CC Sabathia feels that his former New York Yankees teammate, Andy Pettitte, should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“For me, Andy’s a Hall of Famer,” Sabathia said this week of Andy Pettitte. “Getting a chance to pitch alongside him, getting a chance to still talk to him pretty much all the time — I believe he’s a Hall of Famer.”

CC Sabathia was an ace. You know who screamed this fact loudest? Not me. The sport did. The sport told us what the final numbers didn’t.

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Most New York Yankees fans fear Andy Pettitte will never make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The left-handed legend, however, has the biggest promoter in Cooperstown leading the campaign to get him in. Newly-elected Hall of Famer CC Sabathia made it clear to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch that Pettitte belongs in the Hall.

After former Yankee CC Sabathia was inducted into the Hall of Fame this offseason, he quickly endorsed his former teammate, Andy Pettitte.

Given the trends in baseball over the last 25 years, our thresholds for starting pitchers must be recalibrated to reward short bursts of dominance and sustained excellence.

While Sabathia was a runaway choice in the Hall of Fame election, selected on 86.8% of the ballots by the Baseball Writers' Association of America – joining peers Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner – this ultimate honor meant much, much more than just a museum plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Hunter Pence (Tri-City ValleyCats, 2004) and Andy Pettitte (Albany-Colonie Yankees, 1993-94) played minor league baseball a decade apart in the Capital Region. They missed being MLB

CC Sabathia’s anticipated election to the Baseball Hall of Fame will hopefully encourage people to think differently regarding the achievements of starting pitchers.

CC Sabathia adds another C to his name now, for Cooperstown, now that he becomes the latest great Yankee to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

The BBWAA recognized CC Sabathia’s prolonged excellence by voting the former Yankees left-hander into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.