Archive for C.C. Sabathia
While Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have long been the darlings of Manhattan, a sizable number of Yankees live in New Jersey. Northern Jersey, in particular, is a short jaunt away from Yankee Stadium, and players find bigger homes in the suburbs than in the city.
To that end, two recent stories about the Yankees and their lifestyles caught my eye. We can learn a lot from them, and perhaps, we can learn nothing from them as well. First up is a Jack Curry Bats post on CC Sabathia’s settling in.
According to The Times scribe and New Jersey resident, Sabathia was chatting him up for info on New Jersey high schools, and Curry takes that as a sign that CC may stick around the Bronx beyond the three-year opt-out currently written into his contract. Ponders Curry:
As I was talking to Sabathia a few days ago about why he decided to live in Bergen County, N.J., he asked some questions that indicated he plans to be with the Yankees for the long haul. Carsten Charles III, C.C.’s son, turns 6 in September, but C.C. quizzed me about which county high schools have the best athletic programs. Little C.C. is only in kindergarten, but his father was already thinking about possible high schools.
If Sabathia was planning to bolt the Yankees in three seasons, would he even be aware of Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J.? Probably not, but Sabathia cited the school’s sports pedigree. Sabathia had done some homework, too, because Don Bosco’s baseball team was undefeated last year. Sabathia will earn $23 million a season from 2012 to 2015 if he does not opt out, which is another reason for him to become an expert on the New Jersey school system.
Curry acknowledges that this discussion could mean nothing, and I’m inclined to avoid reading much into it. Sabathia, after all, isn’t going to be playing now with an eye toward escaping from New York in three years. He is the type of player who will pour his heart and soul into pitching now and doing the best he can do now.
A lot can change over the course of three years. The economy, the baseball landscape, the needs of other teams and pitcher’s physical health are all factors that will come into play in 2011 when the opt-out comes due. For now, though, I’m sure we’ll scan CC’s every word for a sign of his intentions, but until he waives that clause, everything remains on the table.
In other Yankee residential news, the Daily News reports that Phil Coke is renting in Edgewater. Coke took out a six-month lease on an apartment at The Peninsula. While CC’s musings mean little, Coke seems to be confident that he will be sticking around the Bronx these days. Rumor has it that Kevin Cash and Brett Tomko are eying the Peninsula as well. If I were those two, I wouldn’t sign anything longer than a one-month sublet right now.
When the Yankees and CC conducted their winter dance in December, rumors were flying left and right. Joe and Mike covered the Winter Meetings in Vegas for RAB, and I was home studying for finals. To relive the madness, check out the archives here and here.
When Sabathia finally signed his eight-year, $160-million deal with the Yanks, it was unclear who else was in on the bidding. We knew that the Angels and Giants had expressed some interest, but the only other rumored offer was one for six years and $110-$120 million from the Brewers.
As the early days in December wore on, a few stories emerged. Supposedly, the Giants were interested but never made an offer. The Angels were also rumored to be in on the negotiations, but the team shot those stories down. In fact, the Yankees were rumored to be confident that neither the Angels nor Giants would approach $140 million. They wanted to blow away Sabathia, and more than a few fans thought they were overpaying and outbidding themselves for the big man’s services.
Late on Saturday though Jon Heyman added a unique twist to the story, nearly six months later. He reported via Twitter: “very late scoop — turns out the angels made a $140-million offer to CC. so yanks were wise to go from 140 to 161 mil.”
That’s quite the rub. A lot of Yankee analysts and fans pushed the line that Sabathia didn’t want to play in New York, that his heart lay on the West Coast and that he would return as soon as he could. The presence of an Angels’ offer that was fairly competitive with the Yankee offer would seemingly dispel that notion. He could have turned down that extra money for the chance to pitch in Southern California.
