CC Sabathia says 2019 will be his final season in Major League Baseball.
''This will be it,'' the 38-year-old left-hander said in a video posted on Twitter on Wednesday after the New York Yankees finalized his $8 million, one-year contract.
Sabathia and New York had reached the agreement Tuesday, subject to a successful physical.
A six-time All-Star and the 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner, Sabathia went 9-7 with a 3.65 ERA in 29 starts this year. He had surgery on his right knee after the 2010 season, in July 2014, after the 2016 season and again last month.
Back for one more! #Yankees #R2C2 pic.twitter.com/YvDdpgexVu
— CC Sabathia (@CC_Sabathia) November 7, 2018
Sabathia signed a $161 million, seven-year contract with the Yankees before the 2009 season and led New York to its first World Series title since 2000, then used the leverage of an opt-out
provision after the 2011 season to get a new deal that added a $25 million salary for 2016 with a $25 million team option for 2017.
''At this stage of the game, we should know sooner or later whether we'll be able to agree on something or not,'' Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had said earlier Tuesday.
''Last year we had to be really careful about every step we took in terms of financial commitments so it took longer because we were having to have that luxury-tax issue in the back of our minds.''
New York dropped below the luxury-tax threshold for the first time in 2018. The Yankees' projected rotation for 2019 also includes right-handers Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka, and Cashman says he intends to add several pitchers after the team went 100-62 only to finish second in the AL East and lose in the Division Series to Boston, the eventual World Series champion.
— with files from MetroSource