Like it or Not, Yankees Still Need CC Sabathia

Although the New York Yankees are working hard to get younger and dump big contracts, at the moment they still need starting pitcher CC Sabathia for 2017.

While it’s hard to envision New York Yankees starting pitcher earning the $25 million vesting option he’s on track to lock in for 2017, it’s hard to argue that the team is better off without CC Sabathia at this point given their desperate need for starting pitching.

The 36-year-old is having easily having his best season since 2012, pitching to a 4.02 ERA and 4.30 FIP in 172.1 innings of work. The biggest difference has been a significant decrease in the balls he’s allowed to leave the yard, going from 1.5 HR/9 in 2015 to 1.1 HR/9 this year.

With a 108 ERA+, Sabathia has been above league average at preventing runs for the first time since 2012. His 2.7 wins above replacement this season according to Baseball-Reference’s metric easily exceed the 0.7 WAR he accumulated the last three seasons combined.

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Sabathia is not the front-line starter he was at his peak, but it is not a stretch to pencil him in as an OK number three in a contender’s rotation. Is he better suited to be a number four or five given his shaky recent history? Probably, but given the sorry state of the Yankees rotation at the moment, beggar’s can’t be choosers.

One caveat here is that CC did reportedly draw at least a modicum of interest from teams including the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers at the trade deadline. New York would presumably need to eat a large chunk of his salary, at least $10-15 million to facilitate a deal, but Sabathia is not the immovable burden he looked like last season.

Even if New York was willing to eat half of the money remaining to Sabathia, it’s unlikely they would get much of value in return. It would be a pure salary dump, which is always a little crazy to discuss for the Yankees.

Getting rid of expensive veterans Like Brian McCann or Brett Gardner this winter makes some sense even with a light return because it opens up playing time for potentially better options. At this point, the Yankees have no shortage of open rotation spots, and it’s far from a sure thing they have five starting pitchers better than CC Sabathia going into 2017.

Chad Green, Luis Cessa, Luis Severino, and Bryan Mitchell were the first wave of young arms the team turned to fill rotation spots this year and the results have been pretty ugly at times. It’s easy to look at the Triple-A numbers of guys like Jordan Montgomery and Dietrich Enns and assume they will translate to the big leagues, but unfortunately that probably won’t be the case.

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The Yankees are not currently in a situation where they can just give away quality pitching options if they want to have anything resembling a contender in 2017. There’s definitely the chance Sabathia completely collapses again next year, but New York doesn’t have much choice but to roll the dice on the declining lefty once again.