Sabathia Signs With Yankees

that should have been "..CC pitches well in 3 years...".

Santana/Beckett,

Keep in mind a team or two might also be added to the list before opening day. Most teams are slashing payroll or keeping it tight. It could very easily be over half of baseball before all said and done.

Wow, Red Sox Dynasty how biased are you?

First off all, your comment about Cleveland isn't even on-mark. Everyone knows what happned, the attraction to the spray, etc. So don't tell me he choked. If that's the case, then Brady choked in 2008 for the Patriots. Oh, and he choked in the Super Bowl. Remember the Super Bowl? So I guess he choked then, huh?

Lester? Lester is a lefty. he's not that good. he's a glorified Kason Gabbard. Remember him? he pitched like 5 good games and everyne in Boston was calling him a 'prospect.'

Lester is not that good. Lester has never been evaluated as being a frontline starter by any organization in or out of major league baseball, including the Red Sox.

You talk career numbers like they're actually comparable. If you really want to get into this, I will provide you the numbers that shows not only is Joba better, but he is a dominant pitcher. Additionally, you can use the minor league to help project the type of pitcher he does, kind of like the guys at BA but you're sointelligent you took that al into consideration before you started flapping your gums about a subject you know you have no idea about. Butplease, continue to look like a fool. You fit in perfect up there. Just perfect.

for those of you who say "red sox are the same thing" i'll prove u wrong right now.

jd drew 14
david ortiz 13
Mike lowell 12.5
beckett 10

teams under 49.5MM payroll:
pirates (barely, 49.37MM)
oakland
tampa bay
florida

and yes i agree. most teams could be under that mark at opening day.

The only reason he struggled in '07 is because of the long ball. he couldn't keep the ball down.

Or, it could be less than half of baseball seeing as what, we've seen ahandful of guys change teams and

Are those figures as of opening day 2008? Or as of October 2008? Do they include minor league bonuses? is it 25 or 40 man roster data? because teams liek TB invest a lot of money in the draft, and teams liek TB invested money in players during the season with extensions. So unles that figure is an up to date figure, currently you're making an ASSUMPTION based on what seems to be false pretenses.

I mean, it's not like there's over 100 players on the free agent list and payrolls will climb, but the fact we don't know if that's opening day or not, and how big od a deal that is for obvious reasons I hope I don't have to mention, I'd say you really don't have any valid point whatsoever right now.

and in tiehr case, the Red Sox are second so stop trying act all high and mighty. not my dam fault we have revenues in the billions and are an international brand. Sorry we're so successful we can afford anything. I'm sorry you're worried because other than trying to rain on everones parade for the mere fact he's not a red Sox, well you look like a child. Or a Bostoanian, same thing.

next time you present data, give a source and a timeframe. Anyone can copy and paste a bunch of numbers you uninciteful moron

Gosh darn it...those 4 players are only ahead of HALF of baseball.
Thats unacceptable, give em all raises, I want them to be higher than ALL of baseball.

Statman:

I can't agree with you about Lester. he is a very good pitcher. Why do we have to resort to insulting each others players? Let's not degrade down to that level.

People will always analyze and find something wrong with a Yankee player, trade or acquisition. As Yank fans let's be above that. I will forever and a day refer to Boston as the Red Sucks, but I will never sit here and deny that they are one of the most talented , well run organizations in basball. Let's be better than the haters and not stoop to their levels.

Andy Pettitte is 215-127 for his career. CC is 117-73.

Clearly the Yankees made the wrong choice.

RSD, if you don't like arguing your one sided arguments do us all a favor and go away.

Comparing W-L and ERA between Lester and Joba this early in their careers, with different service time and roles is about as bad as it gets. Just stop, please.

78, you really do not get it. You started off your posts in these comments arguing it was of benefit to the yankees but I am the one who does not know what I am talking about. No one is saying it is some terrible end all thing. It is a minor part of the contract that we were discussing. It cannot possibly be irrelevant like you are arguing now because then it would seem like something pretty stupid to put in a contract right? You guys are all over the board and only considering extreme scenarios. Unless something drastic happens there is no way he cannot get more money in 3 years. It gives CC another bargaining chip to extort more money from the yankees.

RE: Joba vs Lester

Does anyone see a problem with comparing 2 guys with such a small sample of work?
They both have potential to be very good/great pitchers, but it would be better to reserve judgement until there was a larger body of work.

Congrats on the $ CC.

