I don’t know what to make of this Rangers team, and unfortunately, neither does the front office or coaching staff. The Rangers’ roster is being managed and their games are being coached with no real plan.
I really thought the Rangers were going to turn it around after Thursday’s impressive win over the Sabres. I really did. It’s not that I thought there wouldn’t be other losing streaks this season or that the Rangers would go on the kind of run they want on in early 2015. But I did think we would see consistent, full-game efforts from the team moving forward. That optimism lasted a little more than one period.
I didn’t expect the Rangers to necessarily beat the Bruins, even without Tuukka Rask playing. I did, however, expect them to play a competitive game, considering the Bruins had played at home the night before. The Rangers were barely competitive on Sunday night and barely looked like they were from the same league as the Bruins playing their second game in as many cities in as many nights. The Rangers might have led 1-0 after a period on a Micheal Haley goal of all goals, but the score was no way indicative of how the first period went. It was a game straight of the Henrik Lundqvist era as Number 30 played like it was 2011-12 and the defense gave up high-percentage and quality scoring chances like it was as well. To think Rangers fans would long for the overhyped defense of Lundqvist’s prime whose bad contracts led to this rebuild in the first place.
The Bruins dominated the first period and their domination paid off 11 seconds into the second when they tied it up on a call which I will never understand how it wasn’t goalie interference. Fifty-seven seconds later they had the lead and by the end of the period they were up 4-1 and Lundqvist’s night was done after essentially playing a game of Rebound for two periods. Fourty-three seconds into the third, Zdeno Chara welcomed Alexander Georgiev to the game with the Bruins’ fifth unanswered goal and the rout was on. The Rangers lost for the sixth time in seven games and lost by three goals for the fourth time this season. It was the type of game you could expect from a young, inexperienced team against a team that came within one win of winning the Stanley Cup, but not when you remember how the Rangers played and looked on Thursday against Buffalo.
I don’t know what to make of this Rangers team, and unfortunately, neither does the front office or coaching staff. I didn’t expect them to contend for a championship or necessarily even compete for a postseason spot a year and a half after they said they were going to move any tradeable asset and start over. But after opening the season with back-to-back wins and after seeing the type of game they are capable of playing against Buffalo, I thought we would see more of that. I thought we would see a young team grow and gain experience, while being fun to watch. I didn’t think 2019-20 would be a continuation of 2018-19 with no progress.
The Rangers’ roster is being managed and their games are being coached with no real plan. Players who are the foundation of the rebuild are having their minutes given to less deserving players and players who need and deserve NHL experience are having their roster spots given to less talented players for unknown reasons. Rather than go full rebuild and put the most talented team on the ice, no matter how young or inexperienced the team might then be, the Rangers are more worried with playing veterans even if those veterans aren’t part of the future and even if those veterans are playing out of position.
It would be one thing if this strategy were working, if the Rangers were winning with a head-scratching bottom six, while letting first-round picks with nothing left to prove in the AHL continue to need to prove they have earned their shot, but they’re not. The Rangers aren’t winning with their current roster and lineup construction, and their choices are coming at a cost of stunting the growth of their high-end prospects. With each game that comes off the 2019-20 schedule in which the team isn’t giving roster spots and ice time to the players they expect to be the architects of this rebuild, they’re hurting themselves for 2020-21 and beyond.
Maybe so much shouldn’t be made of the Rangers’ impressive four-goal win over the Sabres and that game should be viewed as the type of anomaly that can happen in a salary-cap league over 82 games, especially since it was sandwiched between a five-game losing streak and the worst effort of the season. But it’s hard to act like that game didn’t happen and now wonder how the Rangers can duplicate that effort moving forward.
This rebuild was always going to be a true rebuild and wasn’t going to happen on the fly. The Rangers miraculously acquiring the second overall pick and landing the offseason’s top free agent wrongfully sped up the timeline in the eyes of fans and altered the expectations of many. After nearly a month of play, the expectation for success for the Rangers this season is returning to where it should have been all along: none.
Another game and another loss for the Giants. Losses have become expected for this team and expectations are being met every week.
