Cole starts Yankees tenure with questions about Astros

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — On the day of his first formal workout with the New York Yankees, Gerrit Cole talked about what he did and did not know about the Houston Astros.

Houston was disciplined by Major League Baseball for breaking rules by using a video camera to steal signs during its run to the 2017 title and again during the 2018 season, the first after Cole was acquired from Pittsburgh.

New York lost to Houston in the AL Championship Series in both 2017 and against last year. Cole is ready to discuss the Astros if his new teammates inquire.

“I’ll just give them an honest answer, which is I had no idea of any of it going on and I didn’t see any of it,” Cole said. “So, I really don’t think I have much to apologize for.”

Will he at least explain why he got out of the Astros uniform the minute he could, and if there was any broader meaning to that?

Future sign: Cole arrives with old placard of Yankees fealty

NEW YORK (AP) — On his first day in pinstripes, Gerrit Cole admitted to stealing a sign — no, not those signs.

Cole affixed his signature to a record $324 million, nine-year contract at 10:45 a.m., walked into a news conference at Yankee Stadium and pulled out the crinkled placard he took to one of New York’s World Series games at Arizona in 2001. A newspaper photo from Game 6 or 7 shows the 11-year-old holding the sign reading: “Yankee Fan Today Tomorrow Forever.” Cole brought the banner to the Bronx, its letters no longer blue but now tan.

“I’d like to start with something that’s pretty special to my heart,” he said, pulling out the sign in a stroke of showmanship that would have made George Steinbrenner proud. “I’d just like to say, I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

Cole held up the sign of fealty with Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner — George’s son — and admitted he didn’t make the poster but was gifted it from other fans who had brought it to an earlier Series game. They gave it to him at the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix, where Cole stayed with his family, along with the Yankees.

A reminder of the importance of the love of the game for those who participate in it, as well as the rest of us.

What do the losers of the Gerrit Cole derby do now?

Gerrit Cole is now a New York Yankee. Nine years and $324 million make that so. But though the Yankees are the only team who gets him, they weren’t the only team interested in him. So let’s take a look at what the losers of the Gerrit Cole derby — the Dodgers and the Angels — can do now that they know they’ve lost.

Well, there’s always the Preakness and the Belmont…..

Yankees, Gerrit Cole agree to record 9-year, $324M deal

Prized free-agent pitcher Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees have agreed to a record nine-year, $324 million contract, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

The deal includes an opt-out clause after five years, sources told Passan, and surpasses the deal Stephen Strasburg finalized with the Washington Nationals on Monday for most total money and annual average salary for a pitcher, at $36 million.

MLB: Gerrit Cole sparks rare Yankees-Dodgers heavyweight fight

I don’t really see the Dodgers as seriously interested in Cole. That’s assuming he’s not willing to go four years with a huge AAV.

Yankees Have Reportedly Made $245MM Offer To Gerrit Cole

I'm told #Yankees have a seven-year, $245 million offer on the table for Gerrit Cole. Would be a record-setting contract for a pitcher, surpassing Greinke’s $34.4 million AAV. Question is whether #Dodgers or #Angels will go to 8-9 or even 10 years.

— Bob Klapisch (@BobKlap) December 8, 2019

Sources: Yankees make signing righty Gerrit Cole top offseason priority

The New York Yankees have made signing right-hander Gerrit Cole their clear offseason priority and have ownership-level approval to offer him a record-setting deal, sources familiar with their plans told ESPN.

The Yankees’ fondness for the 29-year-old Cole, whose fantastic 2019 season with the Houston Astros set him up to smash David Price’s record $217 million contract for a pitcher, was only reinforced during a meeting with him earlier this week, sources said.

New York and the Los Angeles Angels, a team similarly smitten with Cole and in even greater need of pitching, are preparing for a bidding war that executives expect will reach well beyond $250 million, according to sources. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ interest in Cole is acute as well, though they are also considering bids for right-hander Stephen Strasburg and third baseman Anthony Rendon, sources said.

