Yanks Make Offer To Sabathia

6-10 years 150-220 million anybody?

hmmm i dont think the redsox are necessarily going to sign a FA starter..

beckett
lester
dice-k
wakefield
buchholz/bowden/masterson/fat boy colon(did anyone ever see that angels commercial with him running with the mobile hot dog vendor suit on?) maybe paul byrd..
who knows they got a lot of quality arms in the system.

who exactly is going fill out the rotation for the yankees?

cc
wang
joba
hughes
lowe/burnett/RYAN effing dempster?
hoping that moose and pettitte come back..

i would take the red sox rotation 95 out of a 100 times

If he is signed by 1 Dec, it doesn't matter if the brewers offer him arbitration or not; they get the draft picks.

This is pretty close to tampering, though.

I don't think so, Zito problems weren't that he was overused, he lost velocity in his fastball and was never a power pitcher.

serge rush please know what you are talking about. The Yanks system is the way it is because of poor drafting, not because they spent the money on FA. They never cared about the draft until a few years ago when Cashman put more focus on it. That is why they are a few years behind the RSox. The Rsox also spent money, but they also drafted good players unlike the Yanks.

"Anyone think Sabathia ends up the next Barry Zito?"

Think more Bartolo Colon and Cecil Fielder. If he keeps his weight steady, he'll have a good run as a power pitcher. He stops caring after his big contract... well the word bloated comes to mind in many different ways.

Last time I checked the Phillies had a $100M Payroll in 2008... that isn't exactly a low payroll team.

Here's a question - how come the Yankees wouldn't just wait for a small market team to set the bar here and then swoop in and blow the rest of the teams away with their offer? At this rate they will just overpay for him without even trying to figure out what the other teams will offer, especially if another team counters with a better offer than this big $140-plus one that they are going to give and then the Yankees have to top that. At this rate, Sabathia could use the Yankees for great leverage.

I'm really rooting for the Giants to get him just to see Lincecum, Sabathia, and Cain together for years to come. The Giants have been my wild card for Sabathia since last month, and it's a risk to attempt to give a Zito-esque contract to another pitcher. However, I would not be surprised if he went there at all, considering the believed NL and California preferences.

"At this rate, Sabathia could use the Yankees for great leverage."

Players have done that before, Albert Belle negotiated with the yanks to get a better offer from the Orioles. Lucky for the yanks Belle was one of history's biggest busts. It's also what agents like Boras do, play big market teams off each other to keep getting the bar raised. But really to answer your question: There is an ultimate limit the yanks will pay, but there a quick resolution benefits both them an CC therefore waiting it out means being forced to raise the bar. If they offer close to their ultimate high price to begin with, some serious bidders could start walking away very fast which theoretically lowers the bar.

"Havent the Giants wasted enough money on their "ACE" Barry Zito"

ahahahahaha....the funniest part is that his salary just gets escalated from here on out! they'll be paying him 20 mil. by 2013. ouch. let's keep in mind that the giants would also have to outbid the yankees. i can't see sabathia leaving 25-40 million dollars on the table from a powerhouse like the yankees to play with a 90-loss team. if his main goal in his baseball career truly is to win a world series, he'd be foolish to sign with the giants.

I'm based here in Cleveland and CC was always a well liked guy. Listening to sports radio and the fans and media I've yet to hear anyone talk ill of the guy for not extending with the Indians. The Indians offer wsa below market and even Mark Shapiro knew that. If they had come to him with a 5 year deal for $120 mil I think he would've signed with them.

''I think they're trying the penetration method, where you launch into the bidding with a super high offer, hoping to get a quicker acceptance. Clearly, New York will be going all out for Sabathia.''

I find it hard to believe that they will swoop right in and get him, which makes this method even more idiotic. Since he seems to have preferences in terms of location and leagues, I don't necessarily think he will jump right in and accept the Yankees' offer.