For the NYY fans sake I hope this contract works out better then the Zito contract worked out for the SFG.

top 5 lefty in all of baseball?

OK, thats why i just have to say he's not good. now I know he's not not good, but just for the comment, he sucks. I rather have ron Villone and jese Orosco's offspring than jon lester

Statman: you are wrong again. the red sox moved between 4th and ended the season between 6-8 in payroll. I dont remember offhand.

Second off. Name 5 lefty starters last year that put up better numbers than lester all around. Find me 5 leftys who are more consistent. If you cant. then shut up.

Casanova:

First off Joba not a lefty... so I dont see your point. Secondly, Joba was injured for half the season. You cant compare numbers for a whole season vs. half a season. Also exactly my point. Joba's good for 100 innings. Lester is good for 200+. Thats with the Red Sox watching his pitch count.

Joba choked? Really? Yea, I'm sure a ton of pitchers can be their usual self with angry gnats flying into their eyes...

27-8, that doesn't mean anything. Lester was trash in the season before '08, the Sox offense bailed him out in his wins, and in the losses he didn't receive.

A W-L of 6-3 doesn't mean anything. Again, he has pitched over 200 less innings in the majors than Lester. How is that stat comparable? Lester is 24, Joba is 22, and I would take Joba everytime. Lester was great in this postseason, but Joba has dominated with his stuff at the ML Level.

Lets not argue whether joba choked. I dont think Yankees fans understand what true Red Sox fans are trying to say.

All we are saying is that had it been Mariano, or Trevor Hoffman, or anyone else who you want to call a "great" reliever, they would have adjusted and used their veteran knowledge to work through the situation. Mariano i'm confident to say would have held the ball in his glove and refused to pitch until the situation got better. That was the umpires fault for not calling the game off or delaying it to deal with the situation. Joba is a kid and just did what hes paid to do. Throw the ball. Things didnt work out for him. I wouldn't call it choking though. I would call it a rookie mistake.

http://cheapseats-blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/sabathia-to-yanks.html

Those of you who are dismissing Chamberlain because of ONE INNING in Cleveland in '07 need to take a step back and really rethink your evaluation methods.

BravesPKP- dont worry my friend. Some of us are watching his very move with baited breath.

Santana/Beckett

I commend you for the Joba explanation. We appreciate you explaining it.

One thing peope don't know, is that Indians staff rerecognized the flies as midges and knew not to spray them. Did anyone see the Indians spray one another? And they didn't get as attacked. Of all the things man. You just know when you use "choke" you strike a cord is all.

I agree, I think the game should have been temporarily suspendedor soemthing. At least done a meeting light some fair on the basepaths idk just not do nothing. we had it. It was like Arizone all over again...

Anyone else pissed we couldnt sign our first draft pick and now this years first rd draft pick may be going to Milwaukee? D'oh!

I don't know why we didn't offer arbitration to:
Giambi
Abreu
Marte
and then let them walk. They are all either Type B or A free agents allowing us to pick up some draft picks while still sending next yrs pick tp Milwaukee. Dont like the Maret signing. I guess you would have to see what they're offered bc if Giambi is offered 12M and he takes it, well, then that kinda screws things up. Same for Abreu/Marte.

On a dorky side note, Brackman gets to be sick in MLB2K8. so does Sam tatum. I don't know if he's already in the game or if he got drafted in franchise mode but if anyoen can telll me who he is uspposed ot bein the game, if any, please let me know. The kid tore up half a season at age 20 I was trying to figure out who he was supposed to be but may not be anyone. I may just be a huge loser, who knows.

YankeesFan,

Stop defending your opinion. its an opinion. it is not either right or wrong, unles it's not based on a fact or something.

You pretty much said it's not terrible for the yankees, andit's not. If he walks and had 3 great years well, we had 3 great years. If he walks and gets more money elsewhere I'm sure Wang, Hughes and Joba will be reaching their payday soon so maybe 3 years is good enough.

Otherwise, if he doesnt opt out and sucks then it's just liek any other contract. It's not that big a deal. unless he signs after 3 years with theRed Sox for les money. Then it's a huge deal.

On to another point. Now that we have CC it seems like Cash want's 2 more. I'm not big on Lowe and would rather go after Burnett or Sheets. If we do sign a 2nd pitcher (Burnett/Lowe/Sheets) then I think the Yanks should try and go after Perez or Pettite as the 3rd guy rather than 2 of (Burnett/Lowe/Sheets).

