Yankees Trade Rumors and Gossip 8/19/15: Sabathia's shoes, the Macarena, and a rat

• Following up on one of the waiver wire trade rumors we investigated on Monday – it now seems more or less certain Chase Utley won’t be coming to New York. We previously noted that either the Giants, the Angels, or the Cubs were favorites to land him, and now the word from Ken Rosenthal is that Utley, who has a full no trade clause, might not fancy coming to New York anyway – he being a West Coast native who wants to move closer to home.
• As you’ll have heard by now, CC Sabathia was involved in a yelling spat outside a club in Toronto on Sunday night. To hear TMZ report it, you might think he was actually taking swings as some part of "street brawl" (their words), but not so – Sabathia was yelling at some Blue Jays fans as friends tried to cram him into the back of a cab. Still, Sabathia appears embarrassed about the incident, terming it "a bad decision," and saying he "should have just kept quiet and got in the cab." According to TMZ the hecklers made off with one of his shoes, which is unfortunate, because walking around with just one shoe is never pleasant. It’s unclear precisely what the drunken revelers were shouting at CC, but given they were Canadian, one assumes it was polite heckling. I imagine them deploying sabermetric-laden insults: "What do you make of your 18.1% home run to flyball ratio, Sir?" or "7.43 K-per-nine, on your pitches Josh Donaldson will dine," or "you’ve got a 3.73 xFIP, by the way who cares about xFIP?" (The hecklers were not big xFIP fans evidently.)
• Meanwhile, commenting on the incident, manager Joe Girardi complained that there is no privacy in this world anymore, saying (quote) "There is no privacy in this world anymore."
• Said a happy Derek Jeter, speaking at the Harold and Carole Pump Foundation Gala, "Retirement is good ... I highly suggest it to everyone." One imagines that, yes, retirement is good when your career earnings exceed an estimated $265 million. Jeter continues to make it clear that he is content with life away from baseball; meanwhile, as we’ve previously reported, senior officials within the Yankees front office maintain he will find his way back into the Yankees organization – or into baseball at the very least – in some way, shape, or form.
• Less good is being fleeced by Avon, which is what Mary Kate O’Neill claims happened to Jeter in 2006. Evidently Avon used Jeter’s likeness to market their products without clearing this with Jeter or his representatives. Avon then reportedly made a deal with Jeter so he wouldn’t file suit at this illegal use of visage. You might recall Jeter developed a cologne – it was called Driven – with the company. No word on whether he included samples in his gift baskets.
• The Yankees have begun flipping former players into professional scouts. Matt Daley, who made thirteen appearances for the team last year and who retired thanks to a shoulder injury, is one of the front office’s latest recruits – according to the Wall Street Journal he’s now responsible for "scouting the full systems" of the Blue Jays and the Mets. Other former player scouts working for the team include Eric Chavez.
• The Wall Street Journal ran an incredible story on the goofball that is Brendan Ryan. Apparently he’s quite the humor-man. Said his friend Brian McCann: "He makes you laugh, that’s for sure. He’s . . . definitely a unique personality." One of my favorite moments in the article involves a funk emanating from Ryan’s clothing. From the piece:

While Ryan was at the Yankees’ complex in Tampa rehabbing a back injury earlier this year, he noticed that his clothes began to smell funny. "I was like, ‘I don’t get it,’" he said. "I don’t usually smell that bad." The stench got worse by the day. . . . Three weeks later, Ryan realized that the odor was actually emanating from his equipment bag. . . . "I went through, and that’s when I found the rat," he said. "A dead rat. It had crawled in there and died."