CC and Peace of Mind

The following is a guest post from friend of the blog Hannah Ehrlich

(For best results, listen to while reading this article.)

There are a lot of really great things about the Yankees re-signing . The most important of which is, of course, that the big lefty would be contributing his massive …. talent, skill, and workhorsedom to the team come 2012. After three years of watching him ply his trade on the pitcher’s mound in New York, I can certainly say I’m very excited to see him back. Locking him up before he technically uses the opt-out means that the Yankees could get him at a “reasonable” price and they face no competition from the open market, where Sabathia might be able to find a guaranteed six or even seventh year.

Another great thing that his early signing removes is the general fan anxiety that comes with something your team needs having the chance of, well, not being on your team. Personally, I hate surprises – when something terrible (or great) is going to happen, just tell me. Waiting three or four months to discover an unknown result is downright torture. Knowing now and not having to worry myself for all that time if CC will be returning is a pretty awesome thing.

This isn’t just about canning all those horrible Bleacher Report articles about why CC Sabathia should go/stay with the Yankees. This isn’t about all those stupid “anonymous scouts” and “friends of Sabathia” and “internal sources” that would feed the fans tidbits, forcing us to overanalyze every word and pace ourselves into a deep internet groove. This isn’t about not having to freak out about the possibility of losing the guy we’ve all come to rely on. That being said, not having to do those things is a definite plus.

While free agency and the offseason have their own kind of excitement, it’s certainly more nerve-wracking. If the team is in the middle of the season and can’t hit, that’s what one thing – offensive droughts are part of the game and will clear up. If the team is in the middle of the season and can’t pitch or is committing stupid errors, it can be blamed on the long season, statistical regression, and or just bad luck. But making (or not making) a signing usually falls squarely on the shoulders of the general manager, even if he did all he could. A bad signing or the inability to get a needed asset can have a longer-scale effect on the team, forcing them to settle for second-best, stick in a non-prospect, or rush someone up to fill that hole. And while we’re lucky the Yankees are hardly ever worried about money, it can be a lot of cash that’s wasted.

So besides a pretty amazing lefty on a moderately decent deal, Sabathia gives the Yankees (and their fans) peace of mind (Cashman himself said that CC “provides [them] a lot of security.”). Thinking back to the 2010-11 offseason, it’s easy to figure out how entirely un-fun it would be if the big man strung the fanbase out all year before signing in February, even to a contract similar to this one. It’s a lot of unneeded stress gone to have to wake up every morning and furiously refresh MLB Trade Rumors to read about a guy who sounded like he had no intention of leaving in the first place. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do than worry about a pitching staff composed of AJ Burnett and .

Happily, Sabathia removes all these worries from our collective mind before they even begin to sneak in. Okay, that’s wrong, I was definitely worrying about it. Anyway, those worries were quashed good and hard. CC’s here to stay, and we don’t have to worry about it all winter. The lefty is the closest thing baseball has to a known (and really great) quality, though someone did tell me something about predict baseball at some point and why I shouldn’t do it. Now the fanbase can focus on more important things, like trading Burnett and Swisher for NLCS/World Series MVP . I know I’m going to lose just as much sleep over that.

Hannah is a Jersey-displaced Silicon Valley resident who rolls her eyes at what they call “offense” here in Northern California. She can be found occasionally writing for River Ave Blues and even more intermittently at her blog, A Few Yankee Hearts. Follow her on Twitter at .