The Yankees went the extra mile(s) to sign CC Sabathia.
As contract talks heated up with the free-agent left-hander, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman left the 2008 winter meetings in Las Vegas to sit down with Sabathia and his family at their home in Vallejo, Calif.
It was an atypical — and important — step in the Yankees signing Sabathia to a record-setting seven-year, $161 million deal.
That proved to be a franchise-altering investment.
Sabathia is expected to be part of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025, with the results of this year’s vote scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.
As of Monday afternoon, Sabathia had been included on 93.4% of the 172 ballots that were publicly released, or 46.7% of the total tickets, according to Ryan Thibodaux’s HOF tracker. It’s a strong indication Sabathia will finish with the 75% needed for induction.
“It was always just about surviving,” Sabathia said last month at a charity event for his PitCCh In Foundation. “I really started playing just to help me and my mom out, so I never thought I would end up in Cooperstown. To have people consider my career that way, it’s just a blessing in itself.”
This is the first year on the ballot for Sabathia, who went 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA and 3,093 strikeouts in 3,577.1 innings over 19 MLB seasons with Cleveland, Milwaukee and the Yankees.
Sabathia is one of three left-handed pitchers to record at least 3,000 strikeouts, and one of 15 pitchers with 3,000 Ks and 250 wins. Nobody who debuted after 1989 threw more innings than the durable Sabathia, who is one of only 49 pitchers to win at least 250 games.
The last 11 of Sabathia’s seasons came with the Yankees, with whom the hulking left-hander won the 2009 World Series, twice led the majors in wins — including with a career-high 21 in 2010 — and became a respected clubhouse leader.
Originally a first-round pick by Cleveland in 1998, Sabathia made his MLB debut three years later as a 20-year-old and went 17-5 as a rookie. He pitched his first 7.5 seasons with Cleveland, winning his lone Cy Young Award in 2007, before being traded to the Brewers midway through the 2008 campaign.
Despite his impending free agency, Sabathia stepped up as a workhorse throughout the Brewers’ playoff push. His final three starts of the regular season came on three days’ rest, as did his Game 2 start in the 2008 NLDS.
The risk paid off for Sabathia, who finished 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in 17 starts with Milwaukee.
Sabathia entered the 2008-09 offseason as the gem of the free-agent pitching market. The Yankees, who had just missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, were desperate for an ace.
But there were concerns Sabathia, who hailed from the Bay Area, didn’t want to play in New York. Cashman and the Yankees ultimately convinced Sabathia, signing him to what was then the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher.
Sabathia quickly lived up to his reputation as a big-game pitcher, going 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA in 36.1 innings over five starts in the 2009 postseason. He was named ALCS MVP that year and proved instrumental in winning what remains the Yankees’ most recent World Series championship.
Perhaps just as valuably, Sabathia helped instill a more close-knit clubhouse culture that the Yankees lacked before his arrival.
Sabathia starred as one of baseball’s best aces during his first four seasons with the Yankees, pitching at least 200 innings, winning at least 15 games and posting an ERA no higher than 3.38 each year.
The 6-6, 300-pound Sabathia remained a steady rotation presence for the rest of his tenure, finishing his 11-year Yankee career with a 134-88 record, a 3.81 ERA and 1,700 strikeouts over 1918.0 innings in 307 appearances, including 306 starts.
Sabathia threw at least 179.2 innings in 14 of his 19 MLB seasons, representing one of baseball’s last true workhorses. He was also a throwback in the sense that he pitched with an edge that played well in New York.
In his final start of 2018, Sabathia plunked Tampa Bay’s Jesus Sucre in response to the Rays’ Andrew Kittredge throwing behind Austin Romine earlier in the game. Sabathia was ejected from that game, costing him a chance at a $500,000 bonus he was six outs away from collecting.
In a show of good faith, the Yankees awarded Sabathia the bonus anyway.
Moments like those helped turn Sabathia, who last pitched in 2019, into a favorite among Yankees fans and brass as much as his postseason heroics did. The feeling was mutual, as Sabathia said he would “absolutely” go into the Hall as a Yankee.
“I mean, I played,” Sabathia said last month. “I did my thing. Now it’s just up to the writers to do the voting.”
Sabathia would become the first inductee to enter the Hall as a Yankee since former teammates Derek Jeter, who was part of the 2020 class, and Mariano Rivera, who was enshrined in 2019.
Another former Yankee teammate, Ichiro Suzuki, is also expected Tuesday to be named a first-ballot Hall of Famer, though he spent the bulk of his MLB career with the Seattle Mariners.
Suzuki recorded 3,089 hits — including a single-season-record 262 in 2004 — over 19 MLB seasons and earned 10 All-Star selections, all with Seattle. He won American League MVP and AL Rookie of the Year with the Mariners in 2001.
Suzuki played for the Yankees from 2012-14 — his age 38-40 seasons — and hit .281 over 360 games.
Between his MLB production and his 1,278 hits in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league, Suzuki finished with 4,367 hits as a professional player — the most among anyone in baseball history.
Suzuki was included on 100% of the 172 public ballots as of Monday afternoon.
OTHER EX-YANKEES
Other former Yankees on the ballot include Carlos Beltran, who was tracking at 80.3% in his third year of eligibility; Andruw Jones, who was at 72.1% in his eighth year; Alex Rodriguez, who was at 42.1% in his fourth year; and Andy Pettitte, who was at 33.3% in his seventh year.
Rodriguez finished with 34.8% of the vote last year.
A-Rod ranks fourth in MLB history with 2,086 RBI; fifth with 696 home runs; and 22nd with 3,115 hits, but he served a season-long suspension in 2014 due to ties to baseball’s performance-enhancing-drug-related Biogenesis scandal. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are among the high-profile players who were not inducted into the Hall amid steroid allegations.
Players can spend up to 10 years on the ballot, so long as they receive at least 5% of the votes the previous year.
