Over the entire history of both the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox entire existence, there has been no shortage of defining moments that makes the blood boil. Both teams have gone to extensive lengths to put together the best teams possible, and the rotations are no different. Boston having had names like John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez flourish in their system, and for the Yankees, we’ve seen players like Andy Pettitte and David Cone dominate, amongst countless others.
For this article in specific, I’d like to compare the two teams’ respective rotations coming into 2020, and ultimately give my verdict as to who is better off this coming season.
The New York Yankees Rotation
1. Gerrit Cole
Now Gerrit Cole, is as you might’ve guessed, the best overall player out of both teams’ rotations. I don’t need to tell you how good Cole is, and how amazing he has been the past two seasons with Houston specifically. However, I’m going to anyways for added effect, and for argumentative purposes to be used throughout the piece. Plus, who doesn’t want to talk about their shiny new toy any chance they get?
Gerrit Cole, this last year, was truly incredible, notching a 2.50 ERA and a 2.64 FIP across 212.1 IP. The strikeout numbers are staggering as well, as his 13.82 K/9 led the entire league, and he paired that with a slim 2.03 BB/9 to go with it. To sit here and continually say “he led the league” in numerous categories would grow old, quite quickly, but simply put — there’s not a single pitcher on his level currently. While there can be arguments made about a few guys; Scherzer, deGrom, Verlander, to name a few, I don’t think that when you factor in the age, and the overall abilities and talent as well, that they’re on the same level as Cole is. While yes, he didn’t win the Cy Young this last season — ended up finishing behind his teammate Justin Verlander — that was a toss-up and a flip of a quarter as to who would win it between the two of them.
Cole leads a revamped and re-energized Yankees rotation, and with Matt Blake leading the brigade behind the scenes as well, there’s a good chance that Cole can get even better. There’s no stopping the Cole Train as of now, and it looks like he’s amping up the speeds for 2020.
2. Luis Severino
Luis Severino is the most interesting name to me for both rotations, as his injury bugged 2019 leads to lots of question marks around how healthy and how effective he’ll be this season. However, in both 2017 and 2018, Severino was one of the best arms across the entire American League.
In 2018, specifically, Severino’s ERA and FIP splits were almost as incredible as Cole’s were this last year. They sat at 3.39 and 2.95, across 191.1 IP — add to that a K/9 of 10.35 and a BB/9 of 2.16. Essentially, Severino struck out five batters for every one he walked, which is incredible for a guy who everyone thought should be relegated to a bullpen role after 2016. Severino’s looking to bounce back from a lost 2019 season in which he, unfortunately, missed practically the entire campaign due to injury. Expectations should be high for Sevy coming into 2020, but seeing that Steamer projects his ERA & FIP splits to be 3.97 and 4.04, is ludicrous to me. Add to that their projection of 168.0 IP, which is also wholly unwarranted, as it shows how the projection system is not perfect. Severino had the entire year virtually to heal up, including this seemingly never-ending offseason, and even in his minimal postseason action, he delivered. In 8.1 IP, across yes two starts — not ideal sure, but the Yankees bullpen was on fire — he only yielded two runs, and struck out ten.
There’s no reason as to why Severino cannot get back to ace level, as he is fully healed up and ready to go for 2020. How people can look at what he did in both 2017 and 2018, and use that to say then “He’ll regress” is absurd to me. Severino, in my opinion, may even have a better year than Cole this upcoming season — although that is a scolding hot take, and seemingly contradictory to my statement earlier of how nobody is on Cole’s level. I anticipate Severino to come back stronger and more poised than he was in years’ past and form a more lethal one-two punch than Cole and JV had in Houston — without cheating as well.
3. James Paxton
I am a big fan of James Paxton, as I think that his 2019 season was him pitching with a learning curve. I think arriving in New York, and finally participating in competitive baseball took a slight toll on him and took him by surprise. He ended up performing much better in the second half, as I talked about in a recent piece on Big Maple.
His 2019 respective ERA and FIP splits were 3.82 & 3.86, across 150.2 IP. I think Paxton only channeled a bit of his inner self, and thus showcased less than he had in years past. Look for the HR numbers to hopefully drop this upcoming season, as he settles in his role in the middle of the rotation, and has comfort in knowing that the entire well-being of the rotation lies solely on his shoulders. The overwhelming expectation for Paxton, especially after Sevy went down for the year, was that he’d carry the ‘average at best’ rotation throughout the year, but that wasn’t the case. He had his fair share of incredible displays, but of course, was ultimately inconsistent and didn’t do enough to warrant the praise he had received when he was initially introduced as a Yankee — at least to the majority of Yankee fans he didn’t.
I expect Paxton to level out and to be a consistent performer this year, and expect both the ERA and FIP to dip down a bit more, hopefully around the mid 3’s, and again the hope is that he can toss more innings and go further into games.
