Sabathia Opts to Stay in New York
CC Sabathia is back with the Yankees, even though he never left in the first place. With the deadline for his opt-out clause looming last night, the big left-hander and the team got together to hammer out a new contract extension that has a pretty good chance to keep him in pinstripes for the rest of his career. In the simplest of terms, here’s the money breakdown…
2012-2015: $23M per season
2016: $25M
2017: $25M vesting option with $5M buyout
The first four years are still covered by the original seven-year, $161M contract Sabathia signed with New York prior to the 2009 season. The 2016 season starts the new extension, and the 2017 vesting option is dependent on the health of his prized left shoulder. If shoulder problems cause him to a) finish the season on the DL, b) spend 45 days on the DL, or c) shift to a relief role during the 2016 season, the option is null and void. All told, the total package is worth five years and $122M, or $2M more than buddy Cliff Lee got from the Phillies last winter.
As with all long-term contracts like this, the Yankees are paying for peak years up front and figure to take the hit on the back-end of the deal. They’re basically paying him to be a five-win pitcher over the life of the contract, a level of performance Sabathia has matched or exceeded in each of the last six seasons. He’s also on a run of five straight 230+ IP seasons (which blows my mind), and still has some youth on his side at age 31. There really shouldn’t be any concerns about him over the next two or three years.
Given his stature (listed at 6-foot-7 and 290 lbs. on the Yankees’ site) and workload, there just aren’t many comparables for Sabathia throughout baseball history. David Wells shared the same girth as CC but was several inches shorter. Randy Johnson was a few inches taller but not nearly as round. Andy Pettitte was both shorter and skinnier. All three of those guys were very productive from ages 31-35 though, the years covered by Sabathia’s deal. Wells is the low man on that three-man totem pole at 18.8 WAR during those seasons, which is probably a bit below what the Yankees are hoping to get out Sabathia.
The 300 wins factor is probably a little overplayed, but it does exist. It’ll be a cash cow for the Yankees if Sabathia ever approaches that milestone, but he’s very unlikely to do so during the life of this contract. An average of 16 wins per season gets him to within 44 wins of 300 by the time the guaranteed portion of this new deal is up, and an average of 18 gets him to within 34. That’s still a long way off,
The Yankees didn’t improve their team at all by retaining Sabathia yesterday, all they did was maintain the status quo. They did manage to knock the biggest item off their to-do list before the free agency doors swung open though, and they did so at a reasonable cost by adding just one guaranteed year and $30M to what they had already planned to pay him. Now they can focus on filling out the rotation around Sabathia rather than having to worry about potentially replacing him.
Doesn’t seem like Sabathia got as much as I would have expected. Did he sell himself a little short here?
I think he could have found a guaranteed sixth year on the open market, even if it came from the Yankees.
This new contract (basically $122M/5 years) is smaller than the contract the Yankees gave him last time ($161M/7), the deal the Yankees offered Cliff Lee ($148M/7), the Johan Santana contract ($137.5M/6), and the Barry Zito contract ($126M/7). It’s pretty much the same deal as the ‘home town discount’ Cliff Lee got with the Phillies ($120M/5).
So, if he’d gone on the market and forced teams to out-bid each other, I think he could’ve gotten another year and another $18M or so. I think its something similar to the Adrian Gonzalez extension, where he just wanted something close to market value because of the ‘respect’ aspect, but wasn’t going to squeeze out every last
pennymillion.I like how you used “respect” like it is a foreign aspect no one has thought of.
But realistically, how many other teams make up the “market” in this price range? Obviously you only need one to get the Yankees to bid things up, but who? The Phillies already have all the high-priced pitching they can afford. The Red Sox don’t seem to be buyers (especially when they have to pay their starters in both money and fried chicken and beer). The Mets and Dodgers have moved to Athens. Did Theo arrive to find a blank check in the ivy?
“There really shouldn’t be any concerns about him over the next two or three years.” Wow, you might as well name him pitcher 6.
