It's hard to think of any athlete, in any sport, who has more pressure to perform than Gerrit Cole.
The Yankees, the club many expect to win the next World Series, open the season at the Nationals, the club that won the last World Series. And Cole will be the Opening Day starter, his first as a pitcher in pinstripes. Not only are the Yanks colliding into the world champs, but Cole has to match pitches with Max Scherzer, maybe the game's best pitcher over the last decade. Scherzer has three Cy Young Awards, and has finished in the Top 5 in the Cy Young vote the last seven seasons. Scherzer pitches with a focus and fury worthy of his "Mad Max" moniker.
Cole has all that - the weight of being an ace, on the best team in the American League, and the most successful franchise in the history of team sports. Almost every player who ever joined the Yankees in the middle of his career has said the same thing: there's something life-altering, almost supernatural, about those pinstripes, about having no name on the jersey, about an allergy to celebrating division titles or even pennants, about the sacred soil behind the center field wall where the legacies of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle and Mariano are planted for eternity.
Whitey Ford and Ron Guidry have made seven Opening Day starts for the Yanks. Lefty Gomez and CC Sabathia have made six. Red Ruffing has made five. Roger Clemens has made four. Ford, Gomez, and Ruffing are in the Hall of Fame. Sabathia should reach the HOF soon. And Clemens would already be there if not for his use of PEDs.
Cole has that burden, plus one his pinstriped predecessors didn't face: the weight of a bank-busting, $324 million contract, the richest for a hurler in history. Most teams and towns allow for a mild adjustment period, a chance to acclimate, assimilate, and then dominate. But when you're the ace on a Yankees squad expected to play in the World Series, in the media vortex of America, there is no buffer or mulligan or do-over. The 2020 Cole had better pitch like the 2019 Cole, or the frothing fans who so celebrated his arrival will turn on him. If Cole stumbles through three or four bad starts, he will feel the full force of rabid New Yorkers, and angry comparisons to Steve Trout, Hideki Irabu, Kevin Brown, and Carl Pavano will follow.
Based on his time in Houston, it seems like Cole has the talent and temerity to plow through 12 starts, the logical number over 60 games. And he has the October chops the Yankees so badly need. Getting Cole wasn't just about adding a gifted pitcher; it was about making a statement, and adding an ace who can win 80 percent of his starts, blunt losing streaks, and take over a playoff series. Luis Severino has the stuff for an ace, but is always plagued by injuries. Masahiro Tanaka is generally clutch, but not in Cole's overall orbit. And James Paxton, who is also prone to tweaked tendons and pulled muscles, is coming off back surgery.
Some of us think Cole should have won the AL Cy Young last year, instead of teammate Justin Verlander. Cole posted a spectacular 20-5 record, led the AL with a 2.50 ERA, and led MLB with 326 strikeouts, a 185 ERA+, 2.64 FIP, and 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings. Though this season has been slashed by 102 games, Cole can (and should) still dominate.
Sports are filled with anomalies. The Virginia Cavaliers reached the Final Four right after Ralph Sampson left for the NBA. The Tennessee Volunteers won the national championship right after Peyton Manning left for the NFL. The Giants won their first World Series title in San Francisco after Barry Bonds left the team. The Washington Nationals just won the World Series after Bryce Harper left for the Phillies, and did it with the worst bullpen in the NL (5.68 ERA).
But these Yankees were built the right way, with patience, prudent moves, and a fertile farm system. In fact, they were the first team to draft Gerrit Cole, in 2008. Cole decided to go to college, and then was drafted by the Pirates in 2011. The Yanks knew that Houston kept beating them because - aside from sign stealing - they had one or two bedrock, front-end starters, while the Yanks had none. So signing Cole and stealing him from Houston makes the move doubly good.
So if they had to blow the dust off the Darth Vader mask, and make it rain on Cole in 2020, to make them heavy favorites to play in the World Series, so be it. The Bombers are built for October. So is their new ace.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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