Gerrit Cole, the Yankees and the Value of the Long Game

The Dodgers have not won the World Series since 1988, but they already have the majors’ best pitching staff (a league-low 3.37 E.R.A. last season) and may have a greater need for another Boras client, third baseman Anthony Rendon.

The Angels have hired a prominent new manager, Joe Maddon, after a devastating season in which the pitcher Tyler Skaggs died of a drug overdose in July, with team officials reportedly already aware of his drug abuse. The Angels have baseball’s best player, Mike Trout, but have not won a playoff game in his eight-year career. Last season, they didn’t have a single pitcher who made 20 starts.

The Angels also have a general manager — Billy Eppler, a former Cashman protégé — whose contract expires after 2020 and an owner, Arte Moreno, who has overwhelmed free agents with huge offers before. But will the folly of his deals for Albert Pujols (10 years, $240 million) and Josh Hamilton (five years, $125 million) hold Moreno back this time?

The Yankees must hope so, because their own motivation is obvious. A rotation of Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Severino and James Paxton, supported by a dominant bullpen and a powerful lineup, could tilt the A.L.’s balance of power away from Houston and to New York at last.

After a lackluster middle of this decade, the Yankees have grown their farm system, taken control of their payroll (relatively speaking) and resumed their annual visits to the postseason. Now comes the next move, the kind that has worked for them with Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson in the 1970s and C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira in 2009: the bold free-agent grab that tells their roster and their rivals that the Yankees are really, truly all in.

James Wagner contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/sports/baseball/yankees-gerrit-cole-winter-meetings.html?emc=rss&partner=rss