Cole not just living up to expectations. He's smashing them

In the past 60 years, there had been only two Yankees starting pitchers to win the Cy Young Award, Ron Guidry and Roger Clemens. CC Sabathia was terrific in New York for a long time, and he was the last true ace the Yankees had before Cole. Andy Pettitte was Big Game Andy on Joe Torre’s Yankees, and Mike Mussina, one of the underrated Yankee starters of all time, was 123-72 in his eight seasons in New York. David Cone, a shooting star at Yankee Stadium, was 51-24 in his first four Yankee seasons before his arm gave out.

But the line of great Yankees starters really isn’t very long since Guidry was the best pitcher in the world. Gerrit Cole joins that line now, big and tall, doing what Guidry and Clemens did before him -- standing on the mound and basically saying what the very best power pitchers have always said:

Here it comes, see if you can hit it.

The other Yankees Cy Young Award winners, by the way, are Bob Turley in 1958, Whitey Ford in 1961, closer Sparky Lyle in ’77, and then Guidry and Clemens and now Cole. The Yankees have been famous for a lot of things in all the years since Guidry was known as Louisiana Lightning. But truly great starting pitchers? Not so much.

“It’s just a bit surreal to be regarded with the other five Cy Young Award winners that we’ve had,” Cole said on a conference call after his unanimous victory. “We’ve had great pitchers in and out of this place, great players in and out of this place, leaders on and off the field and people that have set a really high example, a really high bar of what it means to be a great Yankee. That was an inspiration to me as a kid and obviously getting to live out my dream is certainly an inspiration, a standard to shoot for. It makes me tremendously proud that I feel like I’m holding up my end of the bargain to those great players and those great legacies. I’m contributing to the overall brand of what we do in New York.”

Cole doesn’t turn 34 until next September when, if he enjoys continued good health, he will be nearing the end of his fifth season with the Yankees, who signed him to a nine-year, $324 million contract after he left Houston as a free agent. Cole is 51-23 in his time in New York, which includes a 7-3 record during the COVID-shortened season of 2020.

And if Cole continues to be blessed with a strong right arm, he might become the first Yankees starter since Whitey to pitch himself all the way to Cooperstown.

Cole began his career with the Pirates, with whom he went 40-20 in his first three seasons with a team that finished second in the National League Central three straight times. In 2015, he was 19-8 with a 2.60 ERA.

Cole pitched two years with the Astros, putting up a 35-10 mark. In 2019, he was 20-5 with a 2.50 ERA and 326 strikeouts (against just 48 walks) in 212 1/3 innings. Justin Verlander, his teammate in Houston that year, had pretty much the same numbers across the board -- a 21-6 record, 300 strikeouts, a 2.58 ERA. He won the AL Cy Young that Cole had earned every bit as much as Verlander did, as they were one of the most formidable 1-2 punches as co-aces in baseball history. Everything between them was close, including the vote: Verlander got 17 first-place votes to Cole's 13.

In his fourth season with the Yankees, Cole didn’t just honor the stage he has at Yankee Stadium, he left nothing to chance. Cole went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA, 222 strikeouts and just 48 walks in 209 innings. In Cole’s entire career he has walked more than 50 batters in a season only three times, and he's been over 60 just once. In Cole’s past six seasons, between Houston and New York, his record stands at 86-33.

Cole said on Wednesday night that he thinks he can get better, which couldn’t have filled any big-league batter with holiday cheer.

“I want to refine a little bit of the command with some of the offspeed,” Cole said. “I think that it’s really evident when the curveball is working well on the edge of the plate that it adds another element of timing to the approach.”

Cole wasn’t just the best pitcher in the American League this season. He is one of the truly great pitchers of this time in baseball. The Yankees have been looking for an ace like this, somebody to join the line, since CC. Found him.