EIGHT years ago, the top start ing pitcher in the free-agent market had no desire to be a New Yorker or a Yankee. None.
Then, in early November 2000, the phone rang in a Montoursville, Pa., home and Jana Mussina told her husband Joe Torre was on the line. And the conversion of Mike Mussina began.
During a five-minute call, Mussina was blown away by Torre’s gravitas and ability to project the positives of the New York suburbs and life with the Yankees. Suddenly the Yankees jumped from having no shot to having a possibility and ultimately to being the frontrunner in Mussina’s calculations. Fatherly and forthright, Torre was a wonderful salesman in his time as Yankees manager.
Now, eight years later, the top starting pitcher in the free-agent market has no desire to be a New Yorker. None.
So who is going to motivate CC Sabathia to reconsider his Yankee aversion? Joe Girardi? What exactly is that phone call going to be like between the hardly fatherly, hardly forthright Girardi and the fun-loving, 300-pound Sabathia? “CC if you want to drag that hulking body through my marine boot camp spring training and live in a clubhouse where I ban sweets of all sorts from candy to ice cream to soda, and spend the next six years thinking up synonyms for humorless, boy, have I got a team for you.”
Sabathia, for now, is prioritizing his native California and being able to hit in the NL, which leaves the Yanks in a big 0-for-2. Girardi said this week that he thought the new Yankee Stadium was going to be a strong recruiting tool. But the Mets have a new stadium, too, and so do a lot of other teams. The Dodgers, probably the early Sabathia favorites, actually have Torre and are a playoff team. Oh yes, the Yanks cannot even sell the certainty of the playoffs any more.
All they will have is money. Tons and tons of money. In 2000, Mussina actually had offers from the Mets, Red Sox and Orioles in the same ballpark as the Yankees’ proposal, and he asked his agent to stop soliciting bids in fear that the Yanks would drop out; that is how much Torre had swayed him on wearing pinstripes. There is a general agreement in the game that for the Yanks to land Sabathia they will have to significantly exceed other bidders, specifically a California team such as the Dodgers, Angels or Giants.
“As badly as we want him, you have to ask yourself, ‘Is this how your want to begin a marriage? By bribing someone to come here,’ ” a Yankees official said. “I think it sets you up for a bad relationship if you have someone here who doesn’t really want to be here and came only because of the money. And I think if you pay him a contract that blows away the last record (Johan Santana’s six-year, $137.5 million deal), you are putting unreal pressure on him from the outset.”
The Yanks might have to go to $150 million or more, maybe even a seventh year. As an AL executive said, “I don’t think the Red Sox will sign him, but they will have a very public meal with him because it will be in their interest and that of Greg Genske (Sabathia’s agent) to see just how high the Yanks will jump if they publicly court CC.”
The CC puzzle is perhaps the main issue Brian Cashman faces now that he agreed yesterday to sign a three-year extension to stay as GM. Cashman must remake a rotation in which the two leading winners (Mussina and Andy Pettitte) may retire, nominative ace (Chien-Ming Wang) missed the final 3 1/2 months, Joba Chamberlain ended the season with more shoulder pain, and Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy never won a game.
Girardi indicated the Yanks would like to add at least two high-end starters to upgrade this area. Obviously, Sabathia is the top target, but a resistant top target. So now you wonder this: Which member of the Yankees family is capable of making the momentum-changing Moose call now?