Joel Sherman

Joel Sherman

MLB

CC’s decline hurting Yankees this season and beyond

BALTIMORE — CC Sabathia is still a horse. Just not one the Yankees could ride — a huge problem this year, a bigger one in the future.

As a scout who was in attendance Monday night proclaimed when Sabathia went out for the eighth inning, trailing the Orioles, 4-1, “give him credit. He wants the ball.”

Yep, it is not the competitiveness bedeviling Sabathia, not his sense of responsibility. He remains an ace in those areas. Even in a down year, his innings pitched are up at 198, second in the AL. He is going to reach 200 innings for an eighth straight year and for the 14th time in a 14-year career he will top 180 innings.

Only 32 pitchers in history completed their age-32 season (age determined as of the year midpoint of July 1) with more innings than Sabathia has now (2,762.1). That list doesn’t include historic bulldogs such as Jim Kaat, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine, Jack Morris and Bob Gibson. It speaks to Sabathia’s tenacity, durability and accountability.

But it also speaks to a Chinese Water Torture of relentless innings. There are plenty of pitchers on the list who continued resilient high-end pitching beyond this point. However, the list also is replete with those who had about the similar workloads as Sabathia at this age, who essentially had little to no career thereafter — think Vida Blue, Dave McNally, Dave Stieb, Mel Stottlemyre and Frank Viola.

Sabathia, who turned 33 on July 21, is blessed to play when medicine, nutrition and exercise are more refined and offer the promise of longer and better. Still, just 16 pitchers currently 33 or older are qualified for the 2013 ERA title, 12 34 or older, eight 35 or older. You can see the historic and current trends Sabathia is fighting — and losing.

His fastball is down, and so are his results. This is his worst season. He already has a career-high 12 losses. His 4.82 ERA is fourth worst among 39 AL qualifiers. If he were having a familiar Sabathia season, the Yanks — with all their pathologies — would probably be a wild card rather than almost certainly on the outside looking in.

And think about what this means moving forward. If the team’s long-term plans had manifested then Sabathia’s slide from ace to overpaid No. 3-4 starter would be more tolerable. But no one from the inexpensive group of Manny Banuelos, Dellin Betances and Michael Pineda has risen to the top of the rotation. Heck, none has even risen to the rotation.

Thus, with Hiroki Kuroda, Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes free agents, the Yanks have Sabathia and Ivan Nova and then what? David Phelps, Adam Warren and Brett Marshall feel like essentially the same No. 6 starter. Betances and Pineda remain wild cards. Jose Ramirez was 1-3 with a 4.88 ERA at Triple-A. Vidal Nuno? David Huff? Come on.

The Yanks are aiming to get under the $189 million luxury tax threshold next year and have to steer a majority of available funds to address Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson (or their replacements) while probably having to redo the left side of their infield away from Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. They could try to keep Kuroda and/or Pettitte, maybe even make a play for Japanese star Masahiro Tanaka.

But in just about any scenario the Yanks cannot have Sabathia as a No. 4 starter, not when he has three years at $76 million or — if his vesting option clicks in — four years at $96 million still due.

So can he make a transition from power to finesse successfully? His average fastball has lost 3 mph from 94 to 91 in his Yankee tenure. He threw 65 fastballs Monday night — topped out at 94, averaged 91 — and the Orioles swung and missed just once.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo!, deploying a stat called Pitch-Type Linear Weights — which attempts to assign value to each pitch thrown in a season — demonstrated that no pitcher has had more damage done to his fastball in 2013 than Sabathia. All those innings seemed to have withered the vitality of that pitch.

“He’s going to figure it out,” Andy Pettitte said. “He still throws 90-93 [mph], has a great changeup, locates his fastball and he is left-handed. His stuff is still really good.”

Pettitte never had Sabathia’s high-end velocity. Still, he could get to 93-94 mph in younger days, and remained a consistently top-flight starter when that vanished because he locates well, sequences his pitches expertly, and combines competitiveness and calm in the storm superbly.

Pitching coach Larry Rothschild has described Sabathia trying to find an extra few mph, getting on the side of the ball and having his fastballs cut into delectable middle-of-the-plate morsels for hitters. They have tinkered with his mechanics. But maybe it is more mindset, to stop trying to get those few extra mph and, instead, accept the transition Pettitte made. Of course, assuming that all those innings will allow sustained health to do it.

“There’s no doubt he can do it,” Pettitte said. “He just has to figure out how to do it. He is still young, just 32-33. He is a hard worker. I still think his fastball can bounce back to 94-95, but no matter what I think CC can win.”