Gerrit Cole To Return To Yankees

Right-hander Gerrit Cole will return to the Yankees, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post on X. Going into 2020, Cole and the Yankees signed a nine-year deal with a $36MM salary in each season, a $324MM guarantee. That deal gave Cole the ability to opt out after 2024, but the Yankees could negate that opt-out by adding yet another $36MM season for 2029. He did indeed trigger that opt-out a few days ago, forcing the Yankees to decide whether or not they wanted to add the extra year. Essentially, they would be deciding between letting Cole become a free agent versus keeping him around for five years and $180MM. Per Jeff Passan of ESPN on X, Cole will remain with the four guaranteed years and $144MM as though he did not trigger his opt-out, but extension conversations will continue.

For the first four years of the deal, Cole continued to perform at an ace level and it seemed like a slam dunk that he would trigger that opt-out but the Yanks would add the final year and keep him around. That was the general consensus one year ago when Cole won the 2023 American League Cy Young award after posting a 2.63 ERA in 209 innings over 33 starts.

But one year later, much has changed, which made the respective decisions more interesting. Cole was shut down during spring training this year with some elbow inflammation. No structural damage was found but his non-surgical rehab kept him on the shelf until June. He returned and posted strong results, but not quite as good as before the injury.

He eventually made 17 starts on the year with a 3.41 ERA. There might have been a bit of rust after the injury layoff, as he had a 6.75 ERA in his first four outings but a 2.67 in the final 13. He then posted a 2.17 ERA over his five postseason starts.

That injury-shortened season made is somewhat debatable as to whether Cole should walk away from the four years and $144MM left on his deal but he ultimately felt confident in doing so, forcing the Yankees into making a call.

Cole has been their ace but there were at least some arguments for them letting him go. Generally speaking, a free agent deal provides the best return on investment at the beginning, while the later years tend to be more painful. Getting a chance to walk away before it starts to hurt is going to have some appeal to a team, especially one that wants powder dry to bring back Juan Soto.

Beyond that, Cole’s strikeout rate declined this year, perhaps due to the injury but it was the fourth straight year of that…