I expected the Giants to lose on Sunday because that’s what the Giants have done for the last seven seasons: lose. Because I no longer expect the Giants to win from week to week and because I expect them to either get embarrassed, blown out or collapse, it’s made watching them easier. It hasn’t been enjoyable, it’s just been stress-free and care-free not expecting them to win the way they used to eight-plus years ago. It’s relaxing to watch the Giants play and not care about the outcome of their games since the outcomes for their games for the rest of the season don’t matter and because the outcomes of their game are mostly losses.
When Daniel Jones thew a backwards pass to no one that the Lions were able to pick up and run in for a touchdown, I laughed. When the Giants subsequently went three-and-out and the Lions converted a third-and-15 for a 49-yard pass, I laughed. When Aldrick Rosas missed an extra point for a chance to tie the game at 14, I laughed. When the Giants turned it over on downs twice later in the game and did just enough to nearly complete the two-score comeback, but still lost, I laughed. I did a lot of laughing watching the Giants because that’s all there is to do at this point. Laugh at an organization that’s become a joke.
A week after not being prepared for the Cardinals despite a 10-day layoff, the Giants dug themselves a 14-point deficit in the first quarter. The offense put up 19 points (and it would have been 20 if not for Rosas’ miss), which was the second-most they have scored this season, only having scored more in their Week 3 win over the Buccaneers when they put up 32. The defense allowed another quarterback to throw for over 300 yards against them (342).
It was another winnable game for the Giants that they lost. It’s a theme that become all too familiar over the last few years for a team that simply doesn’t know how to win. The Giants are now 2-6 this season and 7-17 under Pat Shurmur, the biggest loser of them all. And even though their second-half schedule is much easier than their first, I don’t expect the team to suddenly change its culture or identity and start winning. Not with this head coach.
The loss to the Lions was another game off the schedule. Another game gone in this miserable season and another game closer to next season when maybe the Giants will have a new head coach. For the rest of this season though, expect more games like Sunday: winnable games that slip away.
Unfortunately, it’s going to be a long, uneventful, meaningless final two-plus months of the season once again.
The Yankees’ season is over and the Giants certainly aren’t going to carry me through the holidays. That means the Rangers, who have lost five straight since back-to-back wins to open the season, are going to have to pick up the slack of the Giants yet again to make the winter less miserable. It’s not exactly a great position to be in as a sports fan.
Things could be worse. There are plenty of fans who don’t have the luxury of being a fan of the most successful franchise in the history of professional sports, and who have losers across the board in all of the major sports. Thankfully, I have the Yankees because with the Rangers in the middle of a rebuild, though one with a lot of promise, it’s still a rebuild, and with the Giants looking like they are several years away from competing, let alone contending, the Yankees at least provide winning regular seasons and lengthy postseasons even when they fall short of a championship.
The Giants are headed for another losing season and what will be their sixth in the last seven years. They’re most likely a five-win team for the second straight year and headed for a Top 6 pick in the draft for a third straight year. Forget trying to reach the postseason this year, changing the losing culture that has grown on this franchise over the last seven years should be the goal. And the only way that goal can be achieved is by Daniel Jones getting game experience, the young defense showing progress and Pat Shurmur not being the head coach after this season. That’s all that’s left in this Giants season. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a long, uneventful, meaningless final two-plus months of the season once again.
***
(Home team in caps)
MINNESOTA -16.5 over Washington You’re never supposed to take the side of needing to cover a three-score game in the NFL. But I think that old rule goes out the window when you’re dealing with some of the teams we’re dealing with in 2019 like these Redskins and the Dolphins. Maybe the Vikings don’t go cover and I start the week with a loss. I’d rather accept that than taking the Redskins only to see them have trouble moving the ball over the 50 once again.
LOS ANGELES RAMS -13 over Cincinnati Last week I wrote: What’s the best cure for a three-game losing streak? A game against the Falcons. It was indeed the best cure for the Rams’ rough patch. The Rams won by 27 points on the road to get back in the win column for the first time since Week 3 and now they welcome a winless Bengals team before their bye week. This one is going to get out of hand.