In the end, we now know why the Yankees went so high with their final bid: They had a competitor with the financial resources to give them a run for their money. They wanted their prize, and they went for it. The Yankees probably didn’t know what the Angels’ top offer was, but they knew they had to stay one step ahead.
So when Sabathia takes the mound in a few hours, Yankee fans should be ever grateful that CC is in the Bronx and not in Anaheim. While I always assumed Sabathia would take the Yanks’ money, perhaps it wasn’t as sure a bet as I thought it to be.
Before Joe Girardi officially filled out his lineup card, there was uncertainty as to whether Derek Jeter would play in last night’s series finale against the Blue Jays. The Captain has been suffering what he calls a sore oblique, never an easy injury for a baseball player. It requires rest to heal. Unfortunately, rest does not fit Derek Jeter’s M.O. He returned to the lineup, though, and came through for the Yanks on more than one occasion.
His first act came in the bottom of the sixth. With Alex Rios on first and two men out, Jose Bautista worked a 2-2 count on CC Sabathia. The hefty lefty had unleashed a barrage of fastballs in the at bat, two hitting 94, one 96, and the latest one 97. On the fifth pitch he pulled the string, dropped to 85 mph. Bautista pulled it toward the hole, but there would be no Pasta Diving on this evening. Jeter laid out and snared the grounder, flipping to Cano to finish the inning.
Then, with the Yanks down 2-1 in the top of the seventh, Jeter was presented with one of those RISP situations in which the Yanks have generally failed this season. Brett Gardner had worked a four-pitch walk off Brian Tallet, his fifth of the night. Girardi called for a hit and run on a 2-1 count, and it couldn’t have gone any better. Frankie grounded one to short, which Marco Scutaro almost certainly would have turned into a double play if he weren’t out of position. He was, the ball squeaked through, and to the plate strolled Derek Jeter with two on and none out.
After taking a strike out the outside edge from new pitcher Jason Frasor, The Captain did what he does best. On a 94 mph fastball on the inside edge, Jeter did his inside-oot (as the Blue Jays broadcasters said) thing, lofting a ball over John McDonald’s head and into shallow right for a game-tying single. It was Jeterian in every sense of the term. Unfortunately, the 2-3-4 hitters couldn’t plate the RISP. The Yanks would have to save the comeback for another inning.
Leave it to Godzilla. Exactly one week after he hit a solo home run to tie the game against the Rays, he did the exact same thing. Except this time it put the Yanks on top. On a 2-2 count, Matsui took a Jesse Carlson slider, the first he’d thrown in the at bat, over the right-center field wall, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead. It was Matsui’s first hit since the series opener in Baltimore last Friday, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
CC Sabathia wasn’t quite as good as his last start, but eight innings, two runs is the mark of an ace, even if he didn’t get there in the most efficient fashion. Only one of his four walks came back to haunt him, but for a while that run loomed large, as it gave the Jays a 2-1 advantage. That inning, the bottom of the fifth, could have been a lot worse had Brett Gardner and Frankie Cervelli not hooked up to get Rod Barajas trying to score on a John McDonald single. We’ve seen Gardner try to uncork a throw or two this year, usually with disastrous results. On this one he took his time, throwing a strike in time to get Barajas and keep the Jays from extending the lead.
Sabathia took care of the rest, getting Marco Scutaro to ground out on the first pitch, ending the threat. True to form, CC powered through three more frames, laying his own bridge to Mo. Like Mo of old, he came in and mowed down the Jays, throwing six of his 11 pitches for strikes and retiring the Jays in order.
While the Yanks’ inability to capitalize on Tallet’s five walks was a bit frustrating, it’s tough to complain about this win. It was a close game wherein the Yankees scored a run in three separate innings. Whereas last week we talked about how the Yankees were finding ways to lose, today they found another way to win: by manufacturing a run or two and relying on some timely hitting. The win brought the Yanks back to .500, a mark they hopefully won’t see the rest of the season (though this isn’t the first time I’ve typed that).
