CC Sabathia is from the Derek Jeter School of injury admittance, which is to say you can imagine him giving you the PIN to his bank account before conceding he even had a hangnail.
Yet, on the same day Jeter underwent surgery on his fractured left ankle, Sabathia divulged he is concerned about left elbow discomfort that lingered even after he came off the disabled list in late August.
Sabathia has had a bone spur in the elbow since his days with the Indians, and the Yankees’ last set of MRI exams showed no structural damage to the ligament. So it is possible that when Sabathia visits Dr. James Andrews this week to examine the elbow he will be told to rest or to come in for a relatively minor procedure to shave the spur.
Still, Sabathia described himself as “a little bit” worried because “it’s something I never felt before. … I’ve never had a problem with the elbow.” And, for example, with both Michael Pineda and Manuel Banuelos this year, the Yankees thought their arm problems were far less severe than they were — injuries that necessitated major surgeries and put, at the least, their near futures in peril.
“Our attitude is that whatever it is, it is,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “I’m not going to let my mind run away from me. What we saw [via MRI] before was not of a concern, but we are going to get it checked out again.”
Sabathia was on the DL twice this year, matching his entire career output, but his two-week stint in August (with what the team called an inflamed elbow) was the first time he was disabled for an arm injury.
Look, we can go ahead and hail Tigers manager Jim Leyland for using his ace Justin Verlander with something approaching disregard for pitch counts or we can champion the Nationals’ kid-gloves handling of Stephen Strasburg. No matter where you fall on the divide, however, there is an understanding that there are just so many pitches in even the most durable arm.
Sabathia is such a determined workhorse that he reached 200 innings in this season of two DL pit stops. He reached 2,5464 1/3 innings for his career, which in the modern era (since 1900) is 181st all-time. That counts all of those gamers who pitched in four-man rotations for which there is so much “tough guy” prose written.
Over the past six years, Sabathia leads the majors with 1,399 innings, Verlander is second at 1,356 1/3. In that same time, he also leads the majors in postseason innings (101 1/3), with Cliff Lee a distant second (82). So combined that is 1,500 1/3 innings in six years or a 250-inning average.
The Yankees extended Sabathia last offseason through 2016 with an option for 2017, understanding that even if the southpaw avoided the knife, he almost certainly would diminish during the life of this contract from an ace to something less. The counter-move to that, the Yankees believed, was obtaining Pineda from the Mariners for Jesus Montero and also continuing to groom Banuelos with the hope they would evolve into Nos. 1-2 starters in conjunction with Sabathia’s slide.
But arm injuries come to the young, as well. Pineda needed shoulder surgery, never pitched in 2012 and is not being counted on to be part of the rotation at the outset of 2013, much less anything approaching an ace. Banuelos hardly pitched this season, underwent Tommy John surgery recently and is not expected to pitch at all next year.
Thus, if Sabathia is missing for any period next year or falls toward mid-rotation results, then the Yankees are facing April-to-September problems that can outweigh even their hitting problems of October. The only Yankees to start games in 2012 besides Sabathia who are under contract are Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova, David Phelps and Adam Warren. Andy Pettitte was strongly leaning toward returning, and the Yankees essentially would be the only team for whom he would pitch in 2013.
The Yankees would love to bring back Hiroki Kuroda, but off a near-ace-level AL East season, Kuroda should receive multi-year offers, although he will pitch next year at 38. He has indicated he will pitch only where he is comfortable, which likely is Southern California or New York. But there would be no surprise if all three SoCal teams — the Dodgers, Padres and Angels — made multi-year offers for Kuroda.
With their mandate to get under the $189 million luxury tax threshold in 2014, would the Yankees give Kuroda a two- or three-year deal to win him back? Will it be impacted by Sabathia’s status?
Aside from blowing up in ALCS Game 4, Sabathia pitched well off the DL, including winning twice in the Division Series. However, he was giving signs of his problem even while excelling. Sabathia normally relies on his slider 35 percent of the time, but that dropped to about 25 percent over the final two months, while his changeup use more than doubled from 10 percent to the low 20s. We can reason now that the torque of a slider was the pitch causing him the most physical distress.
Still, following his honor code, Sabathia never said his elbow hurt. Quite the contrary, he pledged to take the ball in any situation — short rest, relief — to help the Yankees try to win a title. But with the season now over, Sabathia admitted the discomfort he was feeling between starts. He is going to see Dr. Andrews about it this week.
A key moment of the 2013 season already is upon the Yankees.