Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Shane Bieber throws during the first inning of a baseball game … [+] against the Detroit Tigers, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Last season while stumbling towards an 82-win season and getting knocked out of the expanded playoff race with a nine-game losing streak in August, the Yankees threw a combined 23,889 pitches while using 30 pitchers not including five appearances in lopsided games by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson.
Gerrit Cole threw 3,281 pitches in 209 innings. Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes whom the Yankees were counting on to form a dependable trio behind Cole, threw a combined 2,201 pitches in 127 2/3 innings, missing big chunks of the season due to injuries and not pitching effectively at times in their outings.
Shortly after the Super Bowl ends without an appearance by the Giants and Jets, the Yankees will enter spring training hopeful Rodon and Cortes can recapture their 2022 form when the left-handed duo won a combined 26 games and pitched 336 1/3 innings.
The hope is hardly a given as early projections by baseball reference peg both pitchers as winning seven games apiece and both pitchers enter the spring in prove it mode with Rodon more so than Cortes coming off the first year of a six-year, $162 million deal where he produced a 6.85 ERA that ranked as among the worst in baseball.
Those reasons signal the need for more starting pitching in the wake of Luis Severino departing in free agency for the Mets, though he was unlikely to be retained and Michael King being part of the blockbuster for Juan Soto.
The Yankees could dip into the free agent market for familiar face Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell, whom they might have researched while talking to San Diego about packages for Soto.
Or they could do another trade. Recent Yankee trades for pitching involved a mix of getting pitchers like Sonny Gray and James Paxton for more than a half season of team control or veterans like J.A. Happ for a half season before re-signing.
One getting mentioned as a possibility is Shane Bieber, the 2020 Cy Young Award winner, whom the Yankees tagged for seven runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings in the wild-card series in Cleveland. Bieber is 60-32 with a 3.27 ERA in 134 career appearances but also is an expiring contract and the Guardians have a history of trading those pitchers with the most notable being 2008 when CC Sabathia was sent to Milwaukee and 2009 when Cliff Lee was sent to Philadelphia.
Bieber is not being mentioned as extensively as Dylan Cease being moved from the White Sox and Corbin Burnes from the Brewers since like Sabathia and Lee, Cleveland may wait until the frenzy of the trade deadline in July.
Or this time could be different since Bieber is projected to make at least $12 million in arbitration according to Sportrac and MLBtraderumors.com. Cleveland, like some other teams, is facing financial uncertainty with its regional television network and may be willing to move early.
Bieber is a nice option but like Rodon and Cortes is coming off extensive time without pitching due to injury. He pitched twice after July 9 due to elbow inflammation but was mostly effective in his 128 innings, finishing with a 3.80 ERA.
A scenario where Bieber becomes a Yankee also reunited him with pitching coach Matt Blake, who served as Cleveland’s assistant director of pitching development.
The Yankees do not appear close to adding another pitcher after missing out on Yoshinobu Yamamoto and it will be interesting to see how they approach this by adding a free agent for the second straight year, playing wait and see with Rodon and Cortes or outright trading for Bieber, whose fastball velocity declined from his Cy Young year.
Until then, the intrigue will linger for a team whose 3.97 ERA was its highest in a full season since 2019 and is even higher if you do not include Cole’s performance en route to a Cy Young.
