CC you next year
Oct/080
I don’t really want to put up my thoughts about the end of the Brewers season. Ideally, it would have been nice for them to win the World Series. Ideally, it would be nice for everyone team to win the World Series (except the Yankees), but that’s just not how life works. They got eliminated in the playoffs and like I’ve said before the playoffs are all about luck. Especially a five game series. I am just glad the team is good, that when I go to a game there is a reasonable chance they are going to win. That’s all you can really ask for in life.
Looking at this team in 2008 the one person who gave them the best chance to win day in and day out was CC Sabathia. Now, he’s a free agent and nobody thinks that the team can re-sign him. I admit the odds are against them. The New York and LA teams just have more money and can afford to take long term risks. If CC Sabathia wants a 5 or 6 year deal, the Brewers would be stupid to try to compete. It’s too risky and an injury to Sabathia would cripple the franchise, but what if he were willing to accept a smaller deal (as he’s hinted at)? Would the team be able to afford him? I think there’s a chance.
Let’s use the Johan Santana contract as an example. Six years. $137.5 million. Annual salary of $22.92 million. Okay, now adjusting for inflation (baseball inflation) the thought process goes that he could get up to 6y/$144 million. So divide that in half and it’s 3y/$77m or about $25m/y. Can the team afford that? I think so. This season they paid Eric Gagne, Ben Sheets and Chris Capuano a combined $25m+ and all three of them are all but gone. Throw in whatever Sabathia’s pro-rated contract was, Mota’s expiring contract and the team is actually saving money. There’s no reason to think that DiFelice and Stetter couldn’t ably fill the Gagne/Mota roles as league minimum guys. A few players are due for arbitration raises and that will bring the payroll up plus they will need to sign a reliever or re-sign Shouse and/or Coffey. It will be hard to get this team in at whatever this year’s payroll was (which apparently was a break even number). It won’t be easy, but I think it’s worth it.
Sabathia is probably the best pitcher alive right now. He’s young and healthy. In the playoffs the Brewers will always have a shot if he’s pitching twice in a five game series. The team loves him, the city loves him. I think he’s worth the money. The best way to go about this would just to sit him down and be straight up with him. We think you can get 6y/144m on the open market. We’ll give you half that. Half the years and half the money, but that’s all we can do. Say that and see what happens. Maybe we’ll be surprised.
