Gerrit Cole, The Best Pitcher In Baseball, Wins His First Ever Cy Young And He Did It In Unanimous Fashion
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I'm not gonna stand here today and cum myself over a player or coach of my favorite team winning a postseason award. I'll leave that to loser Orioles fans screaming about their manager and rookie of the year who got swept out of the ALDS. RDT using a thumbnail of Hyde celebrating in a 'Take October' shirt did make me chuckle.
I digress.
I'm happy for Gerrit Cole. I obviously wish this award was coming under better circumstances, but it doesn't mean you can't be happy for the guy. The Yankees ace had been the runner up for the Cy Young twice heading into 2023. In 2021 he didn't deserve it, but not winning in 2019 was asinine —20-5 2.50 ERA 212.1 IP 326 K 48 BB. Well, finally Cole has his personal hardware and doesn't have to go down as the greatest pitcher ever to never win it. He was vocal about wanting this too, which I appreciated. Sometimes players will downplay how badly they want awards even though we know they're lying through their teeth. Cole let us know he wanted this and would greatly love to be voted the best pitcher in the American League. I like that kind of honesty
Make no mistake about it, this past Yankees season was a fucking disaster. The fact that Cole performed to the level he did and the Yankees missed the postseason is a fucking travesty. Two years in a row we've seen Judge win the MVP and Cole win the Cy Young in wasted seasons. I don't need to remind you who is at fault for such poor roster construction around those two monsters.
Here's a part of this that will fall on deaf ears – the shitshow he had to endure with the sticky stuff ban. There was an actual period of time where people believed he was finished without spider tack. Idiots, if you will.
Considering the amount of homers he gave up in '22 there probably was a little bit of doubt in his own mind as well. Could he find that ace level again? The answer was very clearly yes. It required a few tweaks to his game and mentality, but Cole proved he wasn't a spider tack merchant. In 2023 the Yankees ace did a great job of preventing little things from bothering him on the field. In the past if a guy reached on an error he'd let it destroy an inning. If the start time was delayed because Billy Crystal took one extra minute to throw out the first pitch he melted inside. Before the season I wondered if the pitch clock would be Cole's greatest friend. I think that clock allowed him to just pitch without having the chance to overthink the little shit.
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Speaking of that money owed to him by the way, $36M/year seems perfectly fine when you consider Scherzer and Verlander make considerably more. There's actually a part of Cole's deal that allows him to opt out after this upcoming season. The Yankees can negate that by tacking on another year. I don't have any worries about that, but the fact that we're now talking about Cole being in the position to do that is funny when you consider the above tweet's nonsense.
Cole deserves better plain and simple. He doesn't deserve fielders playing out of position all over the place. He doesn't deserve a lineup that scores one or two runs a game which requires him to be damn near perfect to win the game. He doesn't deserve a GM/manager combo of Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone. I hope to God they can right the ship starting this offseason and get this franchise back on track, even though I have my doubts. They have the ace they've always wanted. He's lived up to his giant contract and embraced this city whole heartedly. Cole works his ass off to not only be the best version of himself, but also help out in any way the team needs. You always see that motherfucker in the dugout working with hitters and pitchers to help them. He's worth every penny. Now it's time to surround him with a true contender of a roster. Do your job Brian.
P.S. Shout out Amy Cole