Hopefully that wasn't a fastball.
CC Sabathia is the only player the Yankees signed as part of their 2009 massive shopping spree who has continued to earn his gaudy paycheck in the seasons that followed the Championship year. In fact, CC has been a better pitcher with the Yankees than he has been on average over the course of his career (due mostly to a couple league average seasons that he had when he first came up with Cleveland). In his 3+ seasons with the Yankees CC has pitched to a 136 ERA+ and a 1.19 WHIP, versus 125 and 1.23 for his career. The start to this season, however, has been a little different.
If the season were to end today CC would have an ERA+ of 118 and a WHIP of 1.23. Those are good numbers, but last season CC had an ERA+ of 145 (which is really, really good) and a WHIP of 1.23. It’s a little premature to suggest that CC is declining (plus, it’s only been about half a season) but something in 2012 has been a little off.
On the surface, CC’s peripherals are better than ever. His strikeout rate of 9.1 per nine innings is the highest of his career. His walk rate of 2.4 per nine is below his career average and right in line with what he did in 2011. He’s allowing precisely the same number of hits as he did in 2011. The only thing that is different is that he’s giving up 0.9 homers per game, above the 0.6 he allowed last season, and above his career average. How does a pitcher see his ERA get worse while striking out more batters and keeping runners off base at a good clip? Why, giving up more dingers, of course. The extra homers are the most obvious explanation for CC’s (slightly) inflated ERA. The question then becomes, why is he giving them up?
The answer may lie in his fastball. A lot is made of CC’s changeup and his slider. Both rate among the best pitches of any kind in the game, but CC has a plus fastball as well. The fastball isn’t CC’s best pitch, but he throws it more than 50% of the time and it rates as an above average offering for the big lefty, but not this season. Last year CC’s fastball was worth 0.28 runs for every 100 he threw. This year it has been worth -1.48 runs for every 100 he’s thrown, far and away the worst total of his career. All of CC’s other offerings — his slider, curve and changeup — still rate as excellent pitches. Each is worth at least 1.5 runs for every 100 thrown, making them three of the most effective pitches in the game. The problem, therefore, is CC’s fastball.
The bigger problem is that CC’s fastball is his set up pitch. He has said in the past that he needs to locate his fastball to be able to use his out pitches effectively. You don’t have to take his word for it, though. Watching any of his starts proves this. Apart from occasionally starting a batter off with a curveball, CC likes to use his fastball to work the batter into a two strike count before finishing him off with either his slider or his changeup. When he can’t get to two strikes with his fastball — perhaps because batters have been taking it out of the ball park a bit more than usual this season — his entire arsenal suffers.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that even without an effective fastball CC is still having a good season. The better news is that he’s aware that he hasn’t been as solid this season. He’s been working to address the issue and recently announced that he identified a mechanical flaw in his delivery that he is working to fix. There is therefore a high probability that the second half of the season will see CC return to the form Yankee fans have come to expect.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
7 Responses to A closer look at CC Sabathia’s season
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
CC knows how to keep his team in the game and win when he’s not at his best. And the teams exerts itself to get CC the win. I’m not concerned too much that CC isn’t having real, real dominent games every time out, right now. In fact, I hope he peaks just as the playoffs start.
My one concern with the entire starting staff is the amount of homers they were/ are giving up, even though they are winning. At one point, it seemed like the starters were going to give up 200 homers. Has this ever been done before? —on a winning team? —on a pennant winner? In fact, what is record amount of homers–given up by starters only–on a pennant winner. I’ll bet that the Yanks are on pace to push this number.
Why are all the starters having a high HR allowed problem?
At the present time, the starters appear to be on track of giving up in the neighborhood of 135-150 homers. This is still a high number for a pennant winner, or WS champ, but,upon reflection, I’m sure that there were many pennant winners who give up a lot of dingers–maybe more than this. But what if the pace picks up again?
The Yanks are winning, so all is good now. But I wouldn’t want to see our starters get ripped repeatedly in the playoffs. I wonder if there are reasons for this? Hughes going back to just raring away, and attacking hitters- like he said, could explain his high totals. Nova trying to just throw strikes for in play outs could explain his high totals of HRs and extra base hits. Andy getting back into the routines could explain his–but he also had high HR allowed totals in numerous other years in his career. But Kuroda seems to be allowing more HRs this year—is it the transition to the AL East? And you just explained about CC.
I guess this shouldn’t be a worry considering the streak the Yanks are on, and they are in first place, but if something upsets the apple cart on the road to October, this might be the thing (along with injuries and the veterans getting worn out).
But winning beats all, there are always warts somewhere if you look hard enough.
I hope Phil is traded, he stinks and belongs on a AA team posing as an MLB team, Padres!
CC is nauseating to watch at times. He gives up too many hits/runs for him to be considered an Ace.
The Yankees bats bail him out sooo many times.
CC was spotted 5 runs and couldn’t keep the lead, nor did the Ace make it out of the 6 inning!!
Pitchers can’t be great every year.
I think the problem is CC’s weight loss. Change in his center of gravity has affected his FB command! (tic)
What are you people talking about? There’s this perception he’s having a down year, but after a rocky start, he’s had a 2.88 ERA in his last ten starts over May and June. He’s fine. He always gets better late in the season too.