The Yankees Are A Mess, But Gerrit Cole Has Earned Every Cent Of His Massive Contract

One of the worst things about signing a contract with the New York Yankees is that you immediately become overrated. It’s kind of bizarre how that works. Gerrit Cole in 2018 and 2019 with the Astros was fucking incredible. In the second half of 2019, the guy was absolutely unstoppable. Every team in baseball wanted to sign this guy after that season, but he ended up going to the Yankees, the team that he grew up loving. Almost immediately after that came backlash. It got way worse in 2021 after the reports came out of the number of pitchers who had been using foreign substances. Cole was at the forefront of that story. But much like the Astro sign-stealing scandal, the number of people who were adamant that Gerrit Cole would be putting up a seven ERA because he couldn’t use Spider Tack anymore got a little bit out of hand. Gerrit Cole is one of the best pitchers of a generation. He’s earned every cent of the contract the New York Yankees have given him.

Baseball really is a team sport, isn't it? If it was an individual game, the Los Angeles Angels would be in the pennant chase right now. I bring this up because if you had told me after the 2019 season that Gerrit Cole was going to continue to pitch Cy Young caliber baseball and that Aaron Judge was going to have a 62-home run season for the Yankees, I would've assumed that they would have a world championship by now. That has not been the case. Not only have the Yankees not won a world championship, they haven't come particularly close. They made it to the ALCS last year, but were completely overmatched by Cole's former team, the Houston Astros. This year, they're going to miss the playoffs and could potentially finish with a .500 record for the first time in my life. With that said, Gerrit Cole has not been the issue. 

Cole is currently in the driver's seat to win his first Cy Young award. He's finished in the top 10 Cy Young voting every year that he's been with the Yankees, including a second-place finish in 2021. He currently leads the American League in ERA and innings pitched. As good as he's been, most Yankees fans would acknowledge that they signed Cole because they needed a postseason ace. Cole has been that. In seven postseason starts with the Yankees, Cole is 4-2 with a 3.49 ERA. Those numbers are slightly inflated largely because he had one disastrous start in the American League wildcard game in Fenway Park against the Red Sox in 2021. He denied it, but I don't think Cole was healthy going into that start, and the numbers reflected that. While Houston embarrassed the Yankees in the ALCS last year, the only reason they were there in the first place is because Cole was lights out in his two starts in the ALDS against the Guardians. 

The Yankees find themselves in a peculiar position. Even with the injuries, when Aaron Judge plays, he's essentially unstoppable. They have an ace in Gerrit Cole. Anthony Volpe seems as though he's going to develop into a very solid everyday player, and yet the Yankees continue to fall behind. The Baltimore Orioles aren't going anywhere. The Tampa Bay Rays are still good, as are the Toronto Blue Jays. I can't imagine a universe in which the Yankees blow it up, but they've done a poor job of building around their cornerstone pieces. Gerrit Cole has made it known that he wants to be a Yankee for the rest of his career, but with how things are going, you wonder how many opportunities he'll have to pitch big games in the prime of his career. He's showing no signs of slowing down, but he's the best starting pitcher the Yankees have had since CC Sabathia was dealing in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Whether or not they waste him, he deserves his flowers. He's been incredible in pinstripes.