The New York Yankees Rotation Has The Possibility To Be Elite
Updated: Jun 14, 2023
Like it does every year, the MLB offseason features a lot of talk about the New York Yankees, and this year has been no different. When one of the best players in the sport hits the open market, Aaron Judge, you’re going to have all the talk surrounding your ball club.
Luckily for the Yankees, Judge signed back with the club for nine years, 360 million, and the team was not done making moves. The Houston Astros swept the Yankees in the ALCS in October and needed more upgrades to the roster, So they went out and found another arm in the starting rotation.
Yankees Sign A Star Pitcher
The 30-year-old pitcher Carlos Rodon signed with the Yankees for six years and 162 million dollars last week, which includes a complete no-trade close.
Rodon Yankees deal: 6/162mm. Full no trade — Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 16, 2022
Rodon has spent eight seasons in the MLB, with the first seven with the Chicago White Sox and last season with the San Francisco Giants. Rodon has been one of the best pitchers in the MLB the last two seasons, being named an All-Star Twice and finishing fifth and sixth place in A.L and N.L CY Young Award voting.
Rodon was known as the third-best free-agent starting pitcher by many, with Jacob DeGrom, who signed with the Texas Rangers, and Justin Verlander, who signed with the New York Mets ahead of him. Rodon is an excellent pitcher, and Yankees fans should be thrilled they have another All-Star pitcher to go in their rotation.
The Starting Rotation
The starting rotation has the potential to be the best in the MLB. But, of course, we all know they have one of the best pitchers in the sport, Gerrit Cole, who is the staff’s ace.
A starting pitching rotation can’t get much better than this pic.twitter.com/OoNpUdCjj7 — Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) December 16, 2022
Nester Cortes Jr. had a coming-out party in 2022. He was named to his first All-Star Game, had 163 strikeouts, an ERA of 2.44, and finished 8th in A.L CY Young voting. Luis Severino was going to be the team’s ace at one point and had outstanding 2017 and 2018 seasons. He had over 200 strikeouts in both years and finished Top 10 in CY Young Award voting.
Severino has only started 22 regular season games since 2019, and he missed the 2020 season with Tommy John Surgery. Severino has elite stuff at times, and now him likely to be the fourth starter will be a huge blessing to this rotation if he can look just to 50% of his 2017 and 2018 self.
Frankie Montas will probably be the fifth starter, and his 2022 season didn’t end the way he wanted it to, but he still can be a solid pitcher for this ball club. Montas was traded at last season’s trade deadline from the Oakland Athletics, and he was having an excellent season with 109 strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA, but when he got to New York, it didn’t go his way.
He had a 6.35 ERA in eight regular season games in New York and was coming out of the bullpen in the playoffs, and he was not one of the first options they wanted to go to.
Final Thoughts
Adding Rodon will push everyone in the rotation down a spot besides Cole, which could help some of these guys get some of the pressure off them and back to pitching the way they know how to.
All five guys could have number one and number two starter stuff this season, which will give opposing teams headaches all season long. Of course, with baseball, you need about seven to eight guys that can start for you since every team deals with injuries to their starting rotation all season long, so they will need a few more starters.
The New York Yankees have a great lineup, and now their rotation is going to be elite, but they still need some upgrades out of the bullpen, and the team will make them, and they already signed Tommy Kahnle. There will be a lot of happy Yankees fans in the Bronx this summer watching Rodon pitch and the rest of the team.