My thinking is that Perez as a 4th pitcher is a good choice as he's young (27), a lefty with a power arm, and despite his control struggles has a ton of upside.

I would think a rotation of

CC (28)
Wang (29)
Burnett/Lowe/Sheets
Perez (27)
Joba (22)

Would be a great rotation for the next 3 or 4 years.

If they decide to go with CC and one other FA then I wouldn't mind them giving Pettite 1/13 mil and use Hughes as a spot starter/long reliefe guy for one year (10-12 starts) and then have him replace Pettite in 2010. ANy thoughts?

"You bi.tch and point out the same crap you had been doing since getting your ass handed to you in the 90s. Youd think since you won twice that youd be less grumpy, or have less sand in your vag.ina"

You'd think after 26 World Series you'd be able to come up with a better argument then the one we can all use against you...talk about sand in the va jay jay...

Statman, as a Yankees fan I think you are compleatly wrong about Lester. That Guys was the ace of their rotation this year without a doubt, and that is saying something.

Did you even watch a single game when he pitched against us?

I dunno about ps3 but brackmans not in the ps2 version of mlb2k8.

its finally over. as much as i hate him going to the yanks, im glad this never ending signing is over. i would of loved to see him in a brewers jersey though.

RSD: Thanks dude. Let's make a deal. I'll let slide the Evil Empire name if you'll let slide the Red Sucks? Yeah I know it's immature blah, blah, blah...but it's how I feel. It's an immense hatred/respect that I have for the team in Boston. However, despite my pet name them, you guys make the game even better. Whenever I get a new schedule the 1st thing I do is circle the games against Boston. I live in Cleveland now and, believe me, I've heard worse from the Browns vs Steelers fans and Ohio St vs Michigan fans. The 04 season was a dagger to the heart. Prior to that series you guys were no more than an annoyance...the pesky little brother who always wanted to follow in our foot steps. After 04 the rivalry has been taking to new heights and with the addition of the Rays, the AL east should be insane. Cash is loading up the six shooter and CC's the 1st bullet in the chamber. Let's get it on!!!!

Regardless of what happens this season I thank the Yanks mngmt for going hard and investing to put the best team possible on the field. 67 days until pitcher and catchers report.

nrmaxx wrote:

I have a question for some Yankee fans. For all of you guys that were calling Pettitte a phony, doesn't this make CC a phony? I mean, he said he wanted to pitch out west, pitch in the NL, and do what was best for his family before the money. Then he signed in NY, in the AL. So is he a phony? Or does it only work like that when a guy is going to leave the Yanks?
_________________________

IMO this is where people confuse what's been speculated in the media and thru 3rd parties vs what was said from a players mouth.

FACT: CC is from the 'Frisco area and FRIENDS and SOURCES said that he wanted to play near the area.

FACT: Never was it written anywhere that he DID NOT want to play in NY or that he had a problem with NY.

I might say "I love women with long hair" but it doesn't mean I'd kick Halle Berry to the curb because her hair is short.

FACT: CC was hoping that a team from Cali would make an offer somewhere close to NY's because he wanted to be close to home. I can respect that choice. His family has to be thought of in any decision.

SCENARIO: Since the offer never came and didn't look like it was coming, then he decided to go where the money was. Now if one of those teams offered him 130 mil and he went somewhere else for 140 then yes he might be a phony.

FACT: Pettite said he wanted to come back to NY for one more season and that money didn't matter, he just wanted to play in the new stadium.

FACT: The Yanks wanted him back and offered him 10 mil. If they up the offer to 12 or 13 and he decides to go to any other team for more money then ABSOLUTELY he would be a phony because now it's obvious it was a money decision.

Now IMO it wouldn't make him a bad person, nor would I cease to be a fan of Pettite's but you can't decalre publicly months ago that you want to come back and money isn't an issue and then let the reason you don't come back be about money

.

good job to the yankee's in signing CC. im a sox fan but i wasn't to thrilled in seeing him play for us. the reason why is that he went
19-7 with a 3.21 era for the indians in 2007. then the next year he went 6-8 with a 3.81 era for the indians until he was traded. who says he is goin to do great in the begining of the season, or for the whole season, for the yank's. only time will tell i guess.

CC with the indians last year-

6-8, 3 complete games 3.82 ERA
1.23 WHIP, 116 ERA+, 123K in 123 IP, 34BB.

Those are some pretty solid peripherals, looks like he was a victim of poor run support more than poor pitching.

