Earlier Monday night, against the Toronto Blue Jays, on a clear evening in Dunedin, Florida, New York Yankees assassin Gerrit Cole struggled to enter a good groove. He allowed a run in the first half on two field balls opposite the ground and a field goal, but there was more visible frustration on his face, while leaving a few breaking balls in the area, which suggested that Jays would get better at him when they had a chance.
Toronto won the first two runners at the bottom of the second, a golden opportunity to extend that early advantage. Cole then found the ditch exactly when he needed it. He ventilated Alejandro Kirk on three pitches, making him look at a slider at the bottom of the area. He hit Josh Palacios, swinging on a 98 mph radiator above the top of the area. He hit Marcus Semien, changing to 2-2 on the outside corner. Three different pitches – slider, fastball, change – all in great locations.
The Blue Jays let Cole out of the hook. He jumped off the mound after hitting Semien, ran into the dam, and cooled off in front of a large fan. Cole threw 43 pitches in the first two innings, but found his command of fastball, tightened the slider, and withdrew the last 15 strokes he faced, settling for eight hits and three hits allowed over six innings. what the Yankees won 3-1, with catcher Kyle Higashioka leading in all three runs on two home runs. Cole needed just 55 pitches to get through the next four innings, and on his 98th and final pitch, Cole painted black with a fast ball of 99.2 mph.
“We just thought we were settling in, really nothing more than that,” Cole said. “Some big misses in the first, but not a ton of bad pitches in the attacking zone. In the second, a much better grouping of pitches, a kind of combination of early sliders and a solid approach.”
This is the story of the 10 Yankees games of the season: Cole looks like one of the top three starting players in the game. However, the rest of the Yankees rotation remains a huge question mark. Domingo German, who started the third game of the season in New York, has already been relegated to the team’s alternative site, after allowing four rounds from home in two rough outings. Jordan Montgomery had an excellent first start and then allowed two rounds from home and hit two beats in such a second start. Corey Kluber struggled with the command and is still looking for the speed and spin rates he hit before the forearm and shoulder injuries that cost him most of the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
Cole has an ERA 1.47 in three starts, while the other beginners have combined for an ERA 5.28. All the small things of the sample, of course, and Jameson Taillon, who has the advantage of a holder no. 2, has not yet managed to make the second start. However, nothing from the beginning has resolved the concerns of Yankees fans about how everyone is behind Cole.
Can the Yankees meet their pre-season projection of 95 wins – or more – without a solid, reliable holder no. This is an important question, because the difference between 95 victories and, say, 90 victories is obviously significant. A 95-win season makes the Yankees the heavyweight favorites to win the Eastern American League; drops to 90 wins, and the Rays, Blue Jays and maybe even the Red Sox are more likely to breathe their necks.
I looked at all the teams that would win at least 95 games from 2010 to 2019 – that is, 42 teams – and I checked the value of their starters no. 1 and no. 2, relying strictly on the Baseball-Reference WAR and not on the games started or halves (looking for quality over quantity). There are two results to consider here: the difference in WAR between the first two incumbents and the Combined War of the first two incumbents.
Let’s start with the latter. The 42 teams had on average 8.6 WAR from their first two starters; I was a little surprised that it wasn’t bigger. A 2 WAR pitcher is about an average starter in the league, so we look, on average, at four to five wins above average between the top two starters for our 95-win teams. Here are the top five and lowest five totals on this list:
Top five
1. Phillies 2011 (102 wins): 17.3 WAR (Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee)
2. Astros 2019 (107 victories): 14.1 WAR (Justin Verlander and Cole)
3. Phillies 2010 (97 wins): 14.0 WAR (Halladay and Lee)
4. National 2017 (97 victories): 13.7 WAR (Max Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez)
5. Indians 2017 (102 victories): 13.1 WAR (Kluber and Carlos Carrasco)
Bottom five
1. 2018 Brewers (96 wins): 3.4 WAR (Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley)
2. 2018 A (97 victories): 3.8 WAR (Sean Manaea and Edwin Jackson)
3. Yankees 2019 (103 wins): 4.8 WAR (James Paxton and German)
4. Oriole 2014 (96 victories): 5.0 WAR (Chris Tillman and Miguel Gonzalez)
5. A 2019 (97 wins): 5.0 WAR (Mike Fiers and Brett Anderson)
The Yankees can only look at their recent past to realize that you can win not only 95 games, but 103 without a top 1-2 combination. In 2019, Paxton won 15-6 with an ERA of 3.82 in 29 starts (2.6 WAR), and the German went 18-4, but with an ERA of 4.03 in 24 starts (2 , 2 WAR). Due to a dominant bullpen and an offensive that hit 306 runs at home and led AL with 943 runs, the Yankees won AL East.
The average gap between the holders no. 1 and no. 2 for our teams with 95 victories was 1.6 WAR. Cole was worth 6.7 WAR in his last season with the Astros in 2019, so he reasonably projects as a pitcher with 6 wins in 2021. There is also a reasonable belief that holder no. 2 for the Yankees will not be a 4-win pitcher, so if Taillon or anyone who finishes in 2nd place is an average pitcher in the league, this is a potential 4 WAR difference from Cole. The top five biggest differences from our study teams:
1. Tigers 2011 (95 victories): 6.1 WAR (Verlander and Doug Fister)
2. Puppies 2015 (97 victories): 5.5 WAR (Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester)
3. Yankees 2011 (97 wins): 3.5 WAR (CC Sabathia and Freddy Garcia)
4. Rays 2010 (96 wins): 3.1 WAR (David Price and Matt Garza)
5. Phillies 2010 (97 wins): 3.0 WAR (Halladay and Lee)
Is there anything to conclude from this? It is true that the decrease from Cole to starter no. The Yankees’ 2 could be quite exceptional for a team with 95 wins … which suggests that if no one is behind Cole, the Yankees are likely to win less than 95 games. On the other hand, Cole plus an average of league no. 2 are good enough historically to face a team with 95 victories.
Perhaps the best answer is this: the depth of rotation will be the final determining factor for how many games the Yankees win (assuming a high-powered offense, which we should mention has not yet begun to pass). As Gerrit Cole said on Monday, he will be great if he stays healthy. However, we still have a lot to learn about Corey Kluber & Co.