Yankees’ Gerrit Cole Makes No Excuses for Team’s ‘Disaster’ Season in 2023

The reigning AL Cy Young winner and his team are eager to put their struggles in the past.

When the ball dropped on Jan. 1 to ring in 2024, the New York Yankees had to be thrilled.

The Yankees played uncharacteristically listless baseball in 2023, slumping to an 82-80 record and missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Just like that, a 37-home run season from right fielder Aaron Judge and pitcher Gerrit Cole’s first Cy Young award went to waste.

Convening in Tampa for spring training, New York seems eager to put the past behind it—with Cole bluntly diagnosing ’23 as a “disaster” Thursday.

“Certainly there were injuries that were outside the normal realm of injuries that impacted us,” Cole told reporters. “With that said, we get injured too much as a group. We need to improve.”

Despite Cole’s success, the injury-ravaged Yankees slumped in a number of pitching categories in ’23. Most tellingly, New York struck out its fewest batters per nine innings since 2016.

The Yankees are seemingly aiming to trot out a rotation of Cole, Carlos Rodón, Néstor Cortés, Marcus Stroman and Clarke Schmidt in ’24.

“The top four guys are former All-Stars. Clarke Schmidt had a career year last year and is looking to go on a really solid innings buildup and a solid body of work,” Cole said. “Certainly excited to see what the rest of the rotation and the top five guys can do.”