“Last year, we were the team that everybody loved, that feel-good story,” Sabathia — who signed a one-year, $10 million deal — told MLB Network on Thursday. “But getting Giancarlo just brings us back to being that hated team. That's what we like. We want to go out there, put the best team on the field and crush everybody every game.”
“And that's why I wouldn't have went to the Blue Jays,” Sabathia joked on his Players' Tribune podcast last week. “If I'm going to be in the AL East, I'm going to be on the best team. I'm not coming to Yankee Stadium to get my ass kicked.”