SHOOTING FROM THE LIP
The only way to measure Gerrit Cole’s Yankee career is by how many rings he wins for the Bombers
The all-in numbers say that the Yankees are paying Gerrit Cole $324 million over the next nine years, a world’s record in terms of dollars and years for a starting pitcher. But it’s silly to look at it as being nine years at $36 million per. The reality is more like this: They are paying him around $54 million a year for six. That’s more optimistic. Or realistic.
By the way? The Yankees still had no choice but to give him all the money he wanted, and all those years, because this was about Hal Steinbrenner showing that he is fully engaged by the business of the New York Yankees, and once again attaching the Yankee brand to the World Series. If Cole helps the Yankees win even one World Series, he is worth the money, because you simply can’t quantify how much it would mean to the Yankee brand to once again make it to the last week of October.
This isn’t about the last century. Everybody knows the Yankees won the last century. It’s about this one. And in this one, the Yankees have won one World Series since 2000 and haven’t played in one since 2009.
Starting in 2004, the Red Sox have won four World Series and the Yankees have won one. Are the Red Sox in trouble now? You bet. The Yankees gave them a good beatdown last season and will do it again this season. It doesn’t change the fact that over the past 15 years, the Red Sox have become what the Yankees used to be. They finish last sometimes.
They finish out of the playoffs. They’ve still had four parades to one for the Yankees.
And one of the biggest reasons that the Yankees haven’t been able to win it all over the past 20 years is because too often they went up against a better ace pitcher than any ace they had. It was Josh Beckett of the Marlins in Game 6 at the old Stadium in the ’03 World Series. The kid was pitching on short rest. He was 23. The Yankees had no chance against him that night. Beckett struck out Derek Jeter on a high fastball in the 9th inning that Jeter still hasn’t seen.
In 2010, the Rangers got
Cliff Lee at the trade deadline. The Yankees didn’t. In Game 3 of the ALCS that year, when it was one-game-all, Lee gave the Yankees two hits in eight innings and struck out 13. He didn’t pitch again in the series. Didn’t have to. CC Sabathia was still in his prime then, and gutted his way through Game 5 when the Yankees were down three games to one. Lee was better. His team went to the World Series. The Yankees didn’t. Didn’t get the chance to make it two Series in a row.
You know what happened two years ago against Justin Verlander, after Brian Cashman basically wasn’t allowed to absorb the huge startingpitcher contract Verlander had signed with the Tigers. Verlander stuffed the Yankees twice, including in Game 6 of the ALCS when they Yankees were ahead three games to two.
It is why Yankee fans didn’t want to hear about the luxury tax this time around. They didn’t want Hal Steinbrenner to lose Gerrit Cole — the best starter in baseball last season if you don’t think Jacob deGrom was — over money. They didn’t want to get outbid by the Dodgers or the Angels. In the end, they didn’t. Steinbrenner didn’t lose Cole because he couldn’t lose him.
Anthony Rendon was the biggest hitting star on the market this time. Cole was the biggest pitching star. He was The Guy. It’s been a long time since the Yankees signed a free agent in his prime like that. Roger Clemens was old when he came here. Alex Rodriguez came in a trade. So did Giancarlo Stanton, with what was left on his own $300 million contract. The last time the Yankees really signed glamour guys like Cole was CC and Mark Teixeira, when they spent around the same amount on the two of them that they just spent on Cole. But the Yankees at that time had gone nine years without winning a Series, and six without playing one.
Then they spent their way back to the Canyon of Heroes. Now they try to do it again.
Incidentally, a lot has been made of the Sabathia signing this week, in the afterglow of the Yankees getting Cole. Before the ’09 season, CC signed a 7-year deal, for $161 million. Over the first five years of that deal he was 19-8, 21-7, 19-8, 15-6, 14-13. Of course he would eventually get re-upped, and finished his career with the Yankees. But say his deal had originally been for the same nine years that Cole just got. Over Years 6-through-9 with the Yankees, Sabathia was 3-4, 610, 9-12, before going 14-5. The won-loss record for those four years was 32-31.
Maybe in five or six years Cole will still be pitching at the same high level that his Astros teammate, Verlander, did in 2018. Maybe Cole will be that durable and he will still have his fastball when he is 35 and 36. The Yankees have made a huge bet on that. They want him to age the way Verlander has aged, not the way CC Sabathia did.
CC turned 29 his first season with the Yankees. Cole is 29 now. We know what CC was like in those first three seasons, especially. And we know how he began to break down after that. Again: Maybe Cole will be the same kind of horse that Verlander still is. Or not. Or what happened to CC will happen to him eventually.
So it really is silly to look at this as a 9-year deal. Think five or six. The Yankees got their guy, you bet. Now we see if he gets them back to the Canyon of Heroes. You don’t measure this deal in wins or Cy Young Awards. You measure it in lower Manhattan.