CC Sabathia's health situation has lessened Yankees' urgency to trade Sonny Gray

We may not have seen the last of Sonny Gray in pinstripes.

Turns out that CC Sabathia’s recent heart surgery — a procedure last month to insert a stent to deal with an arterial blockage — has bought Gray a little extra time in the Bronx, the length of which will be determined by Sabathia’s next round of medical tests.

As determined as Brian Cashman has been to trade Gray, after basically admitting that the righthander's struggles are related to pitching in New York, the GM has backed off temporarily to make sure Sabathia will be on schedule to begin the season. The expectation is that he should be fine for the start of spring training, but he hasn’t been cleared yet, and Cashman doesn’t want to deplete his rotation reserves before then.

Last month, he said roughly a dozen teams were interested in trading for Gray. “Our intention is to move Sonny Gray, and relocate him when we get the proper return, in our estimation, and that will either happen this winter, it will happen in spring, or happen sometime during the season,” Cashman said Friday during a conference call. “The CC circumstance certainly has given us pause, because we want to make sure that we’re covered and protected. I’ll be in a much better position to either fully engage moving forward the Sonny Gray conversations we’ve had or continue to slow-walk it while we make sure that CC is taken care of health-wise.”

Sabathia, 39, must serve a four-game suspension at the start of the season, the leftover punishment from drilling the Rays’ Jesus Sucre in September at Tropicana Field. The ejection also left Sabathia two innings short of qualifying for a $500,000 bonus, but the Yankees wound up giving it to him anyway after he returned on a one-year, $8-million deal.

Sabathia had the heart surgery a month after signing his new contract, but Cashman didn’t sound too concerned about it being a lingering issue.

“I think we are optimistic that the pending medical evaluations he’ll have in January are going to be fruitful, beneficial and positive, which would be a green light,” Cashman said. “He hasn’t cleared those hurdles because those medical appointments still have to take place. Once they do, I’ll be in a better position to answer those questions.”

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.