If CC Sabathia signed with the Yankees, Mariano Rivera wouldn’t exactly complain.
Rivera said last night that he strongly favors having Sabathia join him in pinstripes, though he insisted the organization knows how to handle personnel decisions better than he does.
“Definitely. If you ask me personally, definitely I would like to have him,” Rivera said at a midtown charity event. “But I’m no one to say what the Yankees should do or not.
“I think they have the experience. I think they have the ability to recruit whoever they think is going to be who’s best for the team.”
Rivera was wary of being overly opinionated about significant Yankees decisions such as the potential acquisitions of Sabathia and Jake Peavy and Joba Chamberlain’s role. But it’s not surprising that he would at least admit his personal interest in seeing the Yanks sign Sabathia. The star left-hander is the premier pitcher on the free-agent market.
Rivera, who appeared at Michael C. Fina on behalf of his Mariano Rivera Foundation for an event called “Diamonds Make a Difference – An Evening with Mariano Rivera,” is coming off shoulder surgery. He had an operation to clean out calcification of the AC joint, and the soon-to-be-39-year-old is coming along just fine, saying he would “be ready for spring training.”
“It feels good,” he said. “Everything feels great, and just going through the rehabbing. . . Three weeks of rehabbing already and every day it’s feeling better.”
This season, Rivera also had his 13-year run of going to the playoffs end.
“It was hard,” Rivera said. “But I was able to sit down and relax knowing that I gave everything to help the team to get to the playoffs. We fell short. Hopefully next year we don’t have as many injuries.”