Don't necessarily think that 5 or 6 teams will be sitting there in that $22 million range. If you look at many of these outlandish contracts, many mid-level teams such as Seattle, San Francisco, Texas, etc. tend to get these players too. This is even further evidence that the Yankees shouldn't be setting the bar unless they want to end up with a $175 million contract to combine with A-Rod's $275. Then again, they are the Yankees!

Not to get off track here but Albert Belle was a bust for the Orioles??

YOu do realize that in his 2 years there he hit 60 hrs and drove in 220 rbis right? You do know that he had to retire at age 34 because of an injury right? He did have 100 rbis in his last season.

The O's knew all about his "personality" issues so that was a buyer beware situation. He still raked as a hitter and put up great numbers.

GM's always say there not trading their young players. If a team offered him a young bat like Fielder I could see the deal happening.

CC made it clear that he wants to sign quickly. He doesn't want to do the whole "wine me and dine" thing. He wants to get this done quick and not let it linger around. If the Yanks make a 6 year 140 mil offer that automatically clears the "sneaky petes" out. It's like playing poker and you make a huge bet. Unless you're serious about your hand you're not going to wait around to see what cards might come out in the flop. They Yanks know what kind of money CC wants and CC knows the Yanks are going hard. I like the move.

"Strangely enough I did know that and still called it a bust due to injury. A 5 year contract where a player plays only 2 years before an injury benches him is called what exactly in your book. Was the injury predictable? No. In the end did everything he did for the Orioles add up to a worth of 65M? No. The end results are still the same. Bust."

Belle didn't cost them 65M. The last three years were almost entirely covered by the insurance policy for him. They only paid him for what he played for them basically, and that was worth his production.

"GM's always say there not trading their young players. If a team offered him a young bat like Fielder I could see the deal happening."

Fielder doesn't make much sense for a team years away from contending.

I guess ultimately it doesn't matter what you could see happening because every indication is that nothing is going to happen.

That is an interesting article.

The yanks spent 440 million last off season and that was with "keeping their distance from other top free agents." Plus they were all about the youth movement.

Now I understand losing is unacceptable and the only way to fix losing is to throw cash at the problem, I get that. I just wonder where the ceiling is. 600 million this off season? 700?

Gotta win

F.uck the Yankees. I actually find it hilarious how that organization is run. The difference in payroll between them and the second highest spending team is more than the average the rest of the league spends. Don't believe me? http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/salaries

And its only gonna go up!

The Yankees are simply ruining the league. Every time any good young player comes up, you've got to ask the question.. When's he going to get bought by the Yanks?

Example: Tim Lincecum, 24 years old, cy young award winner, 2008 salary: $400,000.

I've been on numerous Yankee blogs where all you as.shole fans say, "hey you think we could get him??" no f.u.cker.s. Make your own talent, don't buy someone elses.

They pay one player more than half the Rays salary, won 8 fewer games, and didn't even make the playoffs.

If a salary cap is introduced, I could almost guarantee you the Yankees organization wouldn't even compete.

What pisses me off the most is in 2008, the teams total salary was $209,081,579. They don't win, so they assume they're not spending enough. Now they're going to try and add another $30 million per year to that by signing Sabathia, then another $20+ million for Burnett and will probably still try and get Teixeira. If they do get who they want this year and still don't make the playoffs, you can consider the 2009 New York Yankees the biggest screw-up team ever.

GO AHEAD AND DISAGREE

SFG55,
I love people like you. Just because your team dont make money like the yankees. And then when the yankees pay taxes to other teams their owners never use it on the team. And dont talk about home grown players because we have some of the best players all-time they were brought up in are minors(Lou Gehrig,Mickey Mantle,Joe DiMaggio,Yogi Berra,Bill Dicky,Derek Jeter). So fu-ck off.

hahahahaha.....I guess that guys a SF Giants fan. Well maybe if they had a salary cap that would've prevented your GM from signing Barry Zito. So in essense maybe a salary cap will keep your GM from making dumb ass moves. The Yanks passed on Zito by the way.

