Gerrit Cole: 2020 Yankees year in review

Art or Photo Credit: USA Today

The top five leaders on the 2020 New York Yankees in wins above replacement (WAR) were DJ LeMahieu (2.9), Gerrit Cole (2.2), Gio Urshela (1.9), Clint Frazier (1.5) and Luke Voit (1.5). Each player entered the year with high expectations and finished with impressive performances during the pandemic-shortened season, and here now we’ll take a look at some of their standout 2020 accomplishments.

Before a worldwide pandemic turned the sports world on its head earlier this year, the biggest storylines of the Major League Baseball offseason were the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal implications and the arrival of Gerrit Cole in the Bronx.

Likened to Ahab’s pursuit of the fearsome and elusive “Moby Dick” in the classic Herman Melville novel of the same name, Cole was Cashman’s proverbial white whale for years before the premier ace finally put pen to paper and became a Yankee, his favorite childhood team.

As Cole said the day he was officially introduced, holding the crinkled near-20-year-old sign affirming his lifelong Yankees fandom, “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

The move was designed to transform the Yankees into the “**fully operational Death Star**” general manager Brian Cashman had envisioned, and in his first year leading the Yankees rotation, 60-game season and all, Cole was absolutely dominant.

It didn’t take long for Cole to flex his muscles as he threw what the record books will remember as a complete game one-hitter in his Yankees debut, even if it was a five-inning outing called early due to rain. A win is a win, and Cole was 1-0 after his first game in a Yankees uniform.

Through his first five starts, Cole went 4-0 with a 2.76 ERA, holding opposing hitters to a paltry .189 batting average and striking out 34 of the 112 batters he faced. This was the ace Cashman and the Yankees had eagerly awaited after months of delays and complications to start the 2020 season.

A few mid-season hiccups saw Cole’s 20-game winning streak -- good for the third-longest in baseball history -- come to an end as he dropped three straight decisions between late August and early September.

But in dominant fashion, Cole turned up the heat down the stretch over his last three starts, going 3-0 while allowing just 10 hits and two earned runs total (0.86 ERA) over the trio of games.

No pitcher in Yankees history had struck out seven-or-more batters in more than seven straight games, but No. 45 managed to do so across each of his last nine starts of the regular season, setting a new franchise record.

When all was said and done, Cole ranked top six among all American League starters in ERA (2.84), wins (7), innings (73.0), strikeouts (94), WHIP (0.96), opponents’ batting average (.197), K/9 (11.59) and K/BB ratio (5.53).

What came next was a strong three-start stretch in the postseason, with Cole collecting victories in the openers of both the Wild Card Series against Cleveland, as well as the ALDS against Tampa Bay. Pitching on only three days of rest for the first time in his career in the series-deciding ALDS Game 5, Cole displayed his determination and commitment to the team by giving everything he could in what would become the Yankees’ final game of 2020.

“It’d be hard for me to say I’m not pleased with how we went about it, there were a lot of challenges, dealing with a newborn, being across the country, not having seen my family. It was really hard at times,” Cole said while reflecting on his teammates’ postseason exit and their overall 2020 performance. “Any time I can walk away from it not having anything left in the tank, at least that feels good.”

Cole remains his toughest critic, but he knows his teammates all have the ability to reach even higher heights in the future if they can come together and improve to reach the ultimate goal of a World Series championship.

“Every player is probably going to look themselves in the mirror and evaluate themselves and try to find something to work on and get better for next season,” Cole said. “We didn’t reach the goal, so across the board we need to improve.”