Yankees must pivot to bolster pitching after Yoshinobu Yamamoto miss

The Yankees entered the offseason confident, but not overly so, regarding their ability to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

But that blew up in a big way late Thursday night when they learned that Yamamoto, the star righthander from Japan who was this offseason’s most sought-after free agent, had agreed to a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers.

The Yankees offered in the neighborhood of $300 million over 10 years and the Mets’ offer in terms of dollars was similar to what the Dodgers offered.

The Dodgers were able to offer Yamamoto something no other team could: the opportunity for Yamamoto to play alongside the baseball star from Japan. That would be two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, hands-down the biggest name in the sport, who earlier this month signed a 10-year, $700 million free-agent contract with the Dodgers.

After falling short in one of their top priorities, the Yankees now  must pivot to bolster their pitching, which overall has taken a beating this month with the deals for outfielders Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo. Soto cost the Yankees righthanders Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez, who were shipped to the Padres (as well as catcher Kyle Higashioka). The Yankees also received outfielder Trent Grisham from San Diego. Big league bullpen piece Greg Weissert and Richard Fitts, a member of Double-A Somerset’s rotation last season, were among those sent to Boston for Verdugo.

“I like our [starting] pitching. Certainly when it’s healthy I like our pitching,” general manager Brian Cashman said on Dec. 5 in Nashville at the winter meetings. “But when there’s an opportunity to add more toward the front end of it [the rotation] potentially, you have to try and play on that if you can.”

Cashman said that before completing the Soto deal, which cost them the promising King, slated to be at least the Yankees' No. 4 starter next season.

The trade left the Yankees with a rotation of reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Nestor Cortes and Clarke Schmidt. Not bad, but, beyond Cole, many questions.

For that reason, expect the Yankees to be involved in the discussion when it comes to some of the top free-agent arms left on the market, names such as reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, former Yankee Jordan Montgomery and Shota Imanaga, another touted Japanese pitcher who was posted this offseason. The trade market is another avenue Cashman could pursue, and the Brewers’ Corbin Burnes and the White Sox’s Dylan Cease are among the top pitchers thought to be available.

As for the Yankees’ current rotation: “It’s OK,” one rival AL scout said. “Just OK. You need one more sure thing besides Cole. At least one. A lot of questions there.”

Schmidt, while far more effective than not in his first full season as a starter, has done it for exactly that: one season. He went 9-9 with a 4.64 ERA in 32 starts. Cortes was plagued by shoulder issues all of last season and Rodon, after signing a six-year, $162 million free-agent deal, alternated between being injured and ineffective in 2023, going 3-8 with a 6.85 ERA in 14 starts.

The Yankees haven’t downplayed their need for pitching. In a Zoom call on Dec. 7 discussing the Soto deal, Cashman said he was very much “in the market” for it.

“We still have more work to do, and we know that,” he added.

Manager Aaron Boone, speaking Thursday afternoon at the NYPD’s 44th Precinct for a charity event, acknowledged that the organization “took a little hit” in terms of its pitching depth with the Soto and Verdugo trades .

“I think in a lot of ways, especially in the Soto deal, it’s why it was rumored for a while but seemed to take a while because we were trying a lot of different iterations to keep certain people out of it,” Boone said, mostly an allusion to King but to Thorpe as well. “In the end, it’s that saying I’ve heard a lot: It’s Juan Soto and it’s gonna hurt a little bit. But it definitely hurts, some of the people we’ve given up.”

The Yankees struck out in their first attempt to mitigate some of that hurt when the Dodgers came calling with their unique-to-them offer of money, years and Ohtani.

And it left the Yankees, who already faced their share of challenges in building the 2024 roster, with significant hurdles remaining that will not easily be cleared.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.