ATLANTA +6.5 over Seattle I don’t believe in these Seahawks and I certainly don’t trust them. Sure, I trust the Falcons even less than the Seahawks and less than any team not from Miami, Washington D.C. or Cincinnati, but with the Falcons on the brink of tearing their entire franchise apart and starting over, I feel like they will finally deliver an adequate performance. If they can’t … start the demolition, and start it with Dan Quinn, even if it’s nearly three years late.
BUFFALO -1.5 over Philadelphia The Eagles suck. Congratulations, they overcame an early 17-point deficit to beat the Redskins in Week 1, beat the Jets with their third-string quarterback and somehow pulled off a win on the road against the Packers. Their losses, a loss in Atlanta, which is the Falcons’ only win, a loss at home to the Lions, an 18-point rout at the hands of the Vikings and an embarrassing 37-10 blowout in Dallas far outweigh their one good win, and while they might make the playoffs because they play in the worst division in the league, it doesn’t change the fact that they suck, and teams that suck generally lose to good teams.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS -3.5 over Chicago Like the Eagles, the Bears suck. Two franchises who went into the season with Super Bowl aspirations couldn’t be farther from looking like contenders as we near the halfway point. I don’t know what it will take for the Bears to realize Mitch Trubisky isn’t a starting quarterback, but unfortunately, it’s most likely going to take a mediocre season and a free-agent signing or trade. The Bears’ defense might be the best in football, but when it’s on the field for the majority of games, only getting a break on the Bears’ three-and-outs, it won’t be able to sustain its performance all season.
DETROIT -6.5 over New York Giants I’m done picking the Giants to cover for the rest of the season aside from their games against the Dolphins and Redskins. What I watched last week was the worst Giants performance of the Pat Shurmur era and one of the worst I have seen in my life, and when you lose as much as the Giants have in recent years, that’s saying something. This team will continue to lose as long as Shurmur is head coach and against the league’s better teams, like the Lions, they will lose big.
New York Jets +6.5 over JACKSONVILLE The Jets are a joke. J-O-K-E, JOKE, JOKE, JOKE! I thought they could cover against the Patriots last week, keep the score close and possibly even pull off an upset win. What a fool I was. Sam Darnold played what better be the worst game of his career as he completed just 11 of 32 passes for 86 yards with four interceptions and one lost fumble in the 33-0 loss and the Jets never had a chance. For as bad as the Jets were last week, I still think they will rebound, go on a run and reel their fans back in. If they can upset the Jaguars, they have the Dolphins, Giants, Redskins, Raiders, Bengals and Dolphins again to follow. The Jets will be part of the postseason picture at the beginning of December. Then they will inevitably let their fans down again.
NEW ORLEANS -10.5 over Arizona The Saints are 5-0 with Teddy Bridgewater as their starting quarterback. 5-0! And that’s not an empty 5-0, that’s five wins against the Seahawks, Cowboys, Buccaneers, Jaguars and Bears. There’s been no cupcake games against the Giants, Redskins, Bengals or Dolphins. Bridgewater continues to add to his future earnings when he gets a chance to be full-time starter in the league and the Saints continue to let Drew Brees sit out and get completely healthy for the second half of the season. A Saints-Patriots Super Bowl is going to happen.
Tampa Bay +2.5 over TENNESSEE A Ryan Tannehill-led Titans team pulled off a nice home win against the Chargers last week after the Chargers couldn’t get into the end zone in the final minute from the 1. Even with the Titans’ defense being as good as it is, the Titans are still starting Tannehill. One miracle win isn’t going to rewrite his career.
INDIANAPOLIS -5.5 over Denver I have been a Colts believer all season. I still have no idea what happened at home against the Raiders in Week 4, but I’m going to count that as an anomaly and just a weird game in a league built on weird games. Since that unacceptable loss, the Colts have gone on to win at Arrowhead, where no team wins, and beat the Texans at home by a touchdown. The Colts are for real. Not “for real” as in they can win the AFC since the Patriots are going to win the AFC, but “for real” as in they can reach the playoffs for a second straight year even though their franchise quarterback retired and then lose in the first or second round.
