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Gerrit Cole Explains How Yankees' 2025 Motivation Differs From Other Years
As spring training presses onward, Gerrit Cole thinks the New York Yankees have an edge in their motivation for the upcoming season.
After losing the 2024 World Series at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games, the Yankees are expected to be hungry to get back in the saddle and compete for a path back to the fall classic again in 2025.
Cole used a surprising adjective for the temperament of the clubhouse, though, describing the energy as quiet as the team locks in with its preseason preparation.
"There's just maybe a little quietness about it too, I feel like, where we are really proud of what we did, and like, really frustrated we didn't finish it at the same time," Cole said on the Casa De Klub podcast. "And those two things I think combine for a bit of an edge."
Quiet may land as an unexpected adjective for the mood of a clubhouse coming off a devastating World Series loss. As Cole describes it, it sounds more like a team that has clarity about the challenge ahead rather than apathy, as quiet might otherwise be interpreted.
Already, though, adversity has been a theme for the Yankees with Luis Gil and Giancarlo Stanton both expected to start the year on the injured list.
Cole himself is still in pursuit of his first World Series title, having appeared with the Houston Astros in 2019 (losing to the Washington Nationals) and the Yankees in '24. He pitched in two games in each of the fall classics he's been a part of with a 1-1 record to show for it.
Before this season began, Cole opted out of his contract with the Yankees but wound up re-engaging the same terms. He later suggested he planned on staying with New York regardless.
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Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.