SAN DIEGO — This is where the Yankees finished their greatest season ever, more than two decades ago, when they swept the San Diego Padres in the World Series. By the next opening day, they had acquired Roger Clemens.
That is who the Yankees used to be — the bullies of the Bronx, the team you loved or hated but could never ignore. They would get the best pitcher in baseball, the strapping right-hander who strikes everybody out, just because they could.
So it is again. Late Tuesday night, the Yankees jolted the winter meetings by reaching a nine-year, $324 million contract agreement with Gerrit Cole, the overpowering ace who helped eliminate them in American League Championship Series for the Houston Astros. Whether this excites you or enrages you, you have to acknowledge what it means: The championship-or-bust Yankees are back.
Baseball is better when the Yankees behave this way. When they are not the “fully operational Death Star,” as General Manager Brian Cashman put it last winter, it feels like a disruption in the force. Every compelling story needs a villain, and pinstripes suit the role perfectly.
Not that the Yankees did anything villainous by giving Cole the most lucrative contract ever for a pitcher. They simply followed the playbook of his agent, Scott Boras, who had another highly motivated bidder in Cole’s hometown Los Angeles Angels and had just established a new pitcher’s benchmark on Monday.
That was when Boras brought Stephen Strasburg back to the Washington Nationals for seven years and $245 million, or $35 million per season. At 29, Cole is two years younger than Strasburg, so his contract is two years longer. His superior performance last season (20-5 with a 2.50 earned run average) demanded a higher annual salary.
At that point, the math was easy. A contract worth $1 million more per year than Strasburg — and two years longer — gets you nine years and $324 million. We should have all seen that figure coming.
Cole can opt out of the deal after five years, but the Yankees’ commitment is nine, which may not be as risky as it sounds. The Yankees signed C. C. Sabathia for the 2009 season, when Sabathia turned 29 years old. He stayed for 11 years, and while not all were ace-level, the first produced a title, and Sabathia finished as a beloved Yankee probably bound for the Hall of Fame.
Ten pitchers before Cole have signed contracts worth more than $150 million: Strasburg, David Price, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka and Jon Lester. None of those deals were busts.
Hernandez struggled badly in the last three years of his deal with Seattle, but he was a fan favorite who set almost every Mariners pitching record. The Arizona Diamondbacks ultimately could not afford Greinke’s salary, but four years into his six-year contract, he is still a star. The Boston Red Sox would trade Price if they could, but they would never give back the championship he won for them in 2018.
The Yankees view Cole in that class, and why not? For all the glory the Yankees have experienced, their single-season strikeout record is just 248, by Ron Guidry in 1978. Cole blew past 250 by the end of August last summer, on his way to 326, the most by an A.L. pitcher since Nolan Ryan in 1977.
Two of the Yankees’ top four starters, Tanaka and James Paxton, are unsigned past 2020, so Cole gives the staff the long-term anchor it lacked. In the short term, he leads a rotation that suddenly looks very imposing, with Luis Severino, Tanaka, Paxton and — if he is not traded — J.A. Happ.
The Yankees have won at least 100 games in consecutive seasons without a pennant to show for it. They needed a finishing piece, and to paraphrase the old soda slogan: Cole is it.
“We all understand and all certainly feel like we have a special group, a special team, that’s hopefully in the middle of a chance to do some great things,” Manager Aaron Boone said earlier on Wednesday. “Obviously anytime you’re talking about a player the caliber of Gerrit Cole — and knowing what he can potentially mean to our club — it’s no surprise that we are as invested as we are in pursuing him.”
Boone called Cole “a game-changing type talent,” and the Yankees badly want to change their routine. They just finished their first calendar decade since the 1910s without appearing in the World Series. They are weary of regular October knockouts — three by Houston and one by Boston since 2015 — and keenly aware that their business model depends on star attractions.
That was always George Steinbrenner’s most astute strategy, and his son Hal understands it. The Yankees are loaded now with players of spellbinding possibility. How far will Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton hit it? Will Aroldis Chapman throw his 100 mile-an-hour fastball or his wipeout slider? How many strikeouts will Cole get tonight?
If you love the Yankees, you dream about that stuff. If you hate the Yankees, it makes you groan. Either way, you care enough to watch the game in some form, which keeps cash rolling into the Bank of Steinbrenner.
No single move can guarantee that long-awaited return to the World Series, not even a record contract for an ace in his prime. But the big, bad Yankees are back, and that is good for the game.
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