Will the new Yankee Stadium bless its first champion on Wednesday?
More than a week after he agreed to a record-shattering, nine-year, $324 million contract to finally join the Yankees, Gerrit Cole will attend his welcoming party, a news conference to formally introduce the ace at his workplace. Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, general manager Brian Cashman, manager Aaron Boone and new pitching coach Matt Blake all plan to be in attendance, as does Cole’s agent, Scott Boras, and other assorted dignitaries.
(Not Andy Pettitte, though; the beloved legend already did his part by accompanying Cashman and company to Southern California two weeks ago to pitch the romance of the pinstripes to Cole, which served as a nice cherry atop that lucrative sundae.)
The glitzy winter rollout, once a Bronx staple — the photo of George Steinbrenner introducing Reggie Jackson 43 offseasons ago remains prominent at the current ballpark — has gone the way of the knuckleball: You still see it, just nowhere as often as you once did. Score it as a byproduct of the Yankees intelligently emphasizing player development, which leads to fewer splashy acquisitions.
Cole will only be the seventh player feted at Yankee Stadium III, which opened for the 2009 season. The three big signings (A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira) who came aboard prior to the ’09 championship campaign ironically held their initial events at the old Stadium across the street while work continued at the new place. Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees’ last nine-figure import thanks to a 2017 trade with the Marlins, met club officials at the winter meetings in Orlando for his premiere performance, so he doesn’t count, either.
The list of guys who have launched at The House That George Built is a rather eclectic one. Cole joins, in chronological order, Curtis Granderson, Rafael Soriano, Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran and Masahiro Tanaka, plus Boone. Of those six players, only Tanaka remains a Yankee, or even a currently employed player. None has played in a World Series as a Yankee.
Can Cole break that streak? That he’s the best paid of the seven bodes well, for he deserves to be; as Boras has displayed with his work for both Cole and Stephen Strasburg, there’s still no more valued skill set than the combination of pitching dominance and durability. Furthermore, Cole represents the sort of free agent you want your teams to acquire: a finishing piece, rather than a building block. Coming off a 103-win season and taking Cole away from the Astros club that ousted them in the American League Championship Series, the Yankees stand as strong favorites now — understanding that many Hot Stove maneuvers remain — to win it all in 2020.
Of course, had Cole signed with the Yankees, his childhood favorites, when they first drafted him in 2008, he probably would’ve had to settle for a telephone news conference, with perhaps a quick stop by Yankee Stadium II to mingle with the likes of Pettitte, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera before reporting to minor league headquarters in Tampa. Cole didn’t sign, though, instructing Boras to not so much as negotiate with the Yankees, and two years ago, the Yankees fell short to Houston in a low-energy sweepstakes to obtain Cole from the Pirates.
That backstory, and Cole’s surge with the Astros, elevated the energy — and the dollars — all the more. Surely Wednesday’s dog-and-pony show will get the emotions going for Cole, and maybe, the Yankees can hope, compel the right-hander to contemplate something to the tune of, “If they do all this just for a press conference, then what are the parades like?”
Ref;nypost.com