Carolina +5.5 over SAN FRANCISCO I’m a Kyle Allen fan because I love quarterback controversies and I especially love a quarterback controversy that leads to Cam Newton not being a starting quarterback. Newton can sit out as long as he wants and the Panthers can keep his injury status unclear for as long as they want, but everyone knows it’s only a stalling tactic, so that their once-franchise quarterback isn’t benched even though he deserves to be.
NEW ENGLAND -12.5 over Cleveland I’m sure the Browns think they were able to tread water at 2-4 prior to their bye week and now that they’re well rested they can go on a run and live up to the hype that was wrongfully created for them prior to the season. The only problem with that is you never want to come out of your bye needing to desperately win a game and have to go to New England to do so. The Browns will be 2-5 after Sunday and then have to go to Denver and then play the Bills. Their season is over.
Oakland +7 over HOUSTON I can’t believe I’m picking the Raiders to cover. But in a battle of teams, and mostly coaches, who can’t be trusted, taking a touchdown with a team coming out of their bye is the smart thing to do.
Green Bay -3.5 over KANSAS CITY If Patrick Mahomes were playing, this game would be a lot more interesting and give people a reason to stay up for Sunday Night Football and be tired for work on Monday morning. Unfortunately, he’s not.
PITTSBURGH -13.5 over Miami I won’t be picking the Dolphins to cover for the rest of this season. Well, maybe against the Giants in Week 15, but that’s it.
The Giants aren’t ready to contend yet, but with Pat Shurmur as head coach, they never will be. If ownership doesn’t remove him, he will ruin the team’s young core.
The Giants think they have found their franchise quarterback. They already have a superstar running back, signed their No. 1 receiver to a four-year extension and have a game-changing tight end. Their offensive line has been rebuilt to respectability and they have a defense full of young, raw-talent players who are expected to get better with experience. The Giants have the pieces in place to contend in the near future, they just don’t have the head coach to get them there.
Pat Shurmur can’t survive this Giants season. He just can’t. It doesn’t matter if the Giants somehow miraculously win four of their remaining nine games and finish with one more win than last season by showing signs of “progress” though going from 5-11 to 6-10 shouldn’t be considered progress. Shurmur has done nothing, absolutely zero, in his 23 games with the Giants to prove he’s anything more than a stopgap for the next coach to take over the team when they’re actually ready to compete. Shurmur has done nothing in his time as an NFL head coach other than lose. He’s a loser and his 17-39 career record says as much.
Sunday’s loss was hard to take as a Giants fan, even one who came into the season with no expectations and realizes the only goal of this season is to get Daniel Jones game experience. It was as frustrating a loss as any the Giants have had in recent years, and they have had a lot, with 29 losses in their last 36 games. Playing for the first time in 10 days after their Week 6 Thursday Night Football loss, the Giants looked as though they had played the day before. They were sloppy, undisciplined and sluggish as they let the Cardinals — a team historically bad in the Eastern Time Zone and outside — put together an early 17-0 lead. The defense allowed two rushing touchdowns of 20-plus yards in the first quarter and would allow a third in the third quarter.
Shurmur’s team was flat-out embarrassed in the eventual 27-21 loss, as his rookie quarterback turned the ball over three times, his offensive line allowed eight sacks, his defense allowed the three aforementioned rushing touchdowns and his kicker missed a 37-yard field goal. Shurmur chipped in with his weekly unwinnable challenge, and also made the most egregious mistake of his forgettable coaching career. Actually, it wasn’t a mistake since Shurmur claimed after the gamewhat transpired on the field “played out exactly like he wanted it to,” which is more puzzling than the Giants’ decision to hire him in the first place.
