Kicking off his Monday night start against the Toronto Blue Jays on a clear evening in Dunedin, Florida, New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole fought to get into a good groove. He gave up a run in the first inning on two ground ball singles at the opposite field and an infield groundout, but it was more the frustration that showed on his face when he left a few breaking balls in the zone that suggested the Jays better go to. him when they had the chance.
Toronto got its first two runners on base in the bottom of the second inning, a golden opportunity to extend that early lead. Cole then found that groove exactly when he needed it. He blew Alejandro Kirk on three throws, making him look at a slider at the bottom of the zone. He knocked out Josh Palacios swinging on a 300 mph heater above the top of the zone. He eliminated Marcus Semien after a 2-2 substitution on the outside corner. Three different pitches – slider, fastball, changeup – all in great locations.
The Blue Jays had let Cole go. He jumped off the mound after striking Semien, sprinted to the dugout and cooled off in front of a big fan. Cole threw 43 pitches in the first two innings, but found his fastball command, tightened the slider and retired the last 15 batters he faced, settling for eight strikeouts and three hits allowed for six innings when the Yankees won 3-1, with catcher Kyle Higashioka driving in all three runs on two homeruns. It took Cole only 55 pitches to get through the next four innings, and on his 98th and final pitch, Cole painted black with a 99.2 mph fastball.
“I just thought we settled in, really nothing more than that,” Cole said. “Some big misfires in the first, but not many bad throws in the attack zone. In the second, much better grouping of pitches, sort of a combination of early sliders and a solid approach.”
Here’s the story of the Yankees 10 games in the season: Cole looks like one of the top three starting pitchers in the game. However, the rest of the Yankees’ rotation remains a big question mark. Domingo German, who started the third game of the season in New York, had already been relegated to the team’s alternate venue after giving up four homeruns in two rough outings. Jordan Montgomery had a great first start, then gave up two homeruns and hit two batters in a poor second start. Corey Kluber has struggled with command and is still looking for the speed and spin speeds he achieved before the forearm and shoulder injuries that cost him most of the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
Cole has a 1.47 ERA in three starts, while the other starters have combined for a 5.28 ERA. All small things of course, and Jameson Taillon, who has the advantage of a No. 2 starter, has yet to make his second start. Still, nothing in the beginning has allayed Yankees fans’ concerns about how everyone is behind Cole.
Can the Yankees live up to their preseason projection of 95 wins – or more – without a solid, reliable No. 2 starter? It’s an important question, because the difference between 95 wins and 90 wins, for example, is clearly significant. A season of 95 wins makes the Yankees big favorites to win the American League East; drop to 90 wins and the Rays, Blue Jays and maybe even the Red Sox will breathe a lot more on their necks.
I looked at all the teams that won at least 95 games between 2010 and 2019 – that’s 42 teams – and checked the value of their No. 1 and No. 2 starters, based solely on Baseball-Reference WAR and not on games or innings started thrown (in the search for quality over quantity). There are two results to consider here: the difference in WAR between the two best starters and the combined WAR of the two best starters.
Let’s start with the latter. The 42 teams averaged 8.6 WAR from their top two starters; I was a little surprised it wasn’t higher. A 2-WAR pitcher is about a league average starter, so we’re looking at an average of four to five wins above the average between the top two starters for our 95-win teams. These are the top five and bottom five totals on this list:
Top five
1. Phillies 2011 (102 wins): 17.3 WAR (Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee)
2.119 Astros (107 wins): 14.1 WAR (Justin Verlander and Cole)
2010 Phillies (97 wins): WAR 14.0 (Halladay and Lee)
4. Nationals 2017 (97 wins): 13.7 WAR (Max Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez)
5. 2017 Indians (102 wins): 13.1 WAR (Kluber and Carlos Carrasco)
Bottom five
2018 Brewers (96 wins): 3.4 WAR (Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley)
2018 A’s (97 wins): 3.8 WAR (Sean Manaea and Edwin Jackson)
3.119 Yankees (103 wins): 4.8 WAR (James Paxton and German)
2014 Orioles (96 wins): 5.0 WAR (Chris Tillman and Miguel Gonzalez)
5.119 A’s (97 wins): 5.0 WAR (Mike Fiers and Brett Anderson)
The Yankees can just look at their recent past to realize that not only can you win 95 games, but also 103 without a top 1-2 combo. In 2019, Paxton went 15-6 with a 3.82 ERA in 29 starts (2.6 WAR) and German 18-4, but with a 4.03 ERA in 24 starts (2.2 WAR). Thanks to a dominant bullpen and foul that yielded 306 home runs and led the AL with 943 runs, the Yankees won the AL East.
The average gap between the No. 1 and No. 2 starters for our 95 win teams was 1.6 WAR. Cole was worth 6.7 WAR during his last season with the Astros in 2019, so he is reasonably projecting to be a 6-win pitcher in 2021. Likewise, there is a reasonable belief that the No. will be. pitcher, so if Taillon or anyone else finishes when their number 2 is an average pitcher, that’s a potential 4 WAR difference from Cole. The five biggest differences with our teams in the study:
1. 2011 Tigers (95 wins): 6.1 WAR (Verlander and Doug Fister)
2.115 Cubs (97 wins): 5.5 WAR (Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester)
2011 Yankees (97 wins): 3.5 WAR (CC Sabathia and Freddy Garcia)
2010 Rays (96 wins): 3.1 WAR (David Price and Matt Garza)
5.1010 Phillies (97 wins): 3.0 WAR (Halladay and Lee)
Can anything be concluded from this? It’s true that Cole’s drop to the Yankees’ No. 2 starter could be quite exceptional for a team with 95 wins … suggesting that if no one gets behind Cole, the Yankees are likely to win fewer than 95 games. On the other hand, Cole plus a No. 2 league average has historically been good enough to face a team with 95 wins.
Perhaps the best answer is this: It’s the depth of rotation that will be the ultimate determining factor in how many games the Yankees win (assuming a powerful attack, which we should note is not yet to go into effect). As he showed on Monday, Gerrit Cole will be great if he stays healthy. However, we still have a lot to learn about Corey Kluber & Co.