Few groups in MLB have been as disappointing in 2023 because the New York Yankees. Coming off a 99-win season and an AL Championship Sequence look in 2022, most anticipated the Yankees to be championship contenders — and maybe to win their first World Sequence since 2009. Nonetheless, the Yankees struggled all through the marketing campaign, and solely a sizzling end ensured their streak of successful seasons would stay intact.
Gerrit Cole, the reigning AL Cy Younger Award winner and the ace of New York‘s pitching workers, does not see a similarly-unfortunate season befalling the Yankees in 2024. As Cole advised reporters on Thursday, the Yankees’ focus is on distancing themselves as distant as potential from the ‘catastrophe’ of 2023.
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Cole’s objective: Win the World Sequence
Talking to the media from the Yankees’ spring coaching base in Tampa, Florida, Cole stated that staying wholesome might be important if the Bronx Bombers are to take a step ahead in 2024. Cole partly blamed accidents for New York’s 82-80 file in 2023, a mark that noticed baseball’s most profitable franchise end 19 video games out of first place within the AL East.
A real #2 starter behind Cole would go a good distance towards stabilizing what was a below-average rotation in 2023. Left-handed pitcher Carlos Rodon is wholesome once more after accidents restricted him to 14 begins within the first season of his six-year, $162 million contract, and the Yankees signed All-Star right-hander Marcus Stroman to a two-year contract final month.
If the pitching rotation can stay upright, the Yankees have an opportunity to bounce again rapidly and obtain Cole’s major objective, the one he has had since he swapped Houston for New York in 2020: win the World Sequence.
Cole trying ahead to watching Juan Soto
The Yankees in December pulled off one of many greatest strikes of the offseason, finishing a commerce with the Padres that noticed slugging outfielder Juan Soto transfer to the Bronx. Soto, who obtained a file $31 million in arbitration after becoming a member of New York, will present an instantaneous increase to a lineup that completed eleventh within the AL in runs scored final season.
“I am very grateful that I haven’t got to pitch in opposition to him, and I am very grateful that he is on our facet,” Cole stated Thursday.
Soto hit a career-high 35 house runs for San Diego final season, and 40-plus dingers are in play for the left-handed hitter as he arrives in New York — seeing as it is just 314 toes from house plate at Yankee Stadium to the “quick porch” in proper discipline. Soto provides supervisor Aaron Boone a lethal one-two punch subsequent to former MVP Aaron Choose within the batting order — and though Choose enjoying heart discipline will not be ultimate defensively, New York is betting that the offensive advantages will outweigh the negatives.
