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Yankees close to signing CC Sabathia, at 7 years and $160 million

Dec 10th, 2008
by RDM.
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sabathia_wife_kidsYankee’s GM Brian Cashman has been meeting with Sabathia this entire week. Cashman flew to San Francisco to see CC at his home late last night.

As of this morning, according to Buster Olney on ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning, Sabathia’s deal from the Yankees is now worth $160 million over seven years.

This is up from the $140 over 6 years that was the originally reported offer. However, still no official word from CC or the Yankees.

What is certain is that nearly overnight Sabathia will go from a beloved player to one of the leagues most hated. All I can say is that pitching in the National League will do wonders for your career. Welcome to the AL East where the big boys are separated from the rest of the pack.

The NL is no AL. With the Brewers, CC could have seen the bottom feeders like the Pirates or Reds 40 times a year but now things are going to get a little tougher. In 2008 CC was 4-1 against these two bottom of the pack NL Central teams on his way to going 11-2 for the Brew-crew. On the other hand in his first two  games against the Cubs, CC gave up an unimpressive 4 runs each time out.

Previously the MO on this guy was that he couldn’t win in big games. He is 2-3 in the playoffs with a 7.92 ERA.

CC has never been as dominate as he was the second half of 2008. He was playing in the much weaker NL. He was playing for a contract and that is just what he got. I hope he is ready to back it up; he has the skeleton of Barry Zito hanging over his locker in New York.

Joe Maddon is a witch; can tell future

Sep 10th, 2008
by RDM.
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The Rays held on to get the win in an entertaining game at Fenway Park last night. This gives the Rays a 1.5 game lead in the AL East.

I was in attendance last night. It was the typical Dice-K start, the only 16-2 starter that will consistently give you a heart attack every time out. Through 5 innings, Dice-K gave up 3 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks. The walks are what seem to get him. The happen in bunches. His WHIP is not far off the league average but it must be the timing of the walks that makes them stick out. He throws a ton of pitches every outing; which has some correlation to those walks as well.

The Red Sox looked decent most of the night aside from Dice-K’s usual shaking inning. That was until Papelbon came in.

Joe Maddon can do no wrong this year. The guy is scary good with the moves he makes. The Red Sox sent Javier Lopez to the mound in the ninth and the Rays countered by sending Justin Ruggiano, a right-handed batter to the plate for the lefty Cliff Floyd. After throwing some warm-ups Lopez was pulled without throwing a pitch in favor of Jonathon Papelbon. It was intense, especially for those of us who truly grasped the game within the game that was taking place. (Oh, and because of Papelbons ‘Wild Thing’ walkout music.)

Now, of course, Maddon had a answer and pitch hit for Ruggiano with Dan Johnson. I’m not going to lie here, I wasn’t aware at the time but this was Johnson’s first at bat as a Devil Ray and his second at bat of the entire 2008 season. Needless to say, you know the rest. Johnson hit a game-tieing solo shot off a Papelbon fastball (which is the issue here, it is all Papelbon throws now because they want his pitch count down and do not want wasted balls being thrown… that went well).

Regardless, another great showing for Joe Maddon. Is there a question of Manager of the Year in the AL?

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