As the Yankees turn their focus to 2022 and the issues that need to be addressed this offseason, there’s one question that’s especially tricky: What exactly do they have in Gerrit Cole?
The ace started the season looking just as the Yankees had imagined when they signed him to a nine-year, $324 million deal prior to the 2020 season.
Through his first 11 starts (in April and May), Cole had a 1.78 ERA, had struck out 97, walked only nine and allowed just five homers. He was holding opposing hitters to a .530 OPS in 70 ²/₃ innings.
Then, in mid-June, MLB announced it would empower umpires to begin enforcing its regulations against the use of foreign substances (word had begun to spread in early June, when MLB suspended four minor league pitchers for using foreign substances).
Beginning with his start on June 3, when he allowed five runs in five innings against Tampa Bay, Cole finished the year with a jarringly mediocre 19 outings, in which he had a 4.15 ERA, struck out 146, walked 32 and allowed 19 homers. Opposing batters had an OPS of .704 in 110 ²/₃ innings.
Cole capped it off, following a left hamstring injury, with three rough outings in which he allowed 15 runs in 17 ²/₃ innings, before he fell flat in the AL wild-card game in Boston.
His outing at Fenway Park, during which he was tagged for two home runs and three runs in just two-plus innings, was as damaging as any aspect of that Yankees loss.
Other factors contributed to that defeat: the underwhelming showing from the offense, Giancarlo Stanton staring at what he thought would be a homer that hit the Green Monster and instead went for just a single, third-base coach Phil Nevin’s the ill-advised decision to wave Aaron Judge around from first base on another Stanton shot off the Monster or less-than-stellar work from the bullpen. Nothing, however, compared to the no-show from the pitcher with the richest contract in major league history.
Cole turned 31 last month and should be in his prime. The Yankees had better hope that’s the case, since now is when they expect to get the biggest bang for their buck from the right-hander.
But the dropoff in performance following the crackdown on sticky substances is certainly going to be a concern until Cole proves he can be dominant under current conditions.
Asked before the wild-card game how he’d coped with the new regulations, Cole said: “Just make the adjustment along the way and I guess not think about it. You know, it is the landscape that we play in, so you’ve just got to go and execute pitches.”
There wasn’t enough of that in the second half of the season, although there were flashes of the old Cole.
A July 10 outing against the Astros was vintage Cole, when he tossed a shutout and whiffed a dozen. He followed that up by striking out 11 and giving up just a run in six innings against the Red Sox.
And during a four-start stretch, following a stint on the COVID IL, Cole gave up just a pair of runs in 24 ²/₃ innings, striking out 39 and walking four.
He wasn’t pitching as deep into games as he had earlier in the season, but in the fourth start of that span, Cole was brilliant, striking out 15 — with no walks — while allowing a run in seven innings to the Angels.
Any hopes of building on that were dashed when he was forced out of his next start against the Blue Jays on Sept. 7 with tightness in his left hamstring. The rest of his season was a disappointment.
He finished with 183 ¹/₃ innings pitched — including the wild-card game — which doubled his workload from the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
Cole said the jump in innings didn’t impact his performance and now he and the Yankees have the offseason to try to get him back to his Cy Young form.