Greetings from Baltimore. Off last night’s Yankees game, I wrote about CC Sabathia, who pitched well enough to win against the Orioles, but who, well, didn’t win, and whose overall season has been a considerable disappointment.
I mentioned in my column Sabathia’s start against the Orioles in The Bronx on Aug. 30, when he pitched poorly enough to lose yet benefited from the Yankees’ recent offensive surge in an 8-5 victory. I could have added the Aug. 18 game against the Red Sox at Fenway Park, better remembered as the game when Ryan Dempster plunked Alex Rodriguez; the Yankees overcame a lousy Sabathia outing for a 9-6 win. So while it isn’t the most sabermetric thing to say sometimes an ace has to cover for his hitters in return for the other way around, that’s precisely what the Yankees needed Monday night, and Sabathia couldn’t deliver.
As Yahoo’s Jeff Passan pointed out, Sabathia has baseball’s worst fastball as calculated by FanGraphs. That’s worst as in least effective, rather than slowest.
After this year, the Yankees owe Sabathia $76 million through 2016, and that jumps to $96 million through 2017 if Sabathia avoids a shoulder injury. After this year, the Yankees owe Alex Rodriguez $86 million through 2017, though that could be mitigated by what happens with the appeal of his 211-game suspension and also could grow if A-Rod reaches any of his $6 million home run bonuses. He hit No. 652 Monday night and is just eight away from his first bonus, for tying Willie Mays’ 660.
If you’re looking for any salvation, Sabathia’s FIP and xFIP, as calculated by FanGraphs, are not as bad as his 4.82 ERA. But they’re 4.14 and 3.72, which nevertheless represent considerable jumps from his measures of past seasons.
In all, it’s a big yeesh. The Yankees have to be very concerned about what they’re going to get from Sabathia for the duration of their agreement. It’s worth remembering, when Sabathia had the leverage of opting out after the 2011 season, the Yankees had to appease him with a 2016 guarantee and 2017 vesting option because they hadn’t come up with enough alternatives to make up for his departure.
–I wrote my pre-game column on Robinson Cano.
Cano’s rate stats are now in line with his recent norms, thanks to his strong hitting in the past month. It isn’t surprising, given the lack of lineup support he endured for the first four months, that he has set a career high with 62 walks and his power is down slightly. Most noticeably, his 32 doubles put him on pace to fall short of 40 for the first time since his career-worst 2008 season.
The Yankees still want him back, but they’re content to let the process play out in free agency, and Cano’s free agency has an unpredictable quality to it thanks to the presence of Jay-Z. We know certain agents (Scott Boras) tend to work deliberately during the free-agency period, while other agents (the Levinson brothers) tend to work aggressively to get deals done. CAA, which is working with Jay-Z on Cano, has a history of extending players before they reach free agency, a history which proved irrelevant here.
How will Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports operate? We don’t know yet.
–Monday night’s game was highlighted by a skirmish between Joe Girardi and Buck Showalter having to do with good old, sign-stealing accusations.
Essentially, the two men lived up to their reputations: The crafty Showalter drives opposing teams to distraction simply over what he and his staff might be doing, while Girardi has no problem getting in the face (metaphorically speaking) of opponents if he suspects wrongdoing.
In Girardi, Showalter and Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon, the American League East has three of the game’s most colorful, headline-generating managers. It was even more so last year with Bobby Valentine in Boston; his replacement John Farrell is more low-key, which thrills Red Sox upper management.
The only other division that comes close is the AL Central, with Terry Francona (Cleveland), Ron Gardenhire (Minnesota), Jim Leyland (Detroit) and Robin Ventura (White Sox), but Ventura’s high profile comes more from his playing career and this group doesn’t seem to get involved in the same sort of imbroglios.
It doesn’t get much better than watching Girardi and Showalter, both Type-A personalities, go up against one another. They have played huge roles in elevating the Yankees-Orioles rivalry back to what it was at previous peaks like the 1970s and 1980s and mid-1990s.
–Have a great day.