You can look at this in a few different ways. I’ve heard some people say something to the effect that CC Sabathia lost a bunch of weight this off season because he intends to opt out and his latest statement confirms that. I thought he said he lost the weight (and he did lose some weight, but its not like he went on the biggest loser or anything… did he drop from 300 to 270 or something? That’s a step in the right direction, but he’s not exactly Mariano Rivera) because he had a minor knee surgery in the off season and he wanted to take some pressure of the joints by losing some weight. That makes sense to me.
I don’t really know what to think about all this, and I think it’s only getting so much play on talk radio because there is nothing else to talk about right now. Maybe Sabathia modified his answer to something about keeping his options open because he’s already said that he’s not opting out so many times and that didn’t stop the question, so now he’s trying another answer – maybe he’s having fun with this. I have no idea. Maybe CC is sympathetic to the baseball press and wanted to give them a story… I think this theory is as plausible as any other I’ve heard.
Let’s say Sabathia asks the Yankees for an extension on his contract to as far into his thirties (forties) as the deal there were going to give Cliff Lee. Should the Yankees do it? Yes, they probably should. If they were willing to give Lee that kind of money (who has a history of back problems and doesn’t have CC’s lifetime track record), why not Sabathia? On the other hand, the Yankees could easily say they want to allocate that money elsewhere and let CC opt out and leave the team. After all, the Yankees have made a serious commitment to their farm system, and one could argue they have nine serious rotation candidates at levels AA and higher, and the probably only need two or three to make it to the big leagues as starters, so maybe they feel that Sabathia, at an exuberant price and length of contract is prohibitive, and he suddenly becomes a luxury, not a necessity. Maybe the A-Rod opt out left a bad taste in the Yankees collective mouth… it’s impossible to know.
As for me, I love Sabathia and hope he doesn’t opt out and saves everybody the headache. But fortunately, we don’t have to deal with this until next fall.
I think it’s fair to say that AJ Burnett exceeded my expectations for 5.2 innings. When he came into the sixth inning, I thought he was clearly tired after just one batter. Joba Chamberlain had been warming up for a long while, so after the intentional walk, I thought Joba was coming in for sure, but no such luck – and BOOM, home run by Bengie Molina – a guy you don’t necessarily expect to hit a home run, but a guy who was challenged by a tired pitcher who hadn’t pitched in three weeks who just walked a guy (intentional or not, I feel it’s a rhythm killer for pitchers) and hasn’t been great at locating the ball this year. Why did he face Molina in the first place? Awful managing. It was pure divine providence that Burnett got any outs in the sixth in the first place – Girardi was already gambling with house money, he let it ride and he lost big. After that home run by Molina, the game was over. All the air was out of the balloon.