New York and LA will always have more appeal to any team w/ or w/o a salary cap. Players know going to NY means more than just a big contract. It means more publicity and more endorsements as well.

Reports have said that but CC publicly said that it doesn't matter. And if a team on the East coast makes an offer 40 mil more than anyone else will he say no? Probably not but maybe.

YAWN...new year, same old complaints.
Tell it to those that care.
I hope the Yankee payroll reaches a BILLION dollars.

SFG55 you do know that the Yankees have a TON of contracts off the books this season, right? So we aren't "spending more." We are just putting the money we were spending on Jason Giambi/etc. onto new players

And the fans of small market teams should stop complaining. Wa, wa, wa, wa. You do know we pay a TON of money back to you small market teams in REVENUE SHARING. Don't complain that the Yankees are spending money. Go complain to your TEAM's owner and tell him to start spending some of that revenue sharing money

Huge Sabathia fan over here... I love the guy. Real kind person, a great competitor, wonderful to have in the clubhouse and certainly a "team player". Class Act, all the way and he has always been great to the fans of Cleveland.

That's why I'm hoping he doesn't ink that deal. I don't know if anyone will top that deal on a dollars per year basis, but I could see a few teams putting up pretty good bids, possibly with 6 guaranteed years and an option. I still say the Dodgers would be a good fit, but I haven't heard much from them on the Sabathia-front..

The Yankees won all those championships in the '90's because they had homegrown talent....they're not winning because they're trying to buy their way to a championship....look at the Phillies: JRoll, Utley, Howard, Hamels....that's what it takes to win. The Yankees only have one home grown player that is still consistently producing at a high level, and that's Rivera. Guys like Jeter and Posada are on the decline. Keep Joba Chamberlain and all your other prospects, and you'll be amazed at what they'll do.

Money is the root of all evil.

He's not going to go to the Yankees....he wants to be in the NL so he can hit, he wants to be on the West Coast, and most importantly, he wants to win a championship, so I don't think he'll go to the Yankees. He's gonna end up with the Dodgers.

OMG. C.C. Sabathia's agent posts on MLBTradeRumors!

Seriously though, you do realize that C.C. has SAID that he is willing to consider any team, and many of those "he wants to go to west coast" are PURE SPECULATION. Not to mention that the Players Union will pressure him to take the best offer, and in all honestly, it's human's greed to take the best offer.

buying players is the Yankees style. it dates back to Babe Ruth. get over it.

Posada had a career year in 07, yes he got hurt in 08, but as of yet, there is nothing to indicate he wont produce in 09.

I'm a(n) Yankee fan, but I do have to admit that it is very unlikely that an aging catcher coming off an injury will likely be in for a decline. But he will still likely be a .280 avg .335 obp 15 home run guy next year with acceptable defense, which will still put him as a top catcher in the AL, behind the Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Dioner Navvarro(sp?), and whichever Ranger catcher is playing.

Defense..that was my only point.

It's silly for fans of big-market teams to puff up their chests with pride at the number of homegrown players they cultivate.

In their starting lineup, the Yankees have homegrown players at 2B, SS, C, and CF. But they would likely drop Melky Cabrera in a New York minute, dropping their total to three.

In the interest of fairness, the Red Sox merely have a homegrown player at 2B, *may* have a homegrown player at SS next season, and have a homegrown player platooning in CF.

We can certainly tout the wisdom of building a farm system from within, but it's silly to ignore the impact that a team's financial wherewithal has on its ability to sign players with high draft demands and to exploit the economic gap between teams to snatch up top talent.

Let's call a spade a spade. The Yankees make abysmal free-agent decisions because they can afford to... they can risk three clunkers in the quest for one big dividend. Ditto the Red Sox, who did not reap full value from Clement, overextended on Lowell, and shouldn't have thrown so much as a roll of nickels at Lugo.

Both teams can afford to pilfer and plunder and scour the league to patch together their latest contenders. Squabbling over the few diamonds in the rough who actually make the field for either team is just a way of momentarily deflecting attention from the very obvious nature of the beast.

