Despite having the reigning AL Cy Young winner at the top of their rotation, the New York Yankees still have plenty of questions surrounding their starting unit heading into the season.
Gerrit Cole is the stabilizing force. He’s shown that throughout his tenure.
After him though, no one really knows how Carlos Rodon will perform after an injury marred season, and if Nestor Cortes can get back to his 2022 form after his own injury-riddled year, and if new signing Marcus Stroman can be consistent.
If everything goes right, Rodon will be the pitcher that had a 10.5 bWAR in 2021 and 2022 combined, Cortes will be the All-Star he was in 2022, and Stroman will add to his six-year streak of having a sub-4.00 ERA.
But this is baseball, and baseball is largely unpredictable.
That’s why Yankees’ pitching coach, Matt Blake, thinks one of their star pitching prospects is going to make his Major League debut this year after making it to Triple-A in his second professional season.
New York drafted Will Warren in the eighth round of the 2021 MLB Draft. Since then, he’s had a meteoric rise through their pipeline and is knocking on the door to be a contributor this year.
“I would think he’s definitely in the mix at some point this year. Obviously, if health stays perfect for us, he may be the odd man out, but just with the way 162 games shake out, I’m sure his name will be called at some point,” Blake told Gary Phillips of The New York Daily News.
As mentioned above, a clean bill of health is not guaranteed for this Yankees starting staff.
If someone does pick up an injury, Warren is likely the first call up.
MLB Pipeline has him as New York’s No. 8 overall prospect and their second-best pitching prospect.
The 24-year-old was rock solid across his 21 appearances and 19 starts at Triple-A last season, posting an ERA of 3.61 over 99 1/3 innings pitched with 110 strikeouts.
“I know he’s been in Tampa working. He looks good. So he’ll definitely be in the conversation … But I do know that everybody’s excited about the work he’s done to put himself in the conversation,” Blake added.
