Rays showed notable dominance against former Yankees pitcher on the 2025 Hall of Fame ballot

Former Yankees starting pitcher, CC Sabathia has been placed on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. The hard-throwing left-handed pitcher found plenty of success throughout his career, hence the Hall of Fame selection, but one club in particular gave him a good amount of trouble.

Since Sabathia became a member of the Yankees in 2009, the Rays offense has given him a rather difficult time. Tampa Bay hitters have recorded an impressive .294 AVG against the lefty in those nine campaigns. Within this large sample size, there were some notable seasons where the California native imploded against the Rays hitters.

For instance, Tampa Bay hit .370 as a team against Sabathia in 2014, a season in which the Rays finished with a lackluster 77-85 record. These are fascinating statistics as the Rays and Yankees have had their fair share of scuffles with their New York rival in CC Sabathia's tenure. In fact, the left-handed starter has been the catalyst for a few of those fights.

Within all of the tension, Rays fans will genuinely admit the potential Hall of Famer's success. As a Yankee, Sabathia had the 6th best WAR among American League starting pitchers. He also finished tied for 5th in wins during that span, accumulating 129 total victories.

Impressively, his accolades in New York don't even match up with his performance with the Cleveland Indians. Sabathia was named to three All-Star teams and won the 2007 Cy Young award as a member of the Indians organization.

Nonetheless, receiving votes in a Hall of Fame ballot is an extremely difficult feat, due to the limited number of votes that each writer is supplied with and the 27 other former stars hoping to be etched in the historic halls of Cooperstown.

The other starting pitchers included on this year's ballot are Mark Buehrle, Felix Hernandez, and fellow Yankees, Andy Pettitte. This group of possible inductees is chock-full of exceptionally gifted position players as well, such as Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones, and Japanese legend, Ichiro Suzuki.

If we analyze the starting pitchers on this ballot, Sabathia would probably be considered the best of the four hurlers, with Pettitte and Buehrle close on his tail. Although, the writers will find constraints in voting for Sabathia due to the immense talent from the hitters on this ballot.