While the expectation going into the offseason was that negotiations with Cole could stretch into January, the clear willingness of teams to engage in high-year, high-dollar deals could ratchet up the timetable, according to sources. Cole’s agent, Scott Boras, has yet to solicit offers, but the teams’ recognition of Cole’s value and understanding of multiple motivated buyers could have an expeditious effect, sources said.

Something to potentially watch for in the coming weeks.

Yankees to meet with Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg as team looks to upgrade rotation

The New York Yankees know their starting pitching held them back last season. To remedy that, the team will meet with the top two pitchers on the free-agent market.

The Yankees will sit down with both Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg over the next couple days, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Both players are represented by Scott Boras.

It’s believed that the Yankees will be more aggressive for the 29-year-old Cole, who they’ve coveted for years. While New York will make a play for Strasburg, many believe he’ll return to the Washington Nationals, according to Rosenthal.

The Yankees’ interest in both players shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Yankees won 103 games last season on the strength of their offense and bullpen. The team’s 117 wRC+ — an advanced metric that measures a team’s offensive production — ranked second last season. Their 4.08 bullpen ERA ranked ninth.

Whether or not they do anything beyond this, on the other hand….

You won’t believe this pitcher’s stat projection

Good luck paying for this projection.

Amazingly, these projections show Cole’s level of effectiveness barely budging over the next few seasons and remaining high throughout that period.

Cole’s projected ERA by year
2020: 2.57
2021: 2.56
2022: 2.59
2023: 2.66
2024: 2.75
2025: 2.82
2026: 2.92

A position-by-position look at the free agent market

Patrick Corbin was an exception last offseason.

Amid a slow free agent market — some stars didn’t sign until after the start of spring training — Corbin’s search for a new home was over in December when he received a $140 million, six-year contract from Washington.

That worked out pretty well for both team and player. Corbin was a key part of the Nationals’ starting rotation this year, and he threw three scoreless innings in relief in Game 7 of the World Series, helping the team win its first World Series title.

Now, another offseason is in full swing. It’s hard to say whether teams will be more aggressive in pursuing free agents, hoping to land the next Corbin, but the Atlanta Braves already made a significant move, signing reliever Will Smith away from San Francisco.

A consideration of the free-agent market of the moment.

Yankees plan to have talks with Cole, Strasburg

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — After falling short of reaching the World Series for the 10th straight year, the New York Yankees intend to have conversations with top free agent pitchers Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg.

“It’s a good time to be them,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Monday as the general managers meeting began. “Certainly we’ll have conversations from our perspective. And they’ll either lead to further ones or lesser ones.”

During a moonlit availability in a courtyard surrounded by palm trees, Cashman confirmed changes in the team’s staff, led by Matt Blake replacing Larry Rothschild as pitching coach. He said New York has had conversations with the agents for several of its players who became free agents, including outfielder Brett Gardner, shortstop Didi Gregorius and reliever Dellin Betances.

Starting pitching is the Yankees’ biggest need following their loss to Houston in a six-game AL Championship Series. Manager Aaron Boone’s rotation could use a premier arm to join a group that includes Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ.

Not to sign either of them- they wish to talk to them about a horse…..

Get ready for another cold offseason

It’s pretty early in the offseason. Teams can’t even sign free agents yet. But they are signaling to the public that, haha, no way do they plan to spend much money this winter.

First the Cardinals who, based on their far-from-impressive NLCS showing strike pretty much everyone as a club that, while good, needs to make some additions to take things to the next level. Will they be spending? From the Athletic:

The Cardinals have practically no financial flexibility, if history is a guide . . . The only way the Cardinals take on significant salary is to trade a major league player or two — and most of their highest-paid players are virtually unmovable — or convince the owners to spend well beyond what they have spent before . . . Does that seem in character for this team? I’ll answer that. No, it does not.