Trailing 24-21 with 3:11 left in the fourth quarter, the Giants faced a third-and-18 from their own 30. Rather than try to convert the third-down play into a first down by throwing the ball past the sticks, Shurmur called for a draw: a running play on third-and-18. Jones handed the ball off to Saquon Barkley and the running back picked up three yards. Needing a first down, Shurmed elected to try to pick up the necessary 15 yards on the ground. His reasoning after the game was that the Cardinals had faced a third-and-11 earlier in the game and ran the ball and picked up the first down, so he thought it would work for his Giants as well. Forget that the Giants’ defense is much worse than the Cardinals’ and that the score, time of game and field position were much different when the Cardinals ran a similar play, Shurmur ran the play solely because it worked against his team, as if that had any impact on if it would work for his team.
Now faced with a fourth-and-15 at their own 33 and 2:35 remaining, the Giants could punt the ball away, and with two timeouts and the two-minute warning to work with, if the defense could get a three-and-out, the Giants would have a chance to win the game. Shurmur decided to go for it on fourth-and-15 from his own 33, knowing that if his offense didn’t pick up the first down, the Cardinals would already be in field-goal range to make it a six-point game. Out of the shotgun, Jones was sacked and fumbled the ball in the process, giving the Cardinals the ball at the Giants’ 17 with 2:28 to play.
The Giants’ defense held the Cardinals to a field goal and thanks to a brain fart by Kyler Murray, the Giants still had the two-minute warning to stop the clock on offense. Darius Slayton idiotically took the kickoff out of the end zone, only reaching the Giants’ 12 and using up seven seconds, as he wasn’t advised prior to the kickoff by his head coach to stay in the end zone. The Giants ran six plays, Jones was sacked on two of them and Giants’ chances at a comeback win ended on a fourth-and-29 play from their own 4.
After the game, Shurmur took the podium for his postgame press conference the same way he has in nearly every game he has ever coached: following a loss. He opened it by deflecting the blame for another blemish on his career to the rest of the team:
“Turnovers, penalties, and then we had opportunities at the end and we didn’t make the most of them. so that’s what comes of it … I feel like we settled down on defense in the second half, but when you have dropped balls, you have penalties … we do the things we do on offense along the way there, it keeps points off the board.”
It was the 16th time the Giants have lost in 23 games under Shurmur, and it was the 16th time he blamed every part of the team for the loss except himself. Clearly delusional and now 22 games under .500 in his coaching career, his team’s latest loss was once again not his fault.
When asked, “You didn’t think to maybe punt there?” in regards to the fourth-and-15 decision, Shurmur looked shocked to be asked the question. How could a team beat writer possibly think he’s worthy enough to ask the legendary head coach such an outlandish thing and question his shear genius?
Shurmur responed, “No, no,” thinking that was a satisfactory answer. To his dismay, he was followed up with, “Why not?”
“Because it was going to play out the way that I thought, all right?” Shurmur shot back, clearly annoyed. “Stop, stop ’em, all right?” he stammered. “Stop, stop ’em, make them kick a field goal at the very least and we go down and score a touchdown. Plus, I wanted to get a chance to make it on fourth-and-15. That’s why.”
Shurmur’s explanation made it sound as though he knew his defense would get a stop when it needed one for the first time all season to present the situation that played out. He also made it sound as if his offense is so dominant and so powerful that it would inevitably take the ball and go down the field for the game-winning touchdown when it had scored four touchdowns in the last three games combined.
Shurmur’s answer was given in the most cocky, know-it-all tone of all time, and he finished with the most smug and arrogant of looks as if he were smarter than everyone in the room when it couldn’t be more opposite.
(The image above is the look he gave the media after thinking he had somehow won the debate about his fourth-and-15 decision.)
Just as the next question was about to be asked, Shurmur circled back, clearly still rattled that his decision-making on fourth-and-15 was being dissected.
“And that’s the way it played out, right?” Shurmur continued. “We had the ball with a chance to go down and score a touchdown to win the game and that’s how it played out and we didn’t do it.”
Shurmur truly believes his decisions were justified, the way he believes all his in-game decisions are. He believes his postgame answers illustrated why his decisions were the right ones and he believes he persuaded every member in the media to see things how he sees them. He believes every player let him down and failed him on Sunday and that he put his team in the best position to succeed. He believes these things because all he’s done with the Giants and in the NFL is lose. Lose, lose and lose some more. He’s so comfortable with losing that he expects to lose and have to answer for his losing every Sunday (and when he loses on Mondays and Thursdays too). He’s a loser with a loser mentality and loser beliefs. Losing is contagious, and if ownership doesn’t remove him, his losing ways will ruin the young core of this team.
