Could Carlos Rodón be Yankees’ Next High-Risk, High-Reward SP Target?
Whenever Major League Baseball’s lockout ends, starting pitching will be among the Yankees’ biggest needs.
Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery are the only sure things they have. The hope is that Luis Severino returns to the rotation, and Jameson Taillon will be back once fully recovered from ankle surgery. Nestor Cortes Jr. was a pleasant surprise last season, but can he repeat that performance? Will Domingo Germán, Luis Gil, Michael King and other youngsters compete for a spot?
That’s too many question marks for a team with World Series aspirations, but the pre-lockout frenzy, which the Yankees stayed away from, took most of the market’s top starting pitchers off the board.
One remaining option, however, is White Sox free agent Carlos Rodón. The Daily Herald recently reported that the Yankees were among the teams interested in the southpaw, as are the Red Sox, Angels, Mariners and Dodgers.
Rodón is coming off a career year. The 29-year-old went 13-5 with a 2.37 ERA, threw a no-hitter, was an All-Star and finished fifth in Cy Young voting. However, shoulder soreness and fatigue limited Rodón to just nine starts and 43 innings in the second half. Those starts went well—Rodón recorded a 2.51 ERA over that stretch—but the hurler saw a decrease in velocity.
Rodón has dealt with injuries his whole career, including shoulder surgery in 2017 and Tommy John surgery in 2019.
The Yankees, however, have not shied away from starters with recent injury histories and high upside. They pursued Justin Verlander before the lockout, and they traded for Taillon and signed Corey Kluber last winter even though injuries restricted the duo to a combined one inning in 2020 and just 72.3 frames in 2019. While neither was consistent and continued to battle injuries in 2021, both pitched quality baseball for extended stretches, particularly after they had time to shake off expected rust.
Rodón finished his 2021 campaign with a lackluster ALDS start against the Astros. He allowed two earned runs over 2.2 innings. It was his first appearance in two weeks.
The 132.2 regular-season innings Rodón threw were the most he’s tossed since 2016. For the most part, they were impressive, even when the pitcher wasn’t at full strength. That could quell concerns teams may have about his health, at least enough to set him up for a short-term payday.
Kluber was able to get $11 million out of the Yankees last offseason and signed a one-year, incentive-laden, $8 million contract with the Rays in November. He essentially missed all of the 2020 season and didn’t put the injury bug behind him in 2021 and still made out well; it stands to reason that Rodón could fetch a deal somewhere in between Kluber’s two most recent contracts.
With a barren market awaiting the post-lockout world, that’s an offer the Yankees should strongly consider.
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