The Yanks head back home tomorrow night for a four-game set against the Twinkies. It’s the disappointing Phil Hughes vs. the disappointing Francisco Liriano. I’m betting one of them won’t disappoint.
Last night, CC Sabathia showed the Yankees and their fans exactly what he was capable of. After a month of starts that were nothing more than adequete, Sabathia shutout the Orioles in impressive fashion, retiring twenty-three of twenty-four at one point. He recorded the final three outs in the ninth on strikeouts, then followed it up with a roar that announced to everyone that the real CC Sabathia had finally arrived.
But what made Sabathia so much more effective last night than his Opening Day assignment? Since both starts were in Baltimore, we can take a look at Sabathia’s stuff through Pitch f/x without having to worry about slight differences in the PFX cameras. Let’s start off with Sabathia’s pitch selection (remember to click on any graph in this post for a larger view):
The two outings are similar, except that Sabathia broke out the changeup more often last night. Back in April he was basically a two pitch pitcher, throwing either his fastball or slider 87% of the time. That dropped to 80.3% last night. Half of Sabathia’s eight strikesouts came on changeups, evidence that the pitch was keeping O’s hitters off balance.
After the jump, we’ll take a quick look at Sabathia’s individual pitches.
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Perhaps the most telling point of today’s game was when I glanced up at the big scoreboard in center in the top of the sixth and saw that the Yankees had just one hit. Against a guy making just his sixth career appearance at age 30. The team led thanks to a Hideki Matsui single in the first, but other than that it was typical Yankees: making a replacement level pitcher look like a Cy Young winner. Unfortunately for them, the pitching wouldn’t hold up all game.
CC Sabathia again didn’t look like the ace the Yakees signed over the off-season. He held the Angels scoreless through five, but his pitch count had built up by the sixth. A leadoff single by Howie Kendrick kicked off a series of events which would conclude with Torii Hunter scoring on a Kendry Morales ground out. It wasn’t all bad at that point, with the game tied at one. Matt Palmer was still on the mound, and it’s not like he’s actually good. The Yanks were bound to break through, right?
It looked like they would in the bottom of the sixth, as Derek Jeter led off with a ground rule double to center. Johnny Damon got him to third, but Mark Teixeira popped one straight up, as he is wont to do this season. Hideki couldn’t get the hit the Yanks needed, and they sent out CC Sabathia for the seventh. He had thrown 99 pitches to this point. For a guy like Sabathia, that seems like the smart move. It did not turn out that way.
After two straight singles and a sacrifice, the Angels had second and third with one out. Thankfully, Gary Matthews was at bat. He promptly struck out swinging, putting CC in a position to finish out the frame with the game still tied. On a 1-1 count Howie Kendrick hit one up the middle, and it looked like two runs would score. Robinson Cano ranged, though, and picked it, saving one run. That would prove for naught, as Torii Hunter doubled in the next at bat and plated the two runners. That would be CC’s day, though Jon Albaladejo allowed a single which scored the inherited runner. His final line: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, and a big L.
Perhaps if the bullpen had held the Angels in the final two frames the Yanks cold have made a game of it. Despite hordes of fans departing before the ninth the Yanks mustered a mini rally, plating three runs before Johnny Damon struck out in a pitch in the dirt. Once Matthews dropped a Derek Jeter fly ball it started to feel like April 19, 2007 — hell, or even last night — but it didn’t last long.
Still, if the Yankees can come back and win tomorrow’s game — where the O’Neill Theory will be put to another test — they’ll have taken three of four from the Angels, which is what everyone was hoping for coming in. If they can follow that up with three of four from Boston and Tampa, well, then they’ll be rolling. The starting pitching will have to hit a groove at some point, but I have full faith in that. But for now we can just hope that Hughes can build off his last start.
