Baseball offseason

It's been a few days since teams became free to talk with free agents from other teams. The Yankees are already showing that their recent, but short-lived, doctrine of building a team through draft picks and smart trades was only going to work as long as Steinbrenner was allowing Cashman to have more power in the personnel decision-making process. Apparently, The Boss' sons that are now in control of the Yankees believe that the old 'let's buy a championship' mentality is actually smart. They've offered CC Sabathia a 6-year $140M deal, while also stating that they will be making offers to A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe within the coming days. Ugh.

To give some perspective on this, the Yankees went into this season with high hopes that a rotation of Chen-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettite, and the two minor league prospects that were called up (Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes) would combine with their potent offense to propel them into the World Series. To be fair, they couldn't foresee Wang getting hurt for most of the year, but they also definitely put too much expectation on Kennedy and Hughes. Yes, they are very good pitching prospects, but given that this is NY these prospects are always rushed into the majors, and when they don't immediately live up to the hype they are given up on. I'm just glad the Mets didn't get rid of Mike Pelfrey when he struggled after being rushed up.

Now, I agree that Sabathia, Burnett, and Lowe are all very good pitchers on the free agent market, but it irritates me that the market for pitchers gets crazy like this. For people's information, here's the story on Sabathia. CC Sabathia is a tall (6-7) large (290lbs) left handed pitcher. He was with the Cleveland Indians from 2001 until he was traded to the Brewers this season. Sabathia has been dominant for a while and usually never pitches fewer than 200 innings per season, so he's a serious workhorse. When he was traded to the Brewers before the trading deadline, he went on to put together one of the best pitching stretches I think most people have ever seen. He made 17 starts for the Brewers, going 11-2 with SEVEN complete games!! He walked 25 and struck out 128 during that period with a 1.65 ERA. He also finished the season with three straight starts on three days rest, and the final one of those games was a complete game victory over the Cubs to clinch the Wild Card spot in the NL. The real problem comes with how much he's overworked by the time the playoffs come around. He has compiled almost 500 innings in the regular season these past two years, and he has struggled greatly in the postseason both years. He really looks like he's gassed at the end of these seasons. If the team signing him doesn't realize this, they're going to be regretting the 6 year contract they give him when he starts falling apart a few year into it.

CC has been recorded as saying he had a great time in Milwaukee and loved playing with those teammates, but the Brewers are offering him 5 years at $100M, which is nowhere close to where the Yankees' offer sits. Considering how great a person Sabathia is, I really hope that he decides the discount to stay with Milwaukee is worth it. I really don't want him in the same league with the Mets, but I like Sabathia and think he's a great person, so I want to see him go to a situation that'll work really well for him. Also, fuck the Yankees. You assholes just never learn that you can't buy a championship. Your championship teams of the 90's were mostly homegrown, and all the expensive teams you've had since haven't done jack shit. Just go away.