I'm absolutely no Yankee fan but this is just a good deal for the Yanks. But then I read the Yanks are interested in Burnett and I scratch my head and think " will the Yankees never learn?"

I hope the Yanks get all three of the ( C.C., Burnett, and Tex). They def have the $ by parting with Giambi and Moose. Let's do it! NY Yankees 2009 WS champs!!!

Hope he accepts it then tanks and the Yanks have to eat the money and rape their fans even more at the new stadium.

"Heard the News!?!?!?!?!

The Yankees officially offer CC Sabathia 6 years at over 137.5 million dollars. The biggest pitching contract in baseball ever!!!!!!!!

Posted by: YankeeFan4life | November 14, 2008 at 04:36 PM"

That's the same contract as Johan except without the option. So if that's actually the contract offered, which I doubt for an opening contract, it wouldn't be the largest pitching contract anyway.

he will be in pinstripes this weekend

The Yankees are still doing this the wrong way. They should follow the path of The Red Sox. The red sox closer(Paps), Ace Starter(Lester), two setup men(Masterson, delcarmen) 2B(Pedroia), 1B(Youk) are all home grone. and thats not even mentioning Ellsbury, Lowrie and the number of great young players they have traded(Like Aniibal Sanchez, Hanley Ramirez, David Murphy, Clay Meridith) The Red Sox spent money around their young nucleaus, thats why they have 2 recent Championships and the Yankees continue to try and buy one(and have failed miserably)

and thats just the starting point....wow, the yankees are ran by a bunch of rich morons. They have so many bad contracts...just think if they spent their money wisely....

All you haters won't let the Yankees do anything...if he is signed, the following points will be made:

- He is overweight (Really? So was some decent pitcher, his name is Mickey Lolich - he was pretty heavy)

-He chokes (Erm, he pitched on 3 days rest for 4 straight games, then again in the playoffs - he must be a choker though!)

-He will suffer arm troubles because of his workhorse ability (Yea...not like he trains himself to thrown how many IP's he does...)

And if they don't sign him, people will be saying:

- HAHA! YANKEES SUCK! etc,.

Kramerica -
Jeter, Posada, Cano, Hughes, Chamberlain, Aceves, Gardner, Rivera, Veras, Ramirez, Pettitte, all home grown.

Wait, we can also bring up past trades? Fred McGriff, Jay Buhner, Mike Lowell...that list can go on! Your post is terrible. You have to spend money to win, I'm sure if the Sox signed CC you would be going crazy.

Oh yea, and spending money on a proven workhorse who has been dominant in the last two years, what a terrible contract this would be. All of you are jealous that the Yankees are spending the most money to fix up their team.

Yanks12025,

How are you going to say, "doesn't make money like the Yankees".

Another fu.ck.ing arrogant comment from an idi.ot yankee fan. The Giants sold out nearly all, if not all of the home games last year. You think the Yanks are the only ones with fans?? Just because our ticket prices aren't "new york" size.

Why don't you just spend your quarter of a billion dollars and buy the trophy you arrogant bast.ards, cause obviously your players aren't gonna get it for you

Damn! All that for a pitcher. Look, Im even pissed. They are paying way too much for him. I understand why people are pissed.

B3ng...dont forget Wang and Melky.

Kramerica..the Sox won those championships cause of guys like Schilling and Beckett, neither of which were home grown. How about Ortiz and Manny? Not home grown either. At the start of 08, the Yanks had more "home grown" guys on their roster than the Sox.

SFG...
Has little to do with ticket prices and much to do with TV rights. The YES network has enough of a viewership to be able to earn money from advertising that other teams don't. The network is owned by the Yanks and money is put back into the team.
We are arrogant because the "haters" make us that way. No matter what the Yanks do (see post above) the haters will tear it apart. Last year when the Yanks decided to hold onto the young guys and not go after Santana, we heard that our rotation was too young, then when we get a vet, we hear that we are getting a washed up old guy.