Wat
I like this for CC he will be loaded enough at age 35 to ever worry about money again, maybe he is aware that players like him dont age well and wanted to avoid getting hit around and getting hurt for 3-4 years in order to get a little more cash, he may be thinking about “early” retirement at a still young age so he can enjoy his family a little more.
Even without this most recent deal I doubt CC would have ever worried about where the next meal was coming from or if he could put a roof over his head.
Why is everyone discounting the option year? That option has like a 90%+ chance of vesting. That makes this contract calculus quite a bit different.
I’d peg it at more like 40%. What are the chances of an overweight 35 year old pitcher being effective and healthy all year? The fact that he’s been incredible durable in the past doesn’t mean he’s going to be so in the future; it just means he’s got more mileage on his arm.
I’d still have it at about an 80 – 90% chance to vest simply because it HAS TO be the shoulder that causes him to miss time. I agree there’s a pretty good chance that an overweight 35-year-old pitcher will have a tough time staying healthy all season, but I would be more worried about his knees; or it could be his elbow, his back, his forearm. He could be on the shelf for any number of reasons and the Yankees will still have to pay him.
Good point. I missed the part about the shoulder.
but if they shift him to the pen it also voids the contract
PS, i’m sure it has been mentioned before, but the opt-out clause was brilliant on the part of his agent. Why the team would give it to him when signing him to a record deal is beyond me.
Because maybe that’s what it took to get it to sign the deal. We can all sit here and just assume that CC would have taken the highest offer on the table, yet given that CC just opted to NOT test the market, it’s possible that he is being genuine when he says there are other factors that shape his decisions.
Before he lived in NY, he probably preferred California. It was reported after the fact by Heyman that the Angels offered $140M/7. Maybe he was leaning towards that offer before the Yankees put in the opt-out?
None of us know.
That’s a really good point. Players are people too, and there’s a lot of security in being able to opt out of a potentially bad situation in New York.
Honestly, I loved the opt out at the time. If the Yankees could have put themselves in a position to let him go, they would have signed him to a three year deal during his prime. What contending team wouldn’t sign up for that?
The opt out cost the yankees a ton of money, it turned a 4 year $92M deal into a 5 year $122M deal + an almost certain $20M 6th year putting the Yankees at great risk to overpay for CC’s decline years.
If the angels really offered $140M/7 years you’d think the $161M/7 years was enough without the option, and if not another $5-10M or so would swing it.
If the option is in there simply because CC was uncertain how happy he’d be in NY and wanted an escape clause, it could have been structured differently. They could have paid CC $19M per year for the first 3 years, and $26M per year for the remaining 4. If he opts out the Yankees would have gotten the cheaper years, and he’s heavily incentived to not opt out.
I think the lesson from Wells is not the total WAR (he was never in CC’s league apart from one year with the Blue Jays), but that he maintained his established level of production into his 40′s…suggesting that being heavy isn’t necessarily an issue for aging pitchers
A person who never wears a seatbelt and never suffers an injury in a car is not good evidence that seat belts are not a good safety device, just a very lucky person.
But there were other comps mentioned that did ok. Those who came before CC, who were somewhat like him, they did fine.
Those who first come to mind as “those who came before CC” are the most famous and most successful instances. I don’t know if anyone’s going to recall a big, fat (or just tall), talented pitcher who was pretty damn good until 30 or 31, then was limited by injury; certainly we’re more likely to remember Randy Johnson and Andy Pettitte.
How would 300 wins be a cash cow for the Yankees? It’s a few starts at home, at the most, and waiting for a pitcher to pick up a win isn’t exactly spellbinding TV – it’s not an “event”, like 3000 hits, 500 HRs, etc. Sabathia isn’t going to be a Yankees legend, at least not on the scale that franchise is used to.
He’s not a Yankees legend yet, but he’s got 5+ years to work on that. Have you seen the Yankees market stuff? There will be more CC300 merchandise than you can imagine.
I am guessing that since 5 man rotation became norm, pitchers with 5 consecutive years of 230+ IP do not bode well for good future performance from C.C. I agree he might have sold him short, but his accomplishment is getting scarier… especially when you take the body into account.