Personal note: Sadly, this was my first trip to the new Stadium. Got to take a lap around the whole place. The view from the bleachers was excellent. The higher vantage point makes it better than at the old Stadium, despite being pushed a bit further back. I also got a chance to meet up with Rebecca, who is as cool in real life as she is in our comments on her blog.
Baseball is a tricky game sometimes. Take last night for instance. Was the Yankees offense horrible, or did Justin Verlander bring his A game? I thought it was mostly the latter, with a smattering of the former. In any case, he mowed down the Yanks with precision, tossing 79 of his 110 pitches for strikes. He lasted only two batters into the eighth, which seems strange for a guy who had pitched a shutout to that point, but striking out nine guys tends to work up the pitch count.
Yet the offense still had its faults. The Yanks put the leadoff runner on in four of the nine frames, and managed to score only in the ninth. The worst of the failings was in the fourth, when Teixeira and Matsui hit back to back singles. After a Cano fly out, Verlander struck out Nick Swisher and Melky Cabrera, thus ending the threat. It happened again in the eighth, with back to back singles by Ramiro Pena and Derek Jeter which chased Verlander from the game. On came Bobby Seay, he of the 1.491 WHIP last year, who took out Johnny Damon, Mark Teixeira, and Hideki Matsui to preserve the shutout.
On the bright side, the Yankees saw a far more efficient version of CC Sabathia last night. Four runs over 8 innings doesn’t look too pretty in the box score, but for anyone watching the game it wasn’t bad at all. The run in the first was an unfortunate one, but easily forgivable. Placido Polanco hit a double on a pitch at his shins, and Cabrera hit a sharp liner that I thought that Jeter would have had for sure. Still, it was just one run. The Yanks had time to recover and they didn’t capitalize. Meanwhile, CC continued to cruise.
His only other blemish came in the sixth, which started with a Curtis Granderson bunt single — one which CC made every conceivable effort to field and make a play on. Polanco’s subsequent double wasn’t exactly a torched ball; it kind of fell in between Melky and Damon and rolled slowly for a bit. It bought enough time for Granderson to score from first. And then came the Mags homer which, judging by his expression after hitting it, even he didn’t think was going out. Oh well. It happens.
It took CC just 99 pitches to finish off eight frames, giving the bullpen a much-needed day off. Moreover, he threw 70 of those pitches for strikes, a far better mark than he’d seen even in his other good outing against the Royals. The six hits, seven strikeouts, and especially the zero walks were also encouraging. It seems CC was done in by the home run. Otherwise it was a solid outing, and a good sign that CC is over his early-season shakes.
Finally, let us take another minute to appreciate Robinson Cano. Dude has been on fire to start the season. He’s quickly put 2008 behind him, which is all you can hope for.
They’ll do it again tomorrow, same time, with Phil Hughes making his 2009 debut against Edwin Jackson. The Yanks could really, really, really…really use a win.
Five days ago, some unreasonable Yankee fans were ready to jump off of the Macombs Dam Bridge. CC Sabathia, earning $23 million a year, had just thrown a clunker against the Orioles, and doubts about his ability to pitch for the Yanks were infesting the minds of those irrational Yankee fans.
Tonight, Sabathia answered those critics and more. He threw 7.2 strong innings, scattering just six hits. While he hit two batters, he walked no one and struck out six. His 2009 ERA dropped from 12.46 to 4.50, and he looked every bit the ace as the Yanks downed the Royals 6-1.
For the evening, Sabathia was just dominant. He averaged 94 miles per hour with his fastball and nearly hit 97, according to Gameday. He mixed in a bunch of change ups and some excellent sliders to keep the Royals’ hitters off balance all night. Exhale, Yankee fans. CC Sabathia has arrived. His next start, of course, will be heavily scrutinized as it will be the first regular season game at the new Yankee Stadium, but with tonight’s outing, he earned the honors, heating pad and all.
