Yankees Appear to Have a Deal with Sabathia

In what appears to be the first piece of Brian Cashman's quest to rebuild the Yankees, it is being reported that the Yankees have a deal for C. C. Sabathia, the former Indians and Brewers start pitcher. The deal will vault the Yankees back into relevance, at least in the preseason polls. The long term prognosis for this deal will have to play out before any judgements can be made.

All indications are that Sabathia is a stand up guy that teammates really like and admire. He wants to use much of his new riches for underprivileged children and--according to reports--really wants to play in New York now.

Analysis:

Sabathia is one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. Besides being stingy with walks, Sabathia has an excellent strikeout to walk ratio as well as strikeout to nine inning ratio. Here's how he fares historically with some of the Yankees main rivals (thanks to http://www.baseball-reference.com):

(Player, AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, BB, SO, BA, OBP, SLG, OPS)
Carlos Pena: 21 4 1 0 2 2 3 8 .190 .292 .524 .816
David Ortiz: 18 5 1 0 1 3 1 3 .278 .316 .500 .816
Brian Roberts: 16 1 0 0 0 1 3 4 .063 .211 .063 .274
Jason Giambi: 11 2 0 0 0 4 3 1 .182 .333 .182 .515 (assuming he signs with the Rays)
Raul Ibanez: 36 10 1 1 2 8 2 10 .278 .333 .528 .861 (assuming he stays in Toronto)
Carl Crawford: 25 6 2 0 0 1 0 5 .240 .240 .320 .560
Mark Texiera: 21 6 1 0 0 3 3 7 .286 .375 .333 .708 (assuming he signs with Red Sox)

Many of the current Red Sox do not have enough at bats against him to be meaningful (Pedroia is 0 for 3 for example). But none of those numbers above look particularly threatening. Other than improving the Yankees as a team, Derek Jeter must be bittersweet. Here are Jeter's stats against Sabathia: 26 13 3 0 0 2 2 3 .500 .536 .615 1.151. Ichiro also wears Sabathia out.

Sabathia's splits are remarkably consistent. His home and away win/loss, ERA and OPS stats are within a few hundreds of percentage points between them. His OPS against right handed batters is .695 versus .661 against left handed batters.

Opinion:

For the short term (two years at least), the Yankees have obtained a very consistent, at times dominant left handed starter, who, to this point in his career, has been resiliant, durable and a great team player. Long term concerns have to be his weight and large bone structure which are not built to translate to a long career.

The Yankees got who they wanted. To solidify their chances to unseat the Red Sox and the Rays (not to mention Toronto), the Yankees will need one more wheel in their rotation and Texiera would be outstanding for them.