The team’s owner, Bill DeWitt Jr., was asked about that, couched in a question or two about the team’s real estate development, Ballpark Village, next to Busch Stadium. As we have chronicled in the past, teams are increasingly getting into the real estate business and such developments can be pretty massive cash cows for them. The question, though, is whether the real estate money is going to be used to subsidize spending on the baseball team or, rather, if the baseball team is primarily a promotional tool — maybe even a loss leader — for the real estate development.

Something to post now, then check back on in a few months’ time to see how accurate it was.

10 players receive qualifying offers

Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports reports that 10 players have received qualifying offers worth $17.8 million each: Josh Donaldson, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Gerrit Cole, José Abreu, Jake Odorizzi, Madison Bumgarner, Zack Wheeler, Will Smith, and Marcell Ozuna.

The players have 10 days to accept or reject the qualifying offer. Accepting means they are back under contract with the offering team for the 2020 season; rejecting means they become a free agent with draft pick compensation attached to them.

We have talked in the past about how the QO system has hampered free agency. Teams that sign a player who rejected a QO must forfeit at least one draft pick. Teams losing a player who rejected their QO receive at least one draft pick as compensation, though it’s not a direct transfer from the signing team to the previous team. The compensation varies based on the team’s payroll and whether or not it receives revenue sharing.

So, who among these do you suppose will accept the qualifying offer?

Cole, Rendon among 131 free agents on market

NEW YORK (AP) — Washington third baseman Anthony Rendon became a free agent Thursday, a day after homering to spark Washington’s seventh-inning comeback in Game 7 of the World Series.

Houston pitcher Gerrit Cole also went free after warming up in the bullpen but never getting into the season finale.

And Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg, the World Series MVP, could be joining them in the next few days. He has the right to opt out of his contract, which has $100 million over four years remaining.

Baseball’s business season starts shortly after the final out.

For those wanting something to follow this off-season.

Gerrit Cole wears Boras Corp. hat after Astros’ World Series loss, tweets message to Houston fans

The Houston Astros 2019 season had not been over for long when impending free agent Gerrit Cole started removing himself from any future Houston narrative. The Astros, baseball’s best team during the regular season, came up short in their quest for a second World Series title in three seasons as they lost Game 7 of the Fall Classic to the Nationals on Wednesday night.

Cole, who did not appear in Game 7, watched the Nats celebrate their franchise’s first ever World Series win on Houston’s turf and then had to speak to the media. His postgame outfit did not include any Astros gear. Instead, the flame-throwing righty (who is represented by agent Scott Boras) donned a hat with a logo of Boras Corp.

...

The accessory said a lot.

...

Given Houston’s already high payroll, it always seemed unlikely Cole would return to the Astros once he hit free agency. That seemed more evident by his post-Game 7 fashion statement, and by a written statement he tweeted out Thursday. Cole sent a message, thanking Astros fans and the organization.

Wait- when did Scott Boras start distributing hats?

MLB bans two women after they flashed Gerrit Cole at World Series

Major League Baseball has banned two women from games indefinitely after they flashed Houston Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole during Game 5 of the World Series. Julia Rose and Lauren Summer performed the act during the seventh inning of the contest. It was captured on camera.

MLB must have quickly reviewed that footage, because Summer received a letter from the league Sunday night. USA Today was able to confirm MLB sent the letter.

Rose and Summer were banned for “violating the fan code,” according to the note.

The two women claim they flashed Cole “for breast cancer.” They also did it in order to promote their business, a digital magazine called Shagmag.

If World Series is the goal, Yankees need to get Cole-blooded and get some pitching

NEW YORK — It has become an annual event, this news conference held during an off-day while two other teams play in the World Series, at which the New York Yankees try to explain why things didn’t quite work out for them this year but will surely be better next year. Instead of a championship ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes, the Yankees offer you a parade of excuses in the bowels of a deserted Yankee Stadium.