Offensively, the night — and season — belonged to Nick Swisher. We love Nick around here. We advocated for him to earn the start job over Xavier Nady during Spring Training, and while Joe Girardi wouldn’t grant him that honor, he’s done nothing but hit his way into the lineup since Opening Day.
Tonight, Swisher went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI and 2 walks. He launched a triple early on and homered in the fifth to plate the final two Yankee runs of the night. On the young season, Swisher is 7 for 13 with a team-leading two home runs and nine RBI. Six of his seven hits have been for extra bases, and Girardi will keep finding a way to get Swisher those ABs. He’s more than earned it, and the Yanks are undefeated with Swisher in the lineup.
For the Yanks, that was about it. Jorge Posada drove in two more runs. Xavier Nady, feeling the heat from Swisher, knocked out two hits, and the Yanks played a crisp, clean game against a team they should beat. With Gil Meche on top for Sunday, the Yanks have won the series, and all is right with in Yankee Universe.
Mark Teixeira Injury Update
Word out of the Yankee clubhouse this evening is that Mark Teixeira is suffering from tendinitis in his right wrist. He will play on Sunday as the Yanks face Meche, a righthander. Hopefully, this injury will not linger, and he’ll be in to face lefties soon enough. The Star-Ledger had a little more about the injury. It doesn’t sound too serious.
Don’t tell CC Sabathia the housing market is slumping. A few days after making his Yankee debut, Sabathia landed himself a $14.9 million home in Alpine, New Jersey. The mansion is a 12,000-square-foot, six-bedroom behemoth in a celebrity-filled neighborhood, and the Yankee ace paid for it in cash. I hope he’s planning on spending more than three years in it.
At the rate we’re going, Yankee fans and the hypersensitive media that covers them are going to start panicking before Spring Training ends. Today’s freakout du jour comes to courtesy of Anthony McCarron, The Daily News and CC Sabathia’s in-game heating pad.
McCarron notes that a few Yankee watchers are concerned about CC’s health. It’s odd, they say, for a pitcher with a history of abdominal strains to use a heating pad on Opening Day to stay loose. (Oh, wait.) Noted doctor and pitching expert John Flaherty had a few things to say about Sabathia’s outing. “When I’m watching him pitch and see the heat pad and then see him throwing 88-89, it’s almost like he’s protecting something and pitching at 70%,” the YES Network color man said.
It’s a good thing I’m sitting here in my mom’s basement in front of a computer with access to, you know, real numbers. While the notoriously unreliable YES gun may have said 88-89, the true numbers provided to us by MLB.com’s Pitch f/x system tell otherwise. Mike explored this in depth yesterday, but it’s a point worth repeating. Pitch f/x had CC’s average fastball velocity as 93 with a peak of 95. His change-up was at 85, and his breaking pitchers were around 80. But, hey, why verify facts? If John Flaherty said it, that must make it reality.
McCarron eventually makes some good points. Will Carroll pointed out that Sabathia’s release point was off, and Jim Kaat wondered why Sabathia threw six straight sliders to Luke Scott. But those points are buried under an avalanche of Yankee denials.
Sabathia’s location was off on Monday because his release point was off. He just had one of those day and couldn’t get the pitches over. He had no problems with velocity; he is showing no signs of injury; and the Yankees aren’t about to start taking early-season chances with their $23 million pitcher. If he’s hurt he won’t pitch, and right now he’s going to pitch. If he doesn’t show improvement over his next few starts, we’ll all start to worry, but one game does not a trend make.
During the letdown that was Opening Day, CC Sabathia labored through 96 pitches, throwing just 50 for strikes. Of those 96 pitches, 84 were either fastballs or sliders. This is nothing new for CC, who’s worked off these two pitches for the last seven years, mixing in the occasional changeup. Let’s take a look at how his two main pitchers were looking yesterday afternoon, via the magic of Pitch f/x. You can click on any graph in this post to open up a larger view.
First up, bird’s eye view, and what you’re seeing is the average flight path of his fastball and slider:
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