W-L records mean nothing at all. Haven't we reached that conclusion yet? CC had a brutally disgusting start to 08. No point denying it. That is the only reason for his 3.83 era with the Tribe. Take away his 4 starts (yeah I know they still count), and he is just dominant. He had a handful of bad starts strung together to start a season. No reason to look any deeper into it then that. CC is amazing.

I'm listening to the local station here in Cleveland and it's so insane how much hate CC is generating. How can anyone be mad at CC for turning down a 5 yr/90 mil deal from the Indians? That was 36 mil less than Zito and 43 less than Santana. And why would he want to tie himself to a team that has repeatedly been forced to trade their star players away because management wanted to cut the payroll? I can understand their frustrations and I honestly feel bad for the fans but damn, is that the players fault?

Yankee vs Cleveland home opener April 16th baby!!! Woooo!!!

I cannot wait!

Truthfully speaking the Yanks really haven't had a lot of STAR guys that failed to perform. Trying to think of some and can't come up with any that had non-injury related bad seasons w/ the Yanks. And I'm talking about stars not mediocre guys like Jaret Wright who never, ever should've sniffed a paycheck from the Yanks.

Even Randy Johnson gave us 2 17 win seasons in his 2 year stint. I don't see his tenure being a failure.

Vasquez maybe? 14-10, w/ 4.91 era. But he never really was able to do signifigantly better since leaving NY after 1 year.

Help me out Yanksgirl..who get's the thumbs down as far as pitchers who failed in NY yet thrived b4 or after leaving?

As a Yankee fan, here is my "gut feel" list of guys who didn't live up to their expectations:

Johnson, Clemens, Vazquez, Brown, Weaver. I didn't have that high hopes for Pettitte this year.

Johnson was absolutely a failure. 17 wins or not, compare his 2004 season with 2005 and 2006 and he fell pretty dramatically. He kept the Yankees in games, generally, but if he pitched as he did in 2004, he would have won 25 games a year.

Again, this is before the difference between leagues was as clear, but I'm just talking about my expectations, and what I think the expectations of Yankee fans were.

Clemens went from back to back triple crowns in Toronto (I think) to pure mediocrity in his first season with the Yankees. The dropoff was absurd. He remains overrated because of his W/L record in the Cy Young year and a few great performances (eg. 15K game aginst Seattle in the playoffs). But what I remember are lots of 6IP, 4ER games.

THis is all a matter of opinion so please don't feel that I'm arguing w/ you bobo. I think it's all a matter of perception vs expectations.

Weaver was never a star and the Yanks were wrong to invest so much confidence in him. In his best year prior to coming to the Yanks he was 13-16 w/ 4.08 era. He was 6-8 w/ a 3.19 era which is good but he had never proven himself to be a star.

Brown was 39 when we traded Weaver for him (bad contract for bad contract) and despite injuries he was 14-13. I think that Yanks expectations from a 39 year old were unreasonable. He pitched how a 39 year old should've pitched. He retired as a Yankee so we can't say what he would've done elsewhere.

Johnson: 2 17 win seasons

Clemens 1st stint: Ages 37-41 gave us an avg of 16-7 w/ 200 innings.

Clemens 2nd stint: Age 45 6-6. Never should've happened. Really bad mistake.

Vazquez. Gaves 14 wins 200 innings. Gave us production par for his career but we we're expecting him to do things (be an ace) that he never did anywhere else.

So I think with every acquisition you have to measure realitic expectations vs outcome.

But interesting arguement anyway.

What are reasonable expectations for CC? 17-8, 200++ in, ERA around 3.40 or less?

Yanksfan

The only exception to your points I will take is RJ.
Yes he won 17 games twice, do you remember most of those games? the games where we scored 4 in the first and he gave up 5 in the second? He won most of those games due to waaaay above average run support. Heck, *I* could have won some of those games. He was a bust, plain and simple.

That's why I'm so curious as to why people are so hung up on Lowe. I don't think he'll be much better than a 14 win, 4.30, 200 inning guy. Those might be good numbers for a #3 or 4 guy but I think we could get that from Pettite for a lot less. I would rather have Sheets or Perez over Lowe for a lot less money. They may be more of a risk but the potential rewards a lot higher IMO.

Lowe @ 5/80

vs

Sheets @ 3/40

and

Pettite @ 1/13

or even Perez @ 3/42

Maybe my expectations weren't realistic, but with Johnson I was expecting an ERA around 3, Vazquez an ERA in the low 3s, etc.

