By Joey Bats Fitzgerald

All is good in Yankee land. Last night at 12:00 CC Sabathia could have opted out of his contract with the Yankees. This clause was made due to the possibility that CC might not like New York. Instead he’s come to love this city, the culture, the management, and the fans. Instead of opting out and making this much more difficult for the Yankees, Sabathia decided to take a contract extension.

He agree to a 5 year deal worth $122 million dollars with an option for a 6th season. I found out the news trough twitter, which is where a lot more of us sports bloggers and fans are finding things out lately. Here is the tweet CC sent to let us know he’s glad to be back in New York.

Personally I was surprised he didn’t opt out. The offers the Yankees were throwing at Cliff Lee last season led me to believe that CC would only get more money. Instead he made a nice move. First off he’s getting more money than the original contract per year. And secondly no one is going to view him as a greedy guy.

In three seasons in New York Sabathia has a record of 59-23 with a 3.18 ERA. That’s an average of 20 wins every year. He’s also thrown 705.0 innings in his time with New York. That’s 235 innings every year. He’s a horse who’s going to get you wins and last a long time. He doesn’t have a bad injury history and seemingly he should age well.

I give CC a lot of credit because now the Yankees can focus on other aspects because he was priority number one. The rotation is still a need. Yu Darvish, the Japanese sensation could be a possibility. Plus the Yankees need to fill bench positions. Whether they use their system like Nunez and Laird or they resign guys like Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez. I expect the Yankees to go after Grady Sizemore for the 4th outfielder spot.

It’s going to be an exciting off-season which begins on Thursday. I’ll be bringing you the latest updates here on Sports-Kings and my twitter account.

Follow me @JBatsFitzgerald