“One hit this way, one bounce that way and maybe it’s a different conversation,’’ said manager Aaron Boone, speaking the language of losers throughout history.

“This is a championship-caliber team,’’ GM Brian Cashman said. “Just because we lost doesn’t diminish the fact that this was a championship-caliber roster that was capable of winning the whole thing.’’

And yet, the fact remains that for the 10th consecutive October, the World Series transpires without the Yankees, a drought that would seem like an eyeblink to most teams — it’s 33 years between flag-raisings for the Mets, for instance — but in the annals of a team that bills itself with some justification as The Greatest Franchise in the History of Sports, this would have been a source of shame in a previous era.

Mind you, it’s not like firing everyone every time things went wrong worked for those teams either, given the rather telling aspect involving how the two Yankees dynasties built during George Steinbrenner’s ownership were actually built…..

Juan Soto blasts historic home run - just as his hitting coach guaranteed

Juan Soto was the best teenage hitter in Major League Baseball history, and he might be the best 20-year old hitter in MLB history, too.

His exploits at the plate over the past two seasons have ranged from impressive to historic, and everything in between.

He grew his legend even more Tuesday evening, launching a jaw-dropping home run to the train tracks in Houston.

This is a flat-out bomb. Left-handed hitters just don’t hit home runs to this part of Minute Maid Park.

Capital hill: Astros, Nats put World Series eyes on pitching

Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer and a slew of aces get the World Series started in Houston, then the scene shifts to Capitol Hill.

But with Justin Verlander, Stephen Strasburg and all these electric arms, might as well call it capital hill.

Because in this Year of the Home Run, the focus of the 2019 Fall Classic is on the mound.

A throw-down for the ages, maybe. With a neat twist, too: The Astros and Washington Nationals share a spring training complex — they met in the exhibition opener, and Scherzer gave up a homer to the first batter of the game.

A consideration of the World Series to come, and an item that could end up being very important about it.

Gerrit Cole shuts down the mighty Yankees, and is about to become a very rich man

NEW YORK — The short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium has gotten the best of several pitchers over the years.

Yet Houston Astros righty Gerrit Cole — arguably the greatest pitcher on the planet these days — was able to withstand the dreaded 314 sign and the mighty Bronx Bombers on Tuesday night.

He didn’t have his best stuff by any means. But that’s what makes him the best in the business. He can keep putting up zeroes on the scoreboard without it.

“He wasn’t as electric or as sharp as usual,” a scout in attendance told Yahoo Sports. “But he was still able to win. And that’s what makes him great.”

All day long, will he biddy-biddy-bum?

Astros’ owner says Houston might ‘make a run at’ re-signing Gerrit Cole, but there’s a catch

The Houston Astros won’t know who they’re playing in the American League Divisional Series until after Wednesday night’s AL Wild Card Game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics. Still, that didn’t stop Astros owner Jim Crane from looking into the future—as in, to the winter—on Monday by addressing right-handed starter Gerrit Cole’s impending free agency.

Crane even went so far as to concede the Astros might “make a run” at retaining Cole. Here’s more, courtesy of Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle:

“We’ll see where we end up after the year. We may make a run at it. We’re not sure yet,” Crane said. “We’re going to wait and see what else unfolds and who else is going to stay on the team.

Now, before Astros fans rush out to buy Cole shirseys, it’s worth noting that Crane’s proclamation came with a caveat: that he’d prefer to remain under the luxury tax threshold—or, to be straightforward, he’d prefer to avoid paying overage penalties.

Another entry to add to this pile- I hope you don’t mind work stoppages, because I have a bad feeling that’s what’s coming when the CBA is up next….

LEADING OFF: Yost begins final homestand with Royals

FINAL DAYS

The Kansas City Royals host the Atlanta Braves in their first game since manager Ned Yost announced Monday he plans to retire at the end of the season. The 65-year-old Yost, who has been on a year-to-year contract, is the only manager to lead the Royals to back-to-back World Series, losing to the Giants in seven games in 2014 and beating the Mets in five the following year. Kansas City plays two games against Atlanta before finishing the season with a weekend series at home against Minnesota.

