CC Sabathia eager to pitch in, improve MLB's image in new role
CC Sabathia has a template in mind for how he would like Major League Baseball’s relationship with its players to evolve. It’s a league with a larger, bouncier orange ball.
“I’ve been a big one in wanting our league to run like the NBA, and how close [commissioner] Adam Silver is with the players and how big the players’ opinion matters in the game,” he said on Thursday.
“I’ve been the biggest advocate for this type of situation. So it was either put up or shut up.”
Sabathia not only will not be shutting up on the topic but now officially has Rob Manfred’s ear, because MLB has hired him as a special assistant to the commissioner with a broad range of duties.
The former Yankees pitcher and current Yankees special adviser talked to reporters at an Opening Day event at MLB’s midtown Manhattan headquarters and promised to speak up on any and all topics he deems worthy.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to change, so it is what it is,” he said of his opinionated nature.
Sabathia will have input in areas such as player relations, social responsibility, youth participation, broadcasting and diversity, equity and inclusion.
MLB hopes the respect he has among current players will allow him to act as a liaison between them and the commissioner.
“Me coming to the league office doesn’t change my relationship with Manny Machado or Mookie Betts or all these different guys,” he said. “Them knowing that I’m here kind of gives them a voice at the league office.”
Asked about the relationship between MLB and its players in the wake of the recent lockout, Sabathia said, “It still has a long way to go, obviously. We all know that. But I think we’re headed in the right direction, for sure.”
Among his focuses is The Players Alliance; he is the vice president. The alliance addresses barriers to equity and inclusion in baseball.
Sabathia, 41, retired after the 2019 season with 251 career victories. He embraces the chance to stay involved.
“To do this and really be around the game is something I didn’t know I wanted when I was playing,” he said. “But now that I’m done, having a chance to still go in the Yankees’ clubhouse, be around those guys, hang out and still do this stuff, too, means a lot to me.”
Sabathia, who pitched until he was 39, was asked if the Mets’ Max Scherzer can be effective for several more years as he approaches his 38th birthday.
“I think he can, if he’s the number two,” Sabathia said. “Putting all this pressure on him early in the season, I think it’s going to be a little stressful.”
“But I think if you can get [Jacob] deGrom back healthy —and the rest of that rotation — and pitch well, I think he can be huge.”
Sabathia ripped then-Astro Carlos Correa on his podcast in 2020, part of the lingering fallout from the Yankees’ loss to the sign-stealing Astros in the 2017 ALCS.
Asked if he was happy to hear Carlos Beltran cop to those Astros crossing the line in a recent interview with the YES Network, Sabathia said he was but added, “I would love to just see him get back in the game.” (Beltran will work as a YES analyst this season.)
“ ’Los is such a smart dude,” Sabathia said. “I thought he’d be a great manager for the Mets. It was unfortunate how it went down and how it shook out. He was a player and no other players really got in trouble. So to see him kind of lose his job was tough. But I just want to see him get back in the game. He’s so good for the game and such a smart mind. I think he can help.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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