CC 3K – From the Mound to the HOF

Tuesday, New York Yankees starter CC Sabathia struck out Arizona catcher and former teammate John Ryan Murphy in the bottom of the 2nd inning to secure what only 16 pitchers in the history of the game before him have done- his 3,000th strikeout of his career. He is also just the third left-handed pitcher to do so, along with Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton. What a tremendous achievement for the 19 year veteran who has decided that 2019 will be his final year. With that strikeout, many have now begun the ever-popular discussion for any player who is set to retire- is CC Sabathia a Hall of Famer? This is something that I personally love doing, as evident by my HOF predictions from earlier this year. It makes for good conversation among baseball fans, whether we agree or disagree with each other. Although we still have nearly a full season left to play and then five additional years of discussion before CC is on the ballot, let’s take a look at his current numbers and see if we can make a case for the big man from Vallejo, CA.

Let me start out by saying that I have always been a CC fan. From his years as the young dominant Cleveland starter to his end of days as a Yankee. And yes, this also includes that unbelievable second half stretch he had with the Milwaukee Brewers, which helped knock my Mets out of the 2008 wild card spot. From his rookie year of 2001 to 2012 in his fourth year in New York, Sabathia’s highlighted stats include a 191-102 record in 2,592 innings, an ERA of 3.54, 2,214 strikeouts and ERA+ of 125. During those peak years, Sabathia also won the 2007 AL Cy Young, with four other top 5 finishes. These are just a portion of his career numbers, but many fans who like to make cases for players enshrinement into the Hall of Fame will look at a player’s peak years in relation to his overall career numbers. For me, these 13 years were CC’s best and will be the backbone of his Hall of Fame candidacy.

I also decided to compare some of CC’s current career numbers as of this writing to another pitcher who played in the same era and was just recently elected into Cooperstown; Roy Halladay:

Now as you can see, even given Sabathia’s extra 3+ years, his numbers can match up to the late great Doc Halladay. And again, as I said to in my opening paragraph, CC is just the 17th pitcher in major league history the eclipse 3,000 strikeouts and only the 3rd lefty to do it. Some people may think “17 still seems kind of high” and to those people I say this; there have been approximately 19,500 players to have ever played in a Major League game. To simplify, let’s say that half of that number were those who appeared as a pitcher. That’s 9,750 men who have set foot on a Major League mound and only 17 of those men have struck out at least 3,000 batters. That is less than one percent! Let’s also not to forget the kind of player CC was. He was a gamer. Early in his career, he was a guy who demanded the ball every 5th day. He was also a damn good teammate who had is boys’ backs. This was evident at the end of last year when Sabathia intentionally hit Rays’ catcher Jesus Sucre as retaliation for teammate, Austin Romine, being thrown at earlier in the game. You may ask how this makes him a better teammate than any other pitcher who would have done the same thing? Take this into account: Sabathia was just 2 innings shy of attaining a $500,000 bonus as per his contract with the Yankees that year. When asked about it, CC said “I don’t really make decisions based on money, I guess…I just felt like it was the right thing to do.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I would be ecstatic to have a guy like that on my team any day of the week.

Therefore, to me, Carsten Charles “CC” Sabathia is without question a Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until 2025 to welcome him to Cooperstown.