Thirteen things you may have forgotten about Milwaukee's acquisition of CC Sabathia 10 years ago

JR Radcliffe | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Update: CC Sabathia announced Saturday that the 2019 season would be his last in baseball. The long-tenured New York Yankees standout is best remembered locally for his work in 2008 with the Milwaukee Brewers during an uplifting playoff run. This first appeared at JSOnline.com in July.

The news came Sunday, July 6, 2008: The Brewers had traded for Cleveland Indians pitcher CC Sabathia, the biggest fish available in the annual trade market.

What followed was an experience cemented into the brains of Brewers fans: an electric debut July 8, a stretch that stacks up with the best in Brewers history and a playoff run that snapped a 26-year postseason drought, capped off with perhaps the most memorable game in Brewers regular-season history.

The 10th anniversary of the memorable acquisition is upon us. Here are 13 components to the trade you may have forgotten:

Sabathia didn’t have eye-popping numbers in 2008 before arriving

Sabathia was victimized by poor run support, so his 6-8 record and 3.38 ERA might have seemed unimpressive in his 18 starts before joining the Brewers, but he also led the American League with 123 strikeouts in 122 1/3 innings, and he had issued only 34 walks.

He had gone 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA in his Cy Young season in 2007, with 37 walks and 209 strikeouts.

Of course, many will remember he went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in Milwaukee. He finished with 128 strikeouts in 130 innings and just 25 walks.

The Phillies were in the mix, and the Dodgers thought they had him

Among the teams in the mix for Sabathia were the Philadelphia Phillies, whom the Brewers wound up playing in the divisional round of the playoffs that year in a 3-1 series loss. Philly defeated Sabathia in Game 2 of the series and went on to win the World Series.

But it was the Dodgers who thought they had him. In his memoir “The Big Chair,” former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said he believed his team was going to work out the trade, but team owner Frank McCourt refused to pay the extra $4 million in salary. The Dodgers were going through a messy ownership situation at the time, with Frank and Jamie McCourt’s very public divorce complicating everything.

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The Michael Brantley or Taylor Green choice had everything to do with Milwaukee's playoff fate

The deal for Sabathia involved Milwaukee sending top prospect Matt LaPorta and pitchers Rob Bryson and Zach Jackson to Cleveland. Of course, everyone also knows there was a player to be named later, and that player was Michael Brantley – who has gone on to have a long and productive career with the Indians while the other players haven’t panned out.

Brantley, however, was literally the price of success. Cleveland was planning to get third baseman Taylor Green as the player to be named if Milwaukee had missed the playoffs. Since the Brewers made the postseason, the player agreed upon was the more coveted of the two, Brantley.

Brantley has gone on to flirt with MVP-like numbers at points in his career, but since Sabathia pretty much put the Brewers on his back and got them into the playoffs, it seemed like the right price.

To get Matt LaPorta, the Indians had to act fast

Cleveland badly wanted LaPorta, Milwaukee's first-round choice in 2007, and the organization said it wouldn't do the deal without him. Brewers general manager Doug Melvin issued Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro an ultimatum: you can have him, but the deal has to happen today. Melvin was keen on getting Sabathia in a Brewers jersey immediately, well before the July 31 trade deadline -- an aggressiveness that proved to be vital.

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There was no down time; Sabathia pitched right away for the Brewers

Acquired late July 6, Sabathia was already suited up and pitching July 8, a Tuesday, after meeting the media on Monday at Miller Park. In the interim, the team sold 27,000 individual tickets – nine times more than the usual rate – including 9,000 for that specific game. He was introduced to the crowd Monday night in the bottom of the third inning and received a standing ovation. On Tuesday, 42,533 fans traveled through the turnstiles for one of the highest-energy games in Brewers history.

He was already a dangerous hitter

Many will remember the home run Sabathia launched in his second big-league start at Miller Park, and he certainly wasn’t lost at the plate. He already had demonstrated his ability as a hitter, even in the American League, with a .300 batting average, two career homers and seven RBI before joining Milwaukee.

The Cubs responded immediately

On July 8, before Sabathia had even thrown a pitch, the Cubs acquired Oakland Athletics ace pitcher Rich Harden. For what it’s worth, Harden actually had been better than Sabathia to that point in the season, going 5-1 with a 2.34 ERA, though his strikeout to walk ratio (92 to 31) wasn’t as stellar.

"I heard they’ve been looking for a starting pitcher," said Melvin, after the acquisition, noting that he heard the Cubs had been looking at Harden for a while. "I think people will read that as a counter-move. I can’t answer that. We all continue to look for something that can improve your ballclub. It’s good to see the trade stuff is heating up. Fans like it. General managers like it, too."

