It's been nearly three weeks since the Yankees offered CC Sabathia 140 million of their hard-earned YES Network/New Yankee Stadium dollars. You may have noticed that CC hasn't said yes.
Yet.
The Yankees still seem supremely confident that he will, one of these days, weeks or months. But as one GM said Wednesday, "If he wanted to go to the Yankees, he'd be a Yankee by now. Wouldn't he?"
Well, seems logical enough.
But suppose he doesn't become a Yankee. Conventional wisdom seems to be that if he doesn't, he'll be an Angel. Or a Dodger. Or a Brewer.
All good, solid conventional thinking. But conventional thinking isn't always correct thinking. So here's a word of caution: Don't rule out the Giants.
By conventional thinking, throwing yet another $100-whatever-million contract at yet another starting pitcher would seem to make about as much sense for the Giants as paving over McCovey Cove. But the more we poke around, the more we ask about the possibility that the Giants could make a play for CC, the more we hear this is still alive.
Sabathia has sent multiple signals that he would love to be a Giant. He loves the National League. He loves California. He loves the Bay Area in particular. He even loves the Warriors -- enough that he showed up at a Warriors game in person this week.
And no matter how much the Giants might want to prioritize offense this winter, if the most alluring free agent in the solar system keeps suggesting he wants to play for your team if you can make it worth his while, how can you not think about it?
So the Giants keep thinking. And the Giants keep talking. Talking to Sabathia's agent, Greg Genske. And talking among themselves to determine whether this is a road worth seriously driving.
Imagine a rotation of CC,
Tim Lincecum,
Matt Cain,
Barry Zito and
Jonathan Sanchez. Looks like potentially the best rotation in baseball, assuming Zito can just rebound to mediocrity and Sanchez more closely resembles the Sanchez of the first half (8-5, 3.97 ERA) than the second half (1-7, 7.47).
Of course, assembling a rotation like that would create its own set of problems. For one, it wouldn't address the offensive issues of a team that got outscored by every team in baseball except the Padres. Then again, CC did have the same OPS this year (.627) as
Austin Kearns. So maybe it would.
But it also would create the opportunity for the Giants to soften on their refusal to deal Cain, then explore whether trading him could land a middle-of-the-order bat. And our guess is: It could.
Even more complicated, though, are the payroll reverberations of adding a $22 million-a-year pitcher to a team already weighed down with five more years and $101.5 million worth of obligations to Zito.
"If they sign CC, that would mean they're paying $40 million a year to two pitchers," one prominent baseball man said. "And their payroll has never been higher than $85 million. So how can they eat up half their payroll on two pitchers, knowing that over the course of the contract they're going to have to pay Lincecum $8-10 million, and Cain is signed (and due to peak at $6.25 million in his 2011 option year), and they've got a lot of other needs they've got to fill? It's tough to do."
Oh, it's tough to do, all right. But all indications are that the Giants haven't ruled it out. So if they haven't ruled it out, we can't rule it out. Can we?
MORE DISHES ON THE HOT STOVE
• It was only a week or so ago that the Giants tossed a three-year offer at
Rafael Furcal. So why would they prefer
Edgar Renteria? Because they're looking for a shorter-term option to keep the position warm until their two highest-regarded shortstop prospects, Emmanuel Burris and Nick Noonan, arrive. As ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick has reported, the Giants are closing in on signing Renteria to a two-year deal. Furcal still prefers four.
• It's funny how none of the
Jake Peavy-to-the-Cubs rumors these days seem to be originating on the north side of Chicago. In fact, one Cubs official told a source that they consider their talks with the Padres to be "not active" at the moment. The Cubs actually appear to be stuck in serious payroll limbo right now until the identity of their new owner is revealed. And that might be weeks away. So unless they can subtract salary (namely,
Jason Marquis), they have no room to add a salary as hefty as Peavy's -- for now, at least.
• The Twins and Dodgers both have essentially been told that if they'll add a third year to their two-year proposals, they can reel in third baseman
Casey Blake. It will be interesting to see whether either says yes. So far this winter, the only teams that have given free agents deals of three years or more are clubs that were retaining their own player (the Cubs with
Ryan Dempster, the Yankees with
Damaso Marte). The Dodgers, obviously, would fit into that category with Blake.
Jayson Stark
