The New York Yankees have an embarrassment of riches in their starting pitching department and will only get better once Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón return.
Cam Schlittler has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since he made his debut. Max Fried is also one of the best pitchers in the sport, Ryan Weathers is intriguing, and Will Warren has looked great so far this season. Luis Gil, not so much.
The Yankees can’t expect Cole to be at the peak of his powers upon arrival, and they can afford that, as he can slot behind Schlittler and Fried in the rotation. Cole just finished his first Double-A rehab start with the Somerset Patriots and threw 44 pitches across 4 1/3 innings.
Rodón, on the other hand, should come back before Cole, according to New York manager Aaron Boone, after recovering from offseason elbow surgery. Rodón has had a tumultuous tenure in New York, but he’s bounced back nicely, especially last season, when he was named an All-Star.
The Yankees’ fifth starting rotation spot should come down to Warren vs. Weathers, assuming nobody gets injured. Gil isn’t even in the conversation, respectfully.
Let’s start with Warren since he’s coming off the best start of his career against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday. He delivered a delightful seven-inning performance in which he struck out 11 hitters, which tied a career high, had zero walks, limited damage contact, and also got 11 whiffs. Warren’s always had the strikeout stuff; he made 33 starts last season and struck out 171 batters in 162.1 innings, but struggled to go deep and limit hard contact. The only blemish on Warren’s start on Saturday was a two-run home run to Carter Jensen in the seventh inning; he didn’t give in and walk him on a three-ball count.
In five starts this season, Warren’s pitching to a 2.24 ERA, while striking out 31 batters in 25.1 innings. Warren also has a 1.11 Walks And Hits Per Inning Pitched, a 3.04 Fielding Independent Pitching, and a 0.6 Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement. The underlying metrics and expected stats also don’t mind him, as he has a 3.65 expected ERA and a .251 expected batting average. Warren has a five-pitch arsenal with his four-seam fastball, sinker, sweeper, changeup, and curveball. An interesting part of his game is getting a bunch of called strikes to offset his lower chase and whiff percentages.
Warren’s fastball, sinker, and changeup are his best pitches by expected batting average at .199, .228, and .200. Batters are actually hitting .231, .241, and .125 against them currently. Warren’s given up all three of his home runs this season on fastballs, but his sweeper has the most expected slugging percentage at a resounding .648. The pitch is actually being hit at a .437 slugging percentage as of now, but you can expect it to increase if he doesn’t fine-tune it.
Warren only has two pitches with over a 24% whiff percentage: his fastball with a 24.7 whiff % and his changeup with a 38.5% whiff %. It also helps that Warren has a miniscule 5.7% walk rate and a 50.7% ground ball rate, putting him in the 84th and 74th percentile. In terms of velocity, he throws an average of about 94 miles per hour on his fastball, but has topped out at 97.
We’ve seen the good and bad from Weathers so far this season in only five starts. In his second-to-last start against the Los Angeles Angels, he struck out 10 batters, but also gave up three homers in the first inning of the game. Weathers gave up four homers overall and five runs in total across five innings. In the game prior, he threw eight innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts against a good Athletics lineup.
In Weathers’ recent start against the Royals on Sunday, he threw seven shutout innings with only one walk and seven strikeouts. Weathers was able to generate ground balls, had 13 swings and misses, a 33% whiff rate, and bounced back beautifully.
New York showed their faith in Weathers by trading for him from the Miami Marlins, even with his laundry list of injuries. This is a pitcher who’s only maxed out at 94.2 innings in his rookie season with the San Diego Padres in 2021. The Yankees traded away outfield prospects Dillon Lewis and Brendan Jones, who were trending upwards, and also traded infield prospects Dylan Jasso and Juan Matheus.
Weathers’ underlying metrics and expected stats aren’t as stout as Warren’s, with a 4.59 Expected ERA, .265 xBA, 12.5 Barrel %, and a 43.1 Hard-Hit %. Weathers makes up for that with a 31% strikeout rate, 34.6% chase rate, and a 27.4% whiff rate. Weathers also has a low walk rate at only 6.9 %, putting him in the 74th percentile. Weathers currently has a 3.27 FIP to go along with a 3.18 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 28.1 innings with a 1.24 WHIP.
Weathers has five pitches in his arsenal: Four-seam fastball, changeup, sweeper, sinker, and slider. The best pitch in his repertoire is the sweeper, as he’s given up zero hits on it in 86 pitches and has an absurd 47.6% whiff rate on it. The sweeper is so good that it has an xSLG of only .057 on it and a .051 xBA. Weathers’ fastball is thrown at 32.2% of the time, with a .281 batting average against, .308 xBA, .625 SLG against, .750 xSLG, and a 23.4% whiff percentage.
Weathers’ changeup is his second most used pitch, coming in at 22%, a .259 BA, .252 xBA, .370 SLG, .314 xSLG, but an enticing 30.8% whiff rate. Weathers’ sinker is thrown 18.1% of the time and is his weakling with a .417 BA, .400 xBA, .542 SLG, and a .612 xSLG. The slider is his last pitch; he throws it 8.8% of the time, it has a .091 BA, a .132 xBA, .091 SLG percentage, a .222 xSLG, and a 42.9% whiff rate against it.
I would currently give the upper hand to Warren. His underlying metrics and expected stats are currently better, and his production has been above Weathers so far. Weathers also profiles more as a reliever than Warren, with his velocity and limited innings in years past.
In terms of Gil, this is the same guy they sent to Triple-A to start the season, after all. His metrics are a sight for sore eyes, especially with a 6.45 Expected ERA, being fifth percentile in Average Exit Velocity, ninth percentile in chase percentage, 13th percentile in Barrel %, and 12th percentile in Hard-Hit%. Gil only has a 17.2% strikeout rate this season, a 12.2% walk rate, a 7 ERA in nine innings, and a 1.44 WHIP. That isn’t going to cut it, especially with how Warren and Weathers are performing.
This is a great problem for New York to have; starting pitching is expensive, and they have a surplus of talent. It wouldn’t be a hot take at all to say that New York has three ace-level pitchers in Schlittler, Fried, and Cole.
It’s going to be great to see Warren and Weathers continue to fight it out for this fifth starter spot. Hopefully for their sake, they keep rising to the occasion and putting their best foot forward to lock in on this opportunity in front of them. For now, though, this is 26-year-old Warren’s job to lose with close to a month to go. Pitching coach Matt Blake, both pitchers, and the rest of the pitching department have done an outstanding job to put them in this scenario.
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