I was expecting something at least reasonably similar to the season before joining the Yankees.

I'm not saying these guys weren't valuable for the Yankees. What Johnson did in 2005 was certainly valuable. Just that we (or at least I) expected sheer dominance. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2004.

Compare Clemens with Toronto to his first year with us. His ERA went from 2.05 to 2.65 to 4.60! You cannot honestly tell me you were happy with a 4.60 ERA from the reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner, can you?

For CC, I don't care to predict W-L since that's just luck, but an ERA in the low 3s, (let's say 3.25) and 220 IP are reasonable. I think similar numbers would have been reasonable for Johnson and Clemens, so we'll see...

Well 1 down and at least 1 more to go. I was hoping they would go after Tex as well but I'm hearing the Sucks, Nats, O's and Angels are hard on his trail. I hear the Nats were willing to go at least 10/200 mil. Don't think the Yanks want to play in that area code with another player. I wonder what will happen with Jeter in another 2 years when his deal expires. He'll be 36 when his contract expires. Should he be resigned to play SS and if so for how much? 4/50 mil?

I think Jeter's a reasonable option in CF if Jackson doesn't pan out as expected. 3/39 with an option seems reasonable. As a FA he'd probably get $10M a season so giving him a bit of a bonus is ok. Then again, that's if he were 36 today. Who knows what the market will look like then.

I don't see him at SS, however.

As far as other acquisitions, I'm hoping for Sheets. Smaller contract, higher upside, greater risk, but the risk makes sense in this case.

You start with:

CC
Wang
Sheets
Pettitte
Joba
Hughes
Kennedy
all the others

You know that some of them are going to get hurt.

yankeegirl49

Agreed. Burnett pitched his first healthy season in a while. He'll be the next Pavano, I guarantee it but a worst contract. I cant see him being healthy for the majority of that contract. Sheets, who I perfer, wouldnt be likely to be healthy either with a 2 or 3 year contract but hes the better investment.

I really think CC should have stayed in the NL, He simply would have pitched better + he loves to hit. I think think this is almost as bad for baseball as A-rod leaving his gold glove position to play third for the yanks. This will no doubt make the Yankees a better team. But will the win the WS? NO, Will they even make the playoffs? with the red sox and rays they have the toughest division in baseball so at least they're making strives to compete, but personally I hate CC going to NY

i cannot wait for CLEVELAND INDIANS vs YANKEES to open the new yankee stadium and sabathia going against his old team. he has had horrible numbers in nyy, i really hope it continues against the tribe.

i say 5.2 ip, 10 h, 7 er, 5 bb, 5 k in a 7-4 loss to cleveland in their home opener. cliff lee goes 7, gives up 4 er on 8 h, and kerry wood records his first AL save for cleveland.

I CAN NOT WAIT. this guy pretended like he was willing to give a home town discount to cleveland. what a joke. then he buy an add in the plain dealer, "THANKING" cleveland fans. i have watched CC since he came up in '01, and always loved him. but now, i cannot stand him.

good luck to him though, i hope he win 20 games for the yankees, but loses every start he makes against cleveland.

This has to be the most ridiculous string of comments I've ever read.

Someone way up there said something about "21 year olds like Phil Hughes" despite the fact that Phil Hughes will be 23 in June.

Someone else said that Jon Lester isn't that good despite the fact that he just put up a 144 ERA+ season.

Yet another insane person said, "I think Jeter's a reasonable option in CF..."

The there's this one: "You know the sad thin gi sthat if CC signed with any other team the comments would be "great signing, good thing he didnt go to the yanks" when the yankees signed him all i read is "horrible signing" baseball has the most ignorant fans."

The only reason any sane person is going off about the Sabathia contract is because it's just plain stupid to sign a pitcher for seven years. Everyone said it was a stupid move when the Dodgers signed Kevin Brown for seven years. Everyone said it was a stupid move when the Rockies signed Mike Hampton for eight years. Everyone said it was stupid when the Giants signed Barry Zito for seven years. And guess what? In each of those cases, after everyone said it was a stupid idea, the outcome of the contract was absolutely horrible for each of the franchises.

Here is where this thread ends:

Signing any pitcher for more than four years is the stupidest thing any GM could ever do.

now, i didnt read the comments, but would like to get my opinion in.

does anyone else see a semi-decent season from CC, remember before he was traded he was 6-8 with a 4.50 era in the al central? he wont do horrible, dont get me wrong, but maybe something in the likes of 14-9 with an era near 3.80?