Breaking down very formidable Yankees rotation after Roki Sasaki rejection
The hunt for Roki Sasaki is over, which likely means most of the drama around the Yankees rotation is over for the rest of the offseason.After Sasaki rejected the Yankees on Monday, the club’s starting group looks set — apart from the wild card that is Marcus Stroman, whom the club has looked to trade as a way to free up salary.The Yankees can proceed with Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt penciled in as their front five.Stroman would project as either a sixth starter or a swingman, but the $18 million he is due for 2025 might be better spent elsewhere.
The 40-man depth includes Will Warren, JT Brubaker, Clayton Beeter and Yoendrys Gomez.Without now-Met Juan Soto, the Yankees have upgraded elsewhere.They hope the addition of Fried has turned a good rotation (that rated as the 13th most valuable last season, according to FanGraphs, without Cole for a long stretch) into a great one.“We feel like we’ve added a championship piece [in Fried] to … what we believe is an outstanding rotation,” manager Aaron Boone said last month.Here’s a look at a rotation that GM Brian Cashman called “very formidable”:Cole: In what was a strange 2024, the ace missed almost the entirety of spring training and nearly three months of the season with nerve inflammation and edema in his right elbow.
He returned with a few hiccups and his stuff a notch below his usual standard, but any lingering questions about his excellence were answered in a dominant postseason.In five starts, he tallied a 2.17 ERA, virtually his only mistake not reaching first base on that Mookie Betts ground ball.After a rare injury and a rare abbreviated season, Cole is handling this offseason a bit differently.“He actually took a little bit less time off this year, kind of kept the arm moving,” pitching coach Matt Blake said last month.Fried: The Yankees introduced a pitcher whose resume earned him $218 million and suggested he has not been maximized.In bringing in ...