Cortes determined to prove his out-of-nowhere ’22 was no fluke THE 'REAL' DEAL
TAMPA — The Yankees pitchers who have it made — contract, positional certainty — have lockers that line the left wall immediately after the entrance to the home clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field.
Nestor Cortes was not on that Main Street last year. He was in the locker occupied this spring training by Luis Gil, who is rehabbing following Tommy John surgery. That locker is along the back wall, bracketed by the food room on one side and the bathroom on the other.
When manager Aaron Boone came to sit with Cortes last February, early in camp, the left-hander was unsure of his status. He asked his manager if he was going to make the team. Boone reassured him, actually a lot more than that: “You know you are going to be in the All-Star Game, don’t you?”
Cortes remembered, “I looked at him like, ‘Whatever.’ ”
Boone proved prescient, not preposterous as Cortes put the “star” in startling performances last year.
As similar statements go in Yankees history, the winner still belongs to former scout Dick Groch. The members of the Yankees’ drafting apparatus were concerned that schoolboy shortstop Derek Jeter would go to college if the Yankees took him with the sixth overall pick in 1992. Groch reassured his bosses that, “He’s not going to Michigan, the only place he is going is Cooperstown.”
Thirty years later, Boone offered a fine runner-up as Cortes ended up going to Dodger Stadium as an All-Star.
Cortes had shockingly pitched well for the 2021 Yankees, stepping into the rotation full time late
in July with Domingo German, Michael King (still a starter option), Corey Kluber and Luis Severino injured and Gerrit Cole about to be out for a few weeks with COVID-19. But it was possible to believe Cortes was just a latter-day Aaron Small. Out of nowhere, Small had gone 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA for a 2005 Yankees squad that experienced rotation devastation, then sank to 0-3 with an 8.46 ERA the following year and was out of the majors for good.
After all, Cortes didn’t exactly have the pedigree of a sure thing. There were 103 players in the majors last year who were signed out of the 2013 draft. Of those, only Kevin Herget (39th round, pick 1,175) went later than Cortes (36th, 1,094). Cortes followed with a fitting transaction page: waived by the Yankees, designated for assignment by the Orioles, designated for assignment by the Yankees and outrighted off the 40-man roster by the Mariners.
So when the Yankees signed him for the third time, on a minor league deal in January 2021, he seemed more likely to eventually work at Allstate than be an AllStar.
But there was something about Cortes’ fastball, in particular, that struck Boone during the best of 2021. During his playing career, Boone had faced lefties who did not wow with heat, such as Ted Lilly and Randy Wolf, yet their fastballs played before it could better be explained why by using spin rate and movement data. The numbers on Cortes’ fastball were elite. He threw it from three-quarters and it had ride and, as Cole noted, his command of it was “well above major league average.”
“That heater,” Boone said, “was a problem for major league hitters. And it was clear he had command and moxie and cojones.”
Still, Cortes was uncertain enough that he called pitching coach Matt Blake that offseason and asked what his chances were to make the 2022 Yankees. He did the same with Boone during spring training. He has no such worries now. He has graduated from Small possibilities to large dreams — like being a baseball John Starks or Victor Cruz; the out-of-nowhere guys who went beyond aberrations to become New York stars.
But that first graduation was not enough for Cortes. He wants his masters. He wants 30 starts and 175-plus innings (he had 28 and 158 ¹/₃ last year).
“I want to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke last year,” Cortes said. “I want to make a statement to everybody that I’m for real, I guess not only for people but for me. I feel sometimes you can have one good year and then fall off the map. But in this case, I want to be good for a few more years or however long I’m playing.”
Cortes knows that to maximize his skill, he has to conquer lowerbody injuries that impacted him late last season and led to a hamstring strain that cost him a chance to play for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic next month. He insists he is obsessing on his flexibility, strength and hydration to that end, and did recover quickly from the hamstring problem to throw a bullpen session Friday.
“For him, I think it is about getting to 30 [starts] and 180 [innings] now and then squeezing every last drop out of it in the playoffs,” Cole said. “I want him to have the combination of the stuff and the ramp up and then be in that position to be that career starter.”
Cole said that from in front of his locker on that left wall Main Street in the Yankees’ spring clubhouse. A lot has changed in a year.
The next locker over belongs to Cortes.