Yankees’ ace Gerrit Cole sees potential in team’s pitching prospects: ‘There are high ceilings out there’

New York Yankees‘ ace Gerrit Cole is a seasoned veteran still in the prime of his career, at 30. However, he was once a rookie with the Pittsburgh Pirates, so he knows the value of having some experience and guidance in the staff to help young pitchers adjust to a very noticeable jump in competition level.

According to what the Yankees frontline starter said in his appearance in Yankees Hot Stove this week, he plans to be a mentor to the young pitchers that are fighting for roster and rotation spots, most notably Deivi Garcia, Michael King, Nick Nelson, and Clarke Schmidt.

With Cole in the fold and veterans AJ Burnett, Francisco Liriano, and Charlie Morton, the Pirates made the playoffs twice in the early 2010s.

“Early in my career, I had a real blessing to play with a lot of veterans,” Cole said. “Some of the habits that I still have, I’ve learned from those guys and they’ve carried me throughout my career, and they’ve helped me improve.

“I think that was tremendously important for me, so I could imagine in New York and the bright lights coming up through that system (what it’s like for them). There’s an opportunity for guys to get better from learning from some of the things that I picked up from older guys a long time ago.”

The Yankees have some serious pitching talent

Cole’s main proteges are Garcia and Schmidt. The former pitched 34.2 innings in MLB and left a great impression in 2020, while the latter only had a handful of frames and looks ticketed to the minor leagues to start 2021.

“They all kind of stood out to me,” Cole said. “That was a really tough experience for a lot of them, especially cracking into the big leagues in that environment and having to try to stay as sharp as they could down in (the) Triple-A (alternate camp). I thought as a group they did a great job. As a group, there’s also a lot of talent there, a lot of great different attributes. You can kind of see why each one of these guys is unique.”

“The future is tremendously exciting when you see the talent level and you see how unique some of these guys can be,” Cole said. “There are some high ceilings out there.”