FINAL DAYS II

The Texas Rangers begin their last homestand at their 25-year-old stadium, first known as The Ballpark in Arlington. The Rangers are moving across the street into a $1 billion-plus air-conditioned stadium with a retractable roof. After Boston comes to town for a three-game series, Texas finishes the season with three games against the AL East champion New York Yankees. Edinson Vólquez and Ariel Jurado are expected to pitch Tuesday night against Boston, and Eduardo Rodríguez goes for his 19th win for the Red Sox.

Cole reaches 300-strikeout milestone

HOUSTON—An amazing season by right-hander Gerrit Cole has been punctuated by something no other Astros pitcher has done in more than 30 years.

By striking out Shin-Soo Choo in the sixth inning Wednesday night against the Rangers, Cole became the first pitcher in the Major Leagues this season, and the first Astros pitcher since Mike Scott in 1986, to strike out 300 batters in a season. Scott, who struck out 306 in his National League Cy Young season, and J.R. Richard (1978-79) are the only Astros pitchers to reach 300 in a season.

Cole is the 18th pitcher in the modern era (since 1900) to strike out 300 in a season, and there have been 37 individual 300-K seasons in that span. Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan each totaled six 300-strikeout seasons during their Hall of Fame careers, which is tied for the most.

A sign of how much pitcher use has changed- only the fourth such time (by the fourth different pitcher) that this milestone has been reached since 2003, in spite of the explosion of strikeouts since then.

Here are baseball’s top 20 free agents to be

If it feels like last year’s free agency just ended, that’s because it did. The “winter” technically stretched into early June, when Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel finally signed with the Braves and Cubs, respectively.

But it won’t be very long until we fire up free agency yet again, and, despite some rumors to the contrary, there’s a ton of talent on the table after the 2019 World Series wraps.

Here, we’ll take a look at some early free-agent power rankings (20 players for 2020). But like so much of life, it gets complicated. The market will be drastically affected by what happens with various opt-outs and option clauses. For this list, we’re going to leave off guys whose options are likely to be exercised or whose opt-outs aren’t. This currently applies to Kenley Jansen, David Price, Corey Kluber, Anthony Rizzo, Starling Marte, Nelson Cruz, José Quintana, Yu Darvish and Elvis Andrus, among others. But as always, stay tuned!

We will, however, include a few others who aren’t necessarily as likely to remain attached to their current contracts, and have noted those with an asterisk (*). All ages as of Opening Day 2020.

So, what thoughts do we have concerning this list?

In era of analytics, Astros aces Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole are keeping it old-school

And in this age of analytics, Verlander insists, it’s time to quantify the amount of innings a starter provides. He has pitched at least 200 innings in all but one season since his rookie year, leading the major leagues three times and once again this season.

“You can’t put a number on it because people can’t quantify how valuable it is,’’ Verlander says. “But the second they can put a number on an inning, and how valuable it is, it would be dramatic. Just saving the bullpen, the impact those extra innings have, and what that means, I don’t think anybody has ever tried to tackle that, I think it’s valuable. Extremely valuable.’’...

This is why it’s mind-boggling that in this era, it’s not so much the strikeouts Cole and Verlander are compiling, but the fact that fewer than one baserunner an inning is reaching base. While Cole values his quality starts and innings the most, Verlander’s favorite stat is WHIP.

“Gerrit and I have talked about this a lot,’’ Verlander said. “I think WAR is a pretty fickle number for starting pitchers, but the WHIP, that’s our job, to limit baserunners. The batting average against is a nice stat, but if you’re walking three or four batters per nine innings, the way batters now count a hit as good as a walk for OPS, those walks might as well be hits.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I still like ERA, too.’’