If the Giants want to let Shurmur finish out the season, fine. In a lost season with nothing to play for he provides comic relief during each game with his moronic play calls and ill-advised in-game strategies, and his encore act immediately following each game is must-see TV with his irrational answers and nonsensical logic.
The Giants screwed up their 2019 season before it began with their roster and draft choices, and now that the 2019 season is long gone, it’s imperative the Giants don’t screw up 2020 too. The Giants aren’t ready to contend yet, but with Shurmur as head coach, they never will be. In order to stop the losing for 2020, the Giants need to rid themselves of the biggest loser on their team: the head coach.
I will remember the good times from CC Sabathia’s Yankees career and him representing a time when ownership would do whatever to build the best possible roster, when only winning the World Series mattered.
CC Sabathia didn’t want to be a Yankee. As a 28-year-old free agent, he wanted to move home to California to pitch. He initially turned down Brian Cashman’s lucrative six-year, $140 million offer, and after Cashman told Sabathia’s agents he would be willing to travel to California to meet with the left-hander and negotiate, he was on his way to Vallejo. They landed on seven years and $161 million. At the time, it was the biggest contract for a pitcher in history. The deal also included an all-important opt-out clause after three years.
Sabathia was a Yankee because the organization’s offer far exceeded any other teams, not because it was necessarily where he wanted to live or pitch. But that no longer mattered to the left-hander or Yankees fans when he went 19-8 with a 3.37 ERA in the regular season, and then 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA in the postseason, earning himself ALCS MVP honors and helping the Yankees win the World Series for the first time since 2000.
Fearful of that opt-out clause after his third season, the Yankees extended him, adding two years and $50 million to his contract. He continued to pitch like an ace for the first season after the extension, going 15-6 with a 3.38 ERA, and winning Games 1 and 5 in the ALDS over the Orioles. In his first four seasons as a Yankee, Sabathia had gone 74-29 with a 3.22 ERA, being as close to a sure-thing for a win every five days as anyone in baseball, and living up to his $23 million annual salary more than any free-agent pitcher ever had.
In 2013, things took a turn for the worst. Sabathia went 14-13 with a 4.78 ERA and led the league in earned runs allowed as the Yankees missed the playoffs for just the second time since 1993. In 2014, Sabathia made only starts, and pitched to a 5.28 ERA over 46 innings. In 2015, it was much of the same, as he went 6-10 with a 4.73 ERA. Sabathia was no longer the hard-throwing ace of the Yankees, but rather a wasted roster spot making roughly $700,000 per start.
Sabathia had supposedly been best friends with Cliff Lee during their time in Cleveland and it was reported that Sabathia and Andy Pettitte had talked frequently as Sabathia’s velocity diminished. I wondered then if those two stories were true, how could Sabathia not seek out the advice of his two left-handed friends on how to succeed in the league without overpowering hitters? Were Sabathia and Lee no longer friends? Were he and Pettitte just “talking” and not talking about pitching? Was Sabathia too stubborn to reinvent himself, or could he just not do it?
Sabathia was going to make $25 million in 2016, the highest single-season salary of his career, after having gone 23-27 with a 4.81 ERA in the previous three seasons. And he was going to make another $25 million in 2017 unless he ended the 2016 season on the disabled list with a left shoulder injury or spent more than 45 days on the disabled list in 2016 with a left shoulder injury or didn’t make more than six relief appearances in 2016 because of a left shoulder injury. No Yankees fan wanted Sabathia to get hurt, they just wanted him to pitch better. Any Yankees fan would have signed up for a season of a 4.50 ERA from the once-dominant lefty.
Sabathia turned his career around in 2016. He no longer reared back for a mid-to-high-90s fastball which no longer existed. He scrapped the fastballs right by you for the cutters in on your hands and the offspeed pitches and breaking balls away. The reinvention I had yearned for had occurred and Sabathia made 30 starts and pitched to a 3.91 ERA. It wasn’t worthy of $25 million per year, but it was worthy of a spot in the rotation for 2017.
