Scouting the Yankees' starting rotation for 2022

On paper, it all looks pretty good.

Barring any injuries late in camp, the five pitchers expected to comprise the Yankees’ rotation when the regular season begins likely will line up this way: ace Gerrit Cole (slated to start the opener at the Stadium against the Red Sox), Luis Severino, Jameson Taillon, Jordan Montgomery and Nestor Cortes.

“Pretty deep group,” one rival talent evaluator said. “No studs besides Cole and [maybe] Severino, but just a lot of different looks from all those guys.”

It all starts with Cole, coming off an up-and-down season similar to the one his club had overall. He finished 16-8 with a 3.23 ERA and 243 strikeouts — five shy of Ron Guidry’s single-season record of 248 set in 1978 — in 30 starts, but that didn’t tell the complete story.

After going 6-2 with a 1.78 ERA in his first 11 starts, he went 2-2 with a 5.24 ERA in his next six starts, a slump that coincided with Major League Baseball’s early June announcement that it would begin cracking down on the application of illegal substances to baseballs.

Cole, who back then said he would need to make “adjustments” because of the crackdown — the rule had been on the books forever but was rarely enforced — did adjust, going 6-2 with a 2.34 ERA in his next eight starts.

But a September skid followed as Cole went 2-2 with a 6.15 ERA in his last five starts, then bombed in the American League wild-card game at Fenway Park, lasting two innings-plus in the Yankees’ 6-2 loss. A hamstring issue may have had an effect on his late slump.

Though he battled command issues, Severino looked healthy in spring training. Taillon, who had offseason surgery on his right ankle, also seemed fine.

Unlike the first three, Montgomery gets by with a fastball that doesn’t go much above 90 mph; when he’s on, he flummoxes opponents with command of that pitch and an assortment of slow stuff, including a plus curveball. Cortes’ funky delivery, combined with even slower stuff than Montgomery’s, was a revelation the second half of last season.

Looking for a “but”?

There are a few, starting with the fact that there are questions from evaluators around MLB wondering just what kind of impact the enforcement of the sticky-stuff rules will have on Cole (and more than a few other pitchers, too) over a full season.

There’s also this: Teams in general need an average of 10 to 12 pitchers to take starts in a given season (the Yankees used 15 last year, but that number is slightly skewed because of the occasional use of an opener). Injuries and/or poor performance will occur, and the group currently behind the Yankees’ starting five — Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Deivi Garcia, Mike King and the newly acquired Shelby Miller, to name some — all come with questions.

It’s the reason general manager Brian Cashman spent the winter — pre- and post-lockout — trying to find rotation upgrades.

Nonetheless, plenty of teams, including other playoff contenders, have far more concerns about their starters than the Yankees currently do.

GRADE: B+