Sure but McHugh had been pretty up and down lately along with his injury issues. I'd definitely rather have McHugh on the roster than some of the other pitchers we have in the pen but oh well.
Cole reverting pack to PIT Cole would be oh so sweet to watch. 30+ mil for NYY for the next decade while our SP3s are dealing
If I had to guess Cole is a top 20-25 guy once he adjusts to not using superglue, pretty satisfying we probably got his 2 best years and Yankees are paying him and Stanton for past performance.
Doesn’t take long for confidence to unravel. Most of Cole’s career he’s been labeled as an underachiever. No doubt he has the ability to be the best pitcher in the league, regardless of sticky stuff, but sometimes your brain gets in the way. I bet he knows he’d do better with Strom/Maldy. He’d also probably do better if he didn’t have to pitch as much against the Red Sox/Rays/Blue Jays lineups.
Cole is still a 98 mph pitcher. He just needs time to adjust. It's like adjusting to a new ball. He will go back to dominating.
I don’t doubt that he’s going to be a good pitcher all things considered moving forward...but it will be interesting to watch and see his spin rate moving forward. Its entirely feasible if not probable that his reign of utter dominance is over. Will probably still be a top 10 pitcher, maybe higher...but his unhittable days may be behind him.
Adjusting to a new ball, and being a pitcher totally worth $40 million dollars/year, can be mutually exclusive. As it is, Cole reproducing his best Houston years was never a given and there was always a chance the Yankees were overpaying for past performance. Cole has also been more than vocal on how he felt the new grip helped him. Again, Cole was not dominating the league from his rookie year on as some ace pitchers tend to do. He’s really had to work hard on his ascension, with years of regression mixed in, to become the pitcher he eventually became in Houston.
While McHugh would definitely have signed here, I do want to say Carlos Rodon $3M 2.06ERA >>>>>>>>> Baez
Still better to pay $1.8 million for a guy who's arm will fall off in September than for a guy who's arm has already fallen off.
Our problem was that we keep trying to make him a starting pitcher when his arm was never up to it. As a reliever, he's elite. Wished we would have managed him and his health correctly.
I just wish Click hadn't signed Baez and said so from the beginning. Never sign pitchers whose velocity is declining. This doesn't take a visionary to figure this out.
I somewhat doubt Rodon was ever leaving the White Sox. And his comments prior to the series a week ago make it seem like he loathes our team.