The thing you people dont get is that we like being hated. We know that we are hated because we win.

Once again I will say it..we may not have won since 2000, may have missed the playoffs this year, but there is not one person heere who, in their lifetimes, have seen their team win more championships than the Yank fans have seen theirs.
You can only dream about your team doing what the Yanks do and seeing what we do.
Keep hating..it means they are doing somethign right.

Look you small market pions. The Yanks HAVE been guilty of not being the best talent evaluaters in baseball, however most of the true studs of each draft class are pretty obvious and there usually is a consensus on who the top 10 players are. The Yankees, by virtue of their draft position which is based on winning record, have not had the OPPORTUNITY to draft a player in the top 20 in over 15 years. The last time they drafted in the top 10 was in 1991 when they selected Brien Taylor @ #1 overall and in 1992 when they drafted Derek jeter @ #6 overall. Since then we've never had a draft pick inside the top 20. And contrary to popular belief we've ALWAYS had a #1 draft pick every draft in the last 20 years except for 2002 when we didn't draft until the 2nd round.

People make a big deal about how great the Rays and Brewers are when it comes to drafting players but that's like shooting fish in a fish bowl. Every year there's usually a consensus already on who the top 10 players are in each draft. Those teams draft great players because they have the OPPURTUNITY to chose from the cream of the crop. The Yanks HAVE done a POOR job of finding the diamnods in the rough but the majority of the FRANCHIZE, STUD players are usually gone in the top 10 picks. Now I'll give them credit for not missing on their picks but let's understand that in addition to the players listed below there were MANY, MANY other great players taken inside the top 10 those years.

Brewers
1999- Ben Sheets #10 overall
2002- Prince Fielder #7 overall
2003- Rickey Weeks #2
2006- Ryan Braun #5

Rays
1999- Josh Hamilton #1 overall
2000- Rocco Baldelli #6 overall
2002- BJ Upton #2 overall
2003- Delmon Young #1 overall
2006- Eva Langoria #3 overall
2007- David Price #1 overall

Now I will give tremendous credit to the Florida Marlins because for the most part with the exception of Beckett, Hermida and Olsen almost all of their young talent has been acquired thru trades while most of their top pics have been busts.

Yankeegirl49

How can you say anything about the Santana deal? You obviously don't know baseball. The only reason you didn't get him is because you were unwilling to throw in Phil Hughes. The same Phil Hughes that went 0-4 with a era above 6. Hope you had fun watching Santana go 16-7 with the lowest era in the majors.

Yea you guys obviously made a great decision there.

SFG...I know more than you will ever know.
THANK YOU for making my point..we held on to the young home grown guy and didnt throw money at Santana, only to hear crap like you just posted. Had we gotten Santana, there would have been threads EXACTLY like this one, screaming bloody murder how the Yanks buy players and get rid of their young home grown guys.

Yanksfansince78,

great players can be found anywhere in a draft.

Some Examples: 2003
Pick 27: Yankees take Eric Duncan.. who?
Pick 29: Carlos Quentin
Pick 62: Andre Ethier
Pick 114: Jonathan Papelbon
Pick 162: Ryan Braun

Just because you don't have top 10 picks doesn't mean you can't draft good players. Go ahead and make excuses.

haha you guys are such idiots. You can't pick one side of an argument. You deal your young players for shi.t. Had you gotten Santana, you would've actually gotten someone who played well. Again, Tim Lincecum is only 24, so to say Phil Hughes is young only proves my point that money doesn't always buy talent.

ok bengal, i can sit here all day and prove to you that the yankees only win cause they buy whoever they want and have absolutely no drafting ability but i decided to make it easier on myself and pick a random year. I'll let you go through the rest of the years finding your own draft blunders.

I would love to see a time where every team has to stay under $100 million. The Yankees wouldn't know what to do.. "oh you mean we can't just buy 10 new players??"