Sabathia’s Transformation
Need an example of how quickly someone’s post-season reputation can change? Look no further than a certain player on the New York Yankees. No, not Alex Rodriguez; at least he enjoyed some success in the post-season since 2002. Instead, the player is CC Sabathia.
In 2007, Sabathia had seen elimination and failure come in very personal manner as he allowed 15 runs in 15 innings. A year ago Sabathia’ Milwaukee Brewers were eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies in the Divisional Series. The tall lefty with an appetite for outs would make a single start in the series, pitching three and two-thirds innings of un-Sabathian ball: four walks, five strikeouts, and five earned runs. The last time Sabathia pitched well in the post-season was 2001 against the historic Seattle Mariners. The (then) 20-year-old appeared in one game, going six while walking as many as he struck out against a team that won 116 regular season games.
Sabathia has started three games for the Yankees this October, winning each start and allowing a total of three earned runs. In the matter of a month he’s won more post-season games than he had in his entire career. Nifty, right? Here are his post-season stat lines for easier comparison:
Era GS IP SO% uBB% ERA Pre 5 25 9.8 14.3 7.92 NYY 3 22.7 23 3.4 1.19
For further perspective, Sabathia’s post-season FIP are as follows: 3.88, 7.09, 7.22, and 2.44. That’s a drastic change and one that has wiped away any grumblings of Sabathia not being a big-game pitcher or one afraid of the bright lights of the post-season. Not that anyone – minus Twins or Angels fans – should be complaining about this development. If nothing else, it saves the rest of us time from defending Sabathia much like we have that previously mentioned Rodriguez fella over the past few years.
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I dont get the point of this?
Sample size support?
Yes, and disproving the ridiculous notion that CC Sabathia has some sort of character deficiency that makes him pitch worse in “pressure” situations.
Good article. Beating a dead horse (post season = ridiculously small sample size), but at least it’s not about A-Rod.
Part of this is that the Yankees have been able to keep him well rested down the stretch. In Milwaulkee they really overused him. He had like four consecutive starts on three days rest.
As a long-suffering Indians fan, please excuse me while I bang my head repeatedly into a wall…
Utterly excruciating.
You know, as much as I do not like her as a commentator at all, Suzyn Waldman actually spoke about Sabathia’s constant pitching on 3-days rest to get the Brewers to the playoffs being overlooked because of his one poor start in the playoffs. She also noted that no one ever really considered the fatigue factor when looking at his poor start in the NLDS and immediately pointed to choking. And that is likely the last time I’ll ever write about Suzyn Waldman.
eh. i think the phillies and those mariners are MUCH better than the twins and angels.
What in the world makes you think the phillies are better than the angles?
Phillies would kick any Angles team, unless it were stacked with acute angles. The 2009 Angles were obviously of the obtuse variety.
I know he’s improved, but I don’t see the big deal about him and A-Rod playing well in the playoffs. A-Rod makes 15M more than anyone in baseball, he should be batting .500 in the playoffs and CC should be pitching no hitters and doing backflips off the mound.