A key stroke of luck helped Sabathia keep that first win

In the sixth inning of that memorable Brewers debut, the Rockies loaded the bases with nobody out on a single and two walks. Yorvit Torrealba lifted a shot into the right-field corner that easily could have cleared the bases (and did plate two runs to pull the Rockies within 4-3).

But Ryan Spilborghs, running from first base, injured a side muscle and barely made it to third before exiting the game. Sabathia then speared Jayson Nix’s low liner and doubled off pinch runner Scott Podsednik at third base, allowing the Brewers to escape the inning with the lead.

Milwaukee later added three runs in the bottom of the seventh for breathing room on a bases-loaded walk by Corey Hart and a two-run single by Bill Hall, who was thrown out trying to make it all the way to third.

The Brewers began maximizing Sabathia right away

Down the stretch, most will remember that Sabathia was pitching frequently on limited rest as he worked to will the Brewers into the playoffs. But the Brewers planned to use him early and often out of the gate.

He made his first start on a Tuesday and second start on a Sunday, then came back for the first game after the all-star break. He had five starts under his belt before the trade deadline arrived – one of the reasons Melvin wanted to make the deal long before the last minute. The Brewers went 4-1 in those starts, and in the loss Milwaukee went into the ninth tied at 4-4 with the Cubs before Chicago scored twice and emerged with a 6-4 win July 28.

In that second start, Sabathia hit a home run and worked nine innings in a 3-2 victory that ended on Craig Counsell’s walk-off sacrifice fly in the ninth.

Of course, what people certainly will remember is his complete-game performance against the Cubs in the season finale, a 3-1 win that clinched a playoff berth when the New York Mets lost on the same day.

He made each of his final three regular-season starts on three days rest, then another start in the playoffs on three days rest. Perhaps it caught up to him: on Oct. 2, the Phillies scored five second-inning runs against Sabathia and prevailed, 5-2, in Game 2 of the National League Divisional Series.

He ignited a firestorm of business for the Brewers

With the surprise news of his acquisition, team executive vice president Rick Schlesinger gathered his staff to prepare for the madness to follow. The team had to suddenly prepare for a mid-week sellout (from tickets to concessions), and the team immediately reached out to Majestic in Pennsylvania to start manufacturing Sabathia jerseys.

Between July 7 and 11, the team sold 70,000 tickets – three times the normal amount. It became the most successful home stand in Brewers history to that point, and it helped the club clear 3 million in annual attendance for the first time. The team also learned that Corey Hart would be an all-star after he won the 2008 “Final Vote” competition.

What if Jeff Weaver had worked out?

There are a lot of what-ifs in the Sabathia canon. What if Yovani Gallardo hadn’t torn his ACL against the Cubs on May 1, robbing the Brewers of a potential front-line rotation option? Here’s another one: What if Jeff Weaver had worked out?

Weaver was signed as a potential rotation option during the season but he was hammered at Triple-A, going 2-4 with a 6.22 ERA. He had an out clause in his contract if he wasn’t recalled to the big-league team by mid-June, so the club released him. With Seth McClung moving into the rotation at the big-league level, the Brewers were covered and could afford to let Weaver go.

He played a home game at Miller Park in 2007 – the year he won the Cy Young for Cleveland

It marked quite the occasion in 2007 when Miller Park hosted a three-game series between Cleveland and the Los Angeles Angels. A snowstorm had wiped out a slate of games in Cleveland, and to avoid the risk of falling further behind in the schedule, MLB relocated the games to Milwaukee. It wouldn’t be the last maneuver of its kind – the Chicago Cubs memorably played “road” games at Miller Park against the Houston Astros when Hurricane Ike forced a relocation, and Carlos Zambrano famously threw a no-hitter.

Sabathia, who went on to win the 2007 Cy Young Award, pitched the series opener – a game for which Brewers GM Melvin was on hand. Sabathia wasn’t dominating in that April 10 start. He allowed three runs (one earned) on 10 hits and two walks in seven innings, but his team survived for a 7-6 victory.

Sabathia also pitched in an interleague series at Miller Park in 2006. He surrendered four runs in the first and took the loss in a 6-4 setback against the Brewers on June 16, 2006.

The Brewers were somewhat burned by a “rental” pickup in 2007, but it didn’t dissuade them

Milwaukee traded three prospects for reliever Scott Linebrink in 2007, a deal that worked out just so-so when Linebrink went 2-3 with a 3.55 ERA and 1.50 WHIP. Linebrink then departed after his 25-plus innings that year with the Brewers, though the prospects (Steve Garrison, Will Inman, Joe Thatcher) were mostly unremarkable thereafter.

"As long as we’re competitive, we’re willing to listen to offers on any players in trades," Melvin said in June 2008. "That includes the top players. We have players that we feel would be attractive to other clubs. It just depends what they’re looking for."