4. Masahiro Tanaka
Masahiro Tanaka is the longest-tenured Yankee in the current rotation, as he’s been a staple in the rotation since 2014. Masahiro signed a 7-year deal worth $155,000,000 the offseason before the 2014 season and is a free agent at the end of this season. Expectations are that he is going to be asking for a lofty contract at the end of this current spell, and there’s been tons of debate as to whether or not the Yankees should give it to him.
For 2019, it was indeed a roller-coaster of a season for Masahiro. For starters, let’s discuss the good rather than the bad. The goods are that Tanaka was able to pitch 182.0 innings this last season, which was the most on the Yankees staff. Add to that the fact that his FIP was lower than his ERA — 4.45 ERA & a 4.27 FIP, which shows that he got a bit unlucky and was better than the face stats may say. Also, as mentioned in a recent news and updates post, I noted how incredible he is in the postseason. As for the 2019 postseason, it was more of the same as the logged 16.0 IP and posted an ERA of 2.27 with an HR/9 of 0.56 — a far cry from his 1.38 HR/9 during the regular season. The downs are that his K/9 numbers were a career-low — at 7.37. Pair that with a career-low in LOB% at 70.4%, and a career-low in K/BB% amongst a few other categories.
2020 is a massive year for the Japanese stud, as hopefully he can correct some of the flaws in his game from this last season, and build from them in a contract year. The elbow issue is something to monitor, but if he can touch 180.0 IP once more, that is a massive amount of stability out of the four-man in the rotation.
5. Uh, J.A. Happ, maybe?
Now for the fifth man in the rotation, it’s up in the air. For the sake of this article, however, I will be viewing it as if J.A. Happ will be the fifth man in the rotation to start the 2020 season. Watch, now that I have said this, he’ll be traded this afternoon, thus wholly negating this entire point. Even if Happ is on the roster, I’m still not too sure that the Yankees will even run a 5-Man rotation, and may instead have various arms slot in as the final man of the rotation.
J.A. Happ had a horrendous 2019, and that’s no secret. His ERA and FIP splits were 4.91 and 5.22, which is god-awful. With that being said, he did log 161.1 IP, and his splits versus left-handed hitters were far better than those of the opposite hand hitting against him. Happ vs. LHH allowed an OPS of .652 across 43.0 innings, which is surprisingly stable, and a far cry from the OPSa of .830 versus RHH across a much larger sample of 118.1 innings. The hope for 2020, if Happ is to be named the fifth man in the rotation, is that the $17,000,000 man can channel his 2018 self and reach that 160.0 innings mark, at the least.
With this all being said, the fifth man is entirely up in the air at this moment, so Happ may not even be on the team — let alone in the rotation.
The Boston Red Sox Rotation
1. Chris Sale
If this were to be coming into the 2018 season, I would’ve placed Chris Sale at the top of the collective list between both teams, or maybe tied with Severino. There’s no way of denying the fact that Chris Sale has been one of the best arms in the MLB for the better part of a decade now, but ultimately the innings seem to be getting to The Condor.
Boston traded away Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe, and Victor Diaz, to pry Sale away from the White Sox. Little did Boston know that they’d be single-handedly fueling one of the most impressive rebuilds I’ve witnessed across my entire lifetime of baseball viewing. However, for Sale, 2019 was the worst season he’s had in his career, and I think it comes down to the worry about his arm and that delivery. Sale has the whipping action that’s seemingly a 3/4 delivery, as the ball slings in from that slot, thus apparently doing work on the arm and shoulder as well. Last season Sale posted career worsts in a lot of categories, including ERA (4.40) and IP (147.1) as a starter. With that, he also saw a massive increase in the amount of HR he gave up, as he posted a 19.5% HR/FB rate, which was more than double that of the year prior (9.3%). Pair that with his highest WHIP since 2015 (1.09) and an HR/9 of 1.43 that dwarfed his previous career-high of 1.07 back in 2016.
Simply put, Sale may not have time on his side, but will always be an extreme force not to be reckoned with for Boston. Sale’s K numbers are as staggering as ever, as he posted a K% over 30% for the fifth time out of the last six seasons (35.5% in ’19) and paired it with a K/9 of 13.32. I expect Sale to bounce-back a bit from his own 2019 season, but I don’t think he’ll be nearly as lethal as he was in both ’17 and ’18.
2. Eduardo Rodriguez
Now, the number two man in Boston’s rotation is up for grabs between Eduardo Rodriguez and David Price, but I elected to have Rodriguez in the two spots. I think Rodriguez is one of the most underrated pitchers in all of baseball and has nothing but bright futures ahead of him. His 2019 season showed that potential, as he was without a doubt, Boston’s best arm.
The 2019 stat-line for E-Rod included an ERA and FIP pairing of 3.81 and 3.86 — across an excellent 203.1 IP. While some of his numbers regressed from the year prior, what Rodriguez provided for Boston was stability and consistency, which is something this current rotation lacks — in my opinion. His strikeout numbers have always been there, as his K/9 last season sat at 9.43, but he’s going to need to work on limiting the walks, to see any real signs of improvement. In 2018 his BB/9 was 3.12, and in 2019 it went up to 3.32. I expect Rodriguez to take another step forward this upcoming season, and eventually propel himself into the one spot in the rotation.