He got even better as a finesse pitcher in 2017, going 14-5 with a 3.69 ERA. It was his first double-digit win season and his first season over .500 in four years. He was no longer the ace of the staff, but he was no longer an over-the-hill pitcher representing an albatross contract either. In 2018, he pitched to a 3.65 ERA, proving his new-found success was sustainable after three straight years of it.
Back on June 26, 2015, I wrote “CC Sabathia Is Done”. At the time he was done. He could no longer throw hard and was seemingly too stubborn to turn into a finesse pitcher for what looked to be the final seasons of his career. Let’s look back at what I wrote and see how it changed over his final four seasons.
Next season, Sabathia’s salary increase to $25 million for the season, and when you consider his 2011 ERA (33 starts) was 3.00, his 2012 ERA (28 starts) was 3.38, his 2013 ERA (32 starts) was 4.78, his 2014 ERA (eight starts) was 5.28 and his 2015 ERA (15 starts) is 5.65, well, where is this going to go? It could go through the 2017 season, as Sabathia has a $25 million vesting option, which will vest if he doesn’t finish the 2016 season on the disabled list with a left shoulder injury or if he doesn’t spend more than 45 days in 2016 on the disabled list with a left shoulder injury or if he doesn’t make more than six relief appearances in 2016 because of a left shoulder injury. (There is a $5 million buyout if any of these things happen, so the Yankees will have to pay him $5 million to not pitch, which is better than $25 million to pitch and not be good). So the only way the Yankees are getting out of paying Sabathia $50 million in 2016 and 2017 is if he injures his left shoulder, and when he’s not even going five innings in starts, that’s not going to happen. The only way to not throw away $25 million in 2017 is for Girardi to start leaving Sabathia on the mound to throw 150-pitch complete games, or hope that he retires and walks away from the money, and that’s not happening. So if you think this season has been bad or 2014 and 2013 were bad, it’s not going to get better.
The biggest problem for Sabathia at the time (aside from not giving the Yankees a chance to win in most of his starts) was the money he was owed. No Yankees fan wanted Sabathia to get hurt, but everyone was hoping the Yankees would instead use the $5 million buyout on him for 2017 to pay him to go away.
Sabathia turned it around in 2016, just in time for the Yankees to decide to not buy him out. And in the span of two years, he went from looking at being bought out and retiring to starting Games 2 and 5 of the ALDS against the Indians and Games 3 and 7 of the ALCS against the Astros. Sabathia’s line in those four postseason starts: 19 IP, 16 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 10 BB, 19 K, 1 HR, 2.37 ERA, 1.368 WHIP. I still can’t believe the same person whose career seemed over when he made only eight starts in 2014 and pitched like his career was over when he did pitch was given the ball to start a game in 2017 with a trip to the World Series on the line.
I have written several times that Sabathia needs to find a way to get outs without overpowering hitters the way his former teammate Andy Pettitte and supposed best friend Cliff Lee were able to do. With the Yankees in Houston, it was made known that Pettitte and Sabathia have talked frequently as Sabathia’s velocity and repertoire has changed, and if this is true, when are the changes going to take place, or are they ever? And do we know Sabathia and Pettitte are even talking about pitching when they talk? They could be talking about anything.
It took three seasons of a 4.81 ERA and leading the league in earned runs allowed in one of those seasons for Sabathia to finally give up on trying to be the pitcher he had been since 2001. He finally went through with the advice of Pettitte, who he grew to mirror in his starts, both with his stuff and his performances, and it revitalized his career. Sabathia became among the league leaders in soft contact, and while he might not no longer have been the hard-throwing, seven-plus inning ace, he didn’t need to be to get productive results.
