The Tuesday Discussion: Add Cole, Then What?

May 28, 2025

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This week we asked our writers to respond to the following:

Gerrit Cole is progressing nicely.  His return could be (relatively) soon.  Assuming the Yankees' starters continue to do as well as they have (within reason - they've been out-of-this-world great of late), how would you solve the abundance of starting pitching?  

Here are their responses:

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James Vlietstra - The dog days of summer are quickly approaching. As great as the rotation has been, they will each need a little rest. Whether that’s in the form of a temporary 6 man rotation or a couple of (hopefully) short IL stints

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Cary Greene - I would go to a six man rotation and flex it in order to limit innings on Cole and probably Cortes and Gil. The key is to get to the playoffs with a healthy rotation. Make no mistake, so far this season, Luis Gil is the Yankees unquestioned ace. If the playoffs started this weekend, the Yankees might open with Gil, then go with Schmidt, followed by Stroman and potentially Rodon. The cool thing is though, the playoffs don't start this weekend. We're basically a third of the way through the 2024 MLB Season. 

Additionally, the Yankees have two lefties on the staff, Rodon and Cortes. They could be deployed strategically in the playoffs, based on matchups and starts at Yankee Stadium, where the lefty has the advantage. With a six man rotation consisting of four righties, the Yankees could force opponents to face lefties at the stadium and then counter with righties in ballparks where doing that makes sense. In essence, the perfect storm is brewing right now, in the year of the Wood Dragon. The stars might actually be lining up for once for the Bombers. 

Therefore, my strategy would 100 percent be to bring Cole back slowly and use an extra day's rest for members of the rotation, doing so with flexibility from whenever Cole comes back to the end of the season. Then, in the postseason, I'd look to be strategic regarding matchups and how I deployed my lefty starters. Right now, the Yankees are doing really well - far better than anyone could have suspected. It's all turning into a tremendous advantage for the Yankees, but only if Brian Cashman is smart enough to see it and deploy it. 

Moving one of the Yankees current starters to the bullpen right now amounts to buffoonery - but I won't put it past Cashman to do this and I also won't put it past many Yankees fans to suggest various forms of hypocrisy -- such as moving Cortes to the bullpen or other less than intelligent suggestions. Cortes leads the rotation in Innings Pitched so far this season. Keeping him stretched out is the way to go. Likewise, in no shape or form do any of the other Yankee starters deserve a demotion into a swing man role. 

It's time for many to pull their heads out of the sand and consider outside the box solutions. The current championship drought is unprecedented in the Bronx right now. It's time to stop being losers and flip the switch into becoming winners. It's time to reverse engineer a championship -- because NO OTHER STRATEGY that Cashman has used has yet worked. Aaron Boone loses games with his weird moves and Cashman's lack of faith in his depth has cost the Yankees franchise dearly. I feel like the Yankees have to win in spite of their manager, their GM, their owner and indeed -- a good portion of their fanbase. 

Therefore, "solving" the Yankees' abundance of pitching is an oxymoron. The prudent course of action is to start running the franchise as if the real goal was to win a championship. A flexible six man rotation for now clearly the path to take. 

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Mike Whiteman - The trending (and likely correct) answer is to consider a six-man rotation when Cole returns to action. There are roster implications to this, as carrying six starters on a  13-pitcher maximum staff (per MLB rules) basically takes a pitcher out of the bullpen. The thing about pitching abundance is that things usually work themselves out. The Yankees have been very fortunate with the health of their rotation this year, only veering from the group in the April doubleheader when Cody Poteet started the second game. In the state of pitching today, that's not likely to continue. 

For fun though, let's for a minute assume that all six starters are healthy and will be for the season. There is speculation about who would adapt best to being moved to the bullpen, but I've got a crazy idea: Make a deal!

In maybe the nuttiest idea of the day, I wonder if Clarke Schmidt and some prospects not named Jones and Dominguez could be dealt to Pittsburgh in a package for Ke'Bryan Hayes and David Bednar. Suddenly, the Yanks have addressed two areas of concern with a 4-WAR Gold Glove third baseman and a two-time all-star closer. 

There are of course huge risks to this approach. There's plenty of health concern in the rotation, and dealing away a young starter could hurt down the line. One thing the Yanks seem to have going for them this year is great team chemistry, and dealing a popular guy like Schmidt could be difficult in the clubhouse. This is one of those deals that would work great in a Strat-O-Matic league, but perhaps not so much in real life. 

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Paul Semendinger - A six-man rotation sounds interesting. I'm just not sure it works. But, on the other hand, assuming the starters are all healthy, there's no one to move. They've all been excellent - better than any one could reasonably hope. They all deserve to be there. I want to also keep them in their current routine. As such, this is tough to figure - impossible almost. I joked with EJ on the SSTN Podcast a month (or more) ago that they should make Cole the closer. Crazier things have happened. Dennis Eckersley made that transition. John Smoltz too...

Here's an idea that no one has suggested, keep the five man rotation, but drop on starter each time though. If it goes: Stroman, Rodon, Schmidt, Cortes, and Gil, then the next time through, Cole subs for Gil. Then the next time through Gil subs for Cortes. The next time Cortes subs for Schmidt. Once every five times through, a starter gets about a week off. I don't think that's ever been done before. (I just invented it.) This approach has a number of advantages: The pitchers get extra rest and also, when they're not on their "week off," they stay in their current routine.

The more I think about it, the more I like my unique, original, and brilliant idea. (If I'm not writing for SSTN tomorrow, it's because the Yankees hired me.)

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Tim Kabel - Once Gerrit Cole returns, I would move Clarke Schmidt to the bullpen. This is not a knock on Schmidt. He has done a very good job as a starting pitcher. I just think that all the pitchers in the rotation, he would do the best in the bullpen.