With Boston having splashed the cash for Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez becomes an FA after the 2021 season, and if he continues on the track he’s on, he may be out of Boston’s plans. With that being said, Boston should do whatever they can to retain his talents and keep him around for the future.
3. David Price
David Price-tag, as he should be called, may not even be a member of the Red Sox rotation this upcoming season, but as of now is in their rotation. Similar to the Happ situation in NY, the Red Sox are actively shopping Price due to salary problems that are “suddenly” popping up in front of management’s eyes. You’d think that they’d pay closer attention to the salaries that they’re shelling out to players, and ultimately Price’s $32,000,000 base salary is the principal reason for why they’re not going to be able to keep Mookie Betts. Well, that and the other $100,000,000 between Sale, Eovaldi, JD Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and yep Rusney Castillo.
There’s no doubting that when Price is on his game, he’s still one of the most lethal pitchers in baseball, but the problem has been that he cannot stay healthy. Even in his 2018 season, his second-best with Boston, across 176.0 IP, despite a 3.58 ERA, he only posted an fWAR of 2.4. As for 2019, across 107.1 IP, he registered an ERA and FIP of 4.28 & 3.62 but saw his LOB% drop to 70.0% for the first time since 2012. Across the span of ’17-’19, Price’s fWAR total of 6.2 is well off from the 4.4 he posted in 2016 & that’s down from the 6.5 fWAR he posted in ’15. Price’s value and abilities have been decreasing yearly now, and Boston is trying to ship him off because they’re realizing this.
I expect 2020 to be a decent year for the veteran southpaw, but the fact he posted career low’s in bot HR/FB (14.4%) and Hard Hit % (36.9%) lead me to believe that he is nearing the end of an incredible run of quality performances. Thought Price will be around and kicking until the end of that illustrious contract, but I think that 2020 — if he is to remain with Boston — they’ll be lucky to see 140.0 innings out of him.
4. Nathan Eovaldi
Oh, the once dubbed “Nasty Nate” had a revitalizing campaign in 2018, which earned him a massive deal worth, on average, $17,000,000 a season. Now, Boston is once again kicking themselves over yet another long-term deal that seems to have backfired.
In 2019, Nathan Eovaldi missed the majority of the year with injuries, but when he did pitch, he was atrocious. Across 67.2 innings, his ERA and FIP splits were a dismal 5.99 and 5.90. Pairing that with a 9.31 K/9 — which was the one bright spot, as that was a career-high. However, negating that 9.31 K/9 was a horrendous BB/9, as he walked 4.66 batters per nine innings. For Eovaldi, I don’t believe that he is even close to worth the $17m that Boston is shelling out to him this season, and I think they’re praying he can somehow stay healthy — which would be a win for Boston, as Eovaldi hasn’t thrown 160.0 IP since 2015.
Expect Eovaldi to be featured on the IL a lot this upcoming season, and if I am wrong and he manages to have a career year, then I’ll gladly eat my words.
5. Martin Perez
Martin Perez was recently brought in by Boston this offseason for $6,500,000. Now, his 2019 season was also not very good, but I think this signing was an entire panic move made by Boston, and ultimately was them overpaying — again — as a result.
Perez, in 2019, posted an fWAR of 1.9, which was an improvement from his 2018 total of -0.1. The reason for that was that he was able to log 165.1 innings with Minnesota this last year, to pair with a career-high in strikeouts per nine at 7.35. Perez may provide some safety blanket for this massive question mark of a backend rotation, but I do not see him doing anything to warrant this as an “impact signing.”
The loss of Porcello hurt Boston more than they’d like to admit, but they’re hoping Perez can show some abilities and try to bounce back from a poor 2019.
The Verdict
Well, if you’ve made it this far, or if you just decided to scroll to the bottom, here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. I think that it’s apparent that the Yankees have the far better rotation of the two powerhouses, and that the Yankees’ question marks are ultimately far less worrying than the Red Sox’s. While I don’t think Sale will be as bad as he was this past season, and I am a big fan of Eduardo Rodriguez’s abilities, I do not see those two as enough to compete with the Evil Empire.
If I were to compile a collective list ranking them, it’d look like this: (1) Gerrit Cole, (2) Luis Severino, (3) Chris Sale, (4) James Paxton, (5) Eduardo Rodriguez, (6) Masahiro Tanaka, (7) David Price, (8) J.A. Happ, (9) Martin Perez, (10) Nathan Eovaldi.
With that, this concludes the comparison of both team’s 2020 rotations, and of course, this list is subject to change down the road. When both sides officially announce said rotations, I’ll likely revisit this list and may do another in the future, with updated information.
For Boston, however, it looks as if they’ve got more significant issues to worry about than having Martin Perez out there every fifth game, and that is whether or not they’ll have their manager come 2020 — barring suspension, a potential ban, and of course the inevitable pricey fine.