At this point, I treat every Sabathia start like a trip to the casino. If you plan on spending $500 at the casino then you’re going into it assuming you’re going to lose that $500 and anything you don’t lose or if you happen to end up winning, it’s an unexpected bonus. When Sabathia takes the mound, I assume the Yankees are going to lose, and if they aren’t blown out, he will certainly blow a lead they have given him at some point in the game. If he comes out in a tie game, with the Yankees winning, it’s the unexpected bonus. That’s not how it should work for starting pitcher making $23 million this season, $25 million next season and possibly another $25 million in 2017.
Over his last four seasons, the Yankees went RECORD in games started by Sabathia, so he was longer an expected losing trip to the casino. In today’s market, as a No. 5 starter making $8 million, he more than lived up to his contract before his knee forced him to the injured list several times and his shoulder finally gave up. He more than made up for the money he “earned” from 2013 to 2015.
During the 2011 season, I said “Jorge Posada is like the aging family dog that just wanders around aimlessly and goes to the bathroom all over the place and just lies around and sleeps all day. You try to pretend like the end isn’t near and you try to remember the good times to get through the bad times, and once in a while the dog will do something to remind you of what it used to be, but it’s just momentary tease.” Well, that aging family dog has become Sabathia.
The aging family dog might have been north of 20 years old from 2013-15, but he kept on chugging along.
The next time Sabathia puts the Yankees in a hole before they even come up to bat for the first time, I will try to remember his first four seasons with the Yankees when he went 74-29 with a 3.22 ERA. The next time, he lets the 7-8-9 hitters get on base to start a rally, I will try to remember his win in Game 1 of the 2009 ALDS, his dominance over the Angels and winning the ALCS MVP in 2009 and his role in beating the Phillies in the 2009 World Series. The next time he can’t get through five innings, forcing the bullpen to be overused, I will try to remember his Game 5 win in the 2010 ALCS against the Rangers to save the season. And the next time he blows a three-run lead the inning following the Yankees taking that lead, I will try to remember his wins in Games 1 and 5 against the Orioles in the 2012 ALDS to get the Yankees out of the first round.
I will remember Sabathia’s Yankees career in three parts. Part I being 2009-2012 when he went 74-29 with a 3.22 ERA, made 13 postseason starts and one postseason relief appearance and helped the Yankees win the 2009 World Series. Part II being 2013-2015 when he went 23-27 with a 4.81 ERA and made $69 million for 69 starts. Part III being 2016 until he threw his last pitch in Game 4 of the ALCS when his body finally said enough and he walked off a major league mound for the last time.
I will try to remember the good times CC Sabathia once gave us nearly every time he took the ball because they hardly happen anymore and they are only to going to become more rare. I wish there were more good times to come, but there aren’t.
After his July 16 start against the Rays, Sabathia wasn’t himself for the rest of this season. That was the last time Sabathia gave the Yankees length (six innings) after a career built on giving his team length. He ended up on the injured list again in August and then missed half of September, forced to be left off the ALDS roster because of his injuries.
When Sabathia entered Game 4 of the ALCS in the eighth inning, the Yankees were headed for a loss to put their season on the brink of elimination. Sabathia took the mound with no one warming up in the bullpen, as it was his game to finish, and the Stadium’s chance to most likely say goodbye to the best free-agent pitcher the organization had ever signed.
I will remember the good times from Sabathia’s Yankees career, and I will remember him representing a time when ownership would do whatever it could to build the best possible roster, a time when luxury taxes, long-term contracts, overpaying for talent and worrying about five and six seasons from the present didn’t matter, only winning the World Series did. Without Sabathia, the Yankees would be looking at a two-decade championship drought instead of just one.
Sabathia saved the Yankees at a time when they had no starting pitching, couldn’t get out of the first round of the postseason and a divided clubhouse was more newsworthy than their on-field results. Sabathia gave the Yankees an ace and he gave everyone on the roster a teammate by rebuilding the Yankees’ internal culture with his infectious personality, which was shown in the emotional on-air breakdowns of Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez after Game 4.
Sabathia’s 17th pitch in 23 days led to a mound visit from Aaron Boone and Steve Donahue to evaluate the lefty after a look of pain and disgust. After one warm-up pitch to see if he could continue, he couldn’t. His career came to an end in a way that best described him: he pitched until he physically couldn’t pitch anymore.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
