C.C. Ya Later

Every Brewers’ fan’s worst yet inevitable nightmare came true this morning, when it was reported that CC Sabathia would be accepting an offer from the New York Yankees.  While any shot the Crew had at signing Sabathia was slim, when the winter meetings began Monday, reports were surfacing that there was a feeling that Sabathia would re-sign with the Brewers.

But alas, it was not to be, as the offer the Yankees reportedly made (seven years, 160 million) was too much more than the Brewers could offer, and Sabathia went chasing the green.  It would have been awesome to see Sabathia donning a Brewers uniform next season and beyond, but that just wasn’t in the cards.

Give credit to the Brewers organization and Doug Melvin, who showed that the Brewers were legit contenders to sign Sabathia by being the other team bidding on CC’s services.

What does this mean for the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers?  Now that it looks like Ben Sheets will be departing as well, the starting rotation is in shambles a bit.  Missing your top two pitchers is going to hurt any team, but the Brewers do have another ace ready to step in with Yovani Gallardo.  Say what you want about Gallardo coming back from a knee injury, but anyone who misses five months and comes back to start Game 1 of a playoff series for a franchise that hasn’t made the postseason in 26 years.  That’s ace material enough for me.

But what this really puts stress on is starters 2-5.  At this point it looks like Manny Parra would slide into the #2 spot, with Dave Bush at #3, and then Jeff Suppan and Seth McClung or Carlos Villanueva as the fifth starter.

But this is all based on the Brewers not signing another starter before the start of next season, and now with the team out of the running for Sabathia, they may go after another one of the big name pitchers on the market to fill the void.  We’ll all just have to wait and see.