FanPost

CC Sabathia and Why The Yankees Were Right to Pass on Scherzer

2008. For a lot of us Yankees fans, was a year divided between bitterness and cautious optimism. The Steinbrenner big-bucks and bloated rosters approach of the mid 2000s had finally caught up with them, and the Yankees sat and watched as October baseball would be reserved for other teams.

On one hand, it was the first year the Yankees had missed the playoffs since 1995. I was in High School in 2008, and for much of my young life I remembered the Yankees as perennial contenders. For fans who are now around 20 years old or so, it was the first time they had ever seen the Yankees miss the playoffs. We as Yankees fans take a lot for granted, but I digress...

2008 came and went, but that brought the epic spending spree offseason of 2008-2009. The Yankees, like their fans, knew that losing was not an option. They traded with the White Sox for Nick Swisher to man first base, then went out and signed both CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett to big free agent deals. Then when the Red Sox were making a play for Mark Teixeira (who basically had Paul Goldschmidt numbers back then) Cashman and the Yankees swooped in at the 11th hour and signed him to be the team's first baseman and moved Swish to right field. The feeling in the fanbase was solidly ecstatic. 2009 was our year. And it was. Much to the dismay of the always-cocky Jimmy Rollins, the Yankees won the 2009 World Series in 6 games.

Fast forward to 2013, and the Yankees are yet again missing out on October baseball. A much quicker streak of playoff years again in the past. Images of Kevin Youkilis and Lyle Overbay and Mark Reynolds still haunt me.

While there are many, many reasons the Yankees were not able to contend in 2013, I'll be looking at one exclusively - CC Sabathia and his sudden and somewhat drastic decline.

Our beloved ace CC entered the 2013 season as a 32 year old coming off another dominant season of 3.20 xFIP and 8.87 K/9 pitching. Sure, he was considered "passed his prime" but what could go wrong for a guy that was always such a rock steady. groundball inducing innings eater?

A lot, apparently. CC's numbers went into a tailspin in 2013, as he saw his ERA jump by 1.40 up to 4.78 while his K/9, BB/9, and GB% all went in the wrong direction in a hurry. 2014 was no better, as CC started 8 games to the tune of 5.28 ERA/4.78 FIP before succumbing to injury yet again, and his season was done.No one can be sure what 2015 CC will bring on the field, but on paper his salary and roster spot is here to stay. CC will make $23 million this year, $25mil in 2016, and if his 2017 option vests, he will make another $25 mil (when he will be 36). CC's contract (and subsequent extension) is keeping him around far too long and for too much money.

Don't get me wrong, when you want to sign an ace at the peak of his career, you pay the premium in both dollars and years. You sign those deals knowing that the last few years are going to be a huge pain. CC's productive years with the Yankees gave them a World Series title and several consecutive playoff years. There is a time and a place for these deals -

-and this year was not one of them. The biggest free agent this year was former Detroit Tiger and Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. Represented by Scott Boras, Scherzer was sure to get a haul from whatever team decided to back up the truck and dump money on him. That team was (to my surprise) the Washington Nationals. Washington will pay Scherzer in a rather creative way. While he is only signed for a 7year/210million contract, half of his contract will be deferred - meaning he will receive 15M annually over 14 years. Scherzer joins an already stunning rotation of Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Doug Fister, and Gio Gonzalez. Scherzer will no doubt make Washington a better team. Over the last 3 years he has averaged a 10.48 K/9 and a 2.95 FIP. The Nationals are going to be paying Scherzer when current High School Freshmen are pushing 30, but he will put them in even more serious World Series talks than they were earlier.

Then why was it right for the Yankees to avoid him? Firstly, let me point out that I do not disagree that Scherzer would make the Yankees a much better team. A player of his caliber would increase any team's win% without a doubt. It could make the Yankees rotation the best in the AL East.

But for once in their lives, the Yankees just have to play it cool. The Yankees do not have the team surrounding Scherzer that Washington does. The Nationals (much like the Tigers when they signed Prince Fielder) know that their window is closing with Ryan Zimmerman on the decline, Jayson Werth and Bryce Harper oft injured, and 2 pieces of their incredible rotation soon hitting free agency. The Yankees window is not like Washington's. The Yankees have too much money and too many roster spots committed to players passed their primes like Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann (presumably) and, yes, you guessed it, CC Sabathia. The window isn't closing - it's barely open.

Will Scherzer decline like CC did when he hits 32? Who knows. CC had thrown roughly 800 more innings that Scherzer had at his point in his career. Maybe Scherzer will continue to dominate well into his 30s like Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. But that's not the point. CC has shown that big pitcher contracts for the best arm on the market can blow up in a team's face very very quickly. Couple that with an already old, pricey, innefective, and inflexible Yankees roster, and handing out another contract that in just a couple years could be another disaster doesn't seem to be the most prudent choice.

The Yankees have shown this offseason that the free agent market isn't a cure all. It's a band-aid. For the Yankees to compete in the future, they can't continue to run out top heavy rosters of players passed their primes who can easily get hurt or lose their effectiveness. The Yankees made trades for Nathan Eovaldi and Didi Gregorius, two very un-Yankee like moves, in order to build for their future on cheap young players. The time for signing guys like Scherzer is when (or if) this crop of younger guys matures and starts bordering on the cusp on competing again.

Adding Scherzer to the books now would be a great band-aid. It would fill a need with one of the best pitchers in the game. But in several years, when the chances are much higher that Scherzer gets hurt or loses his effectiveness and the team still has millions of dollars tied up in him, it's going to hurt like hell trying to rip that bad-aid off. And these ones don't come off nearly as easy as real ones do.

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