Yankees Gossip 9/24/15: The future of CC Sabathia, Greg Bird, James Pazos, and Jorge Mateo

CC Sabathia is reportedly willing to pay the price of pitching on a bad leg. Talking with reporters a few days back, the veteran pitcher confirmed he'd likely need to undergo knee replacement surgery at some point in the future. Speaking of the future, there's a lot up in the air—it's the future so pretty much everything is up in the air, right? (Unless you don't accept there is such a thing as free will, an argument I find interesting and that, I must admit, I am partial to.) So what of some up and coming prospects? And what of Greg Bird, who would appear to be out of position next year?

We ponder those questions and more on the latest episode of Out of Left Field, our podcast about Yankees rumors and gossip. Stream the show here:

Tanya rejoined me for today's show, and I suppose thank god for that. We would be positively lost without her. You can follow me on Twitter here, and you can follow Tanya on Twitter here.

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In today's show we discussed:

• David Ortiz—Big Papi answered some questions on Derek Jeter's The Players' Tribune. Nobody wanted these questions asked. Nobody wanted these questions answered. And yet, here we are, having these answers forced into our minds in much the same way death is eventually forced onto our bodies. Within this Q&A Ortiz divulges his favorite food and touches upon what he'd like to do for a job if not play baseball. The As to those Qs are things that exist.
  
• CC Sabathia—MLB.com's Barry Bloom ran a piece a few days ago quoting Sabathia on the state of his knee. Sabathia confirmed he'd require knee replacement surgery ("that’s the price you pay"), and gave some detail on the nature of his magical knee brace. Despite having a severely damaged knee, Sabathia has just come off the three best games of his season, and is starting to look more and more like his former self each time out.
  
• James Pazos—Hal Steinbrenner reportedly has Pazos on his list of "untradeable prospects." I ask Tanya where Pazos has come from, where Pazos is going, and whether we need to pay attention.
  
• Greg Bird—One problem the Yankees and Greg Bird will have to surmount next year is Bird being out of position. Bird looks set to lose playing time with Mark Teixeira at first base and Alex Rodriguez occupying the designated hitter role. Jack Curry suggested the Yankees might try Bird out at third base in the offseason.
  
• Jorge Mateo—Prospect Jorge Mateo will definitely be getting playing time elsewhere, he at second base. This is among the strongest indications yet the Yankees are beginning to view Didi Gregorius as a long-term solution at shortstop.
  

The music track is Night Moves by Cosmic Analog Ensemble and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.