David Lennon: What do Yankees have in the rotation to begin season, beyond Max Fried?
Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler at spring training at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Feb. 17 in Tampa, Fla. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Any discussion of the Yankees’ 2026 rotation usually centers around who’s not pitching. Or at least not pitching yet.
But lost amid the run-it-back drumbeat in the Bronx is how much Aaron Boone & Co. will be relying on a shuffled deck of starters from a year ago, with plenty of questions surrounding them.
Take a look at last season’s Opening Day roster. With Gerrit Cole already lost to Tommy John surgery, Luis Gil sidelined with a severe lat strain and Clarke Schmidt delayed by a shoulder issue, the Yankees’ supposed depth got very thin very quickly.
Beyond the newly signed Max Fried and third-year Yankee Carlos Rodon, the rotation consisted of Marcus Stroman, rookie Will Warren and non-roster invitee Carlos Carrasco. That’s a lot of question marks for one week, especially for a team with a $320 million payroll.
By that measure, the 2026 version would seem to be an upgrade, even as it waits for the (likely) May returns of Cole and Rodon (elbow surgery). But how much do we really know about the group currently being counted on to follow Fried?
Cam Schlittler, last year’s October hero, has only 14 regular-season starts to his credit and was cautious in February about a sore lat muscle. Gil wasn’t the same during his abbreviated 11-start campaign (despite a 3.32 ERA) and still is in the building-velocity portion of his spring training regimen. Ryan Weathers was a sneaky-genius pickup in the offseason and already is throwing 99 mph in the Grapefruit League, but he has yet to pitch for real for the Yankees.
Aside from Fried, who finished fourth in the Cy Young Award voting last year, Warren probably is the most reliable of the bunch, based on his ability to take the ball every fifth day. His 33 starts tied Rodon for the team lead.
All told, that’s 7 1/2 years of service time for the foursome, a few months more than Fried’s total by himself. Not a ton of experience there. Early on, this is a rotation largely built on potential, best-case scenarios and the dream of reaching those high ceilings.
“It’s their time now,” Boone said.
Schlittler is pitching with sky-high outside expectations, and rightfully so. The 12-strikeout, zero-walk, zero-run, eight-inning masterpiece he spun to bounce his hometown Red Sox from the Wild Card Series built him up to be the next ace on deck, thanks in large part to his triple-digit fastball.
But Schlittler has proceeded with caution after showing up with lat discomfort, and Boone even suggested this past week that he’s likely to open the season on a limited pitch count because of his delayed program. It was the first glitch for this NextGen rotation, and given the Yankees’ March luck in recent years, the odds are against it being the last.
With that in mind, Gil’s starts in spring training come with a certain amount of trepidation and a watchful eye on the radar gun. In 2025, after he missed four months with the high-grade lat strain, Gil’s velocity dipped noticeably. His four-seam fastball was down to 95.3 mph — a big drop from the 96.6 mph during his Rookie of the Year season. He slipped from a 10.1 K/9 rate in 2024 to a pedestrian 6.5 last year.
On Friday, Gil faced the Twins in his second Grapefruit League start with a velocity that hung around 94 to 95 mph during the 52-pitch outing. He burned through the Yankees’ two ABS challenges in the first inning, losing the second by challenging an 0-and-1 pitch that was called a ball to only the third hitter he faced, Luke Keaschall. It turned out to be well above the strike zone.
“Looking where the game was at that time, asking for a challenge there, maybe that’s not what I want to do, being strategic about it,” Gil said through an interpreter. “But the experience I’ll gain from using it will put me in a better situation to use it in the future.”
Gil even tried to challenge a third time, perhaps forgetting the Yankees already were cooked. Boone chose to remove him with two outs in the second inning because he was up to 50 pitches but re-inserted him for the third, and the previously laboring Gil got two outs on his fastest pitches of the game, 96.5 and 96.7 mph, before being pulled again for good. He allowed two hits, including a home run, walked one and struck out one in 2 1/3 innings.
“I think we’ve had a consistent climb to get to the velo I’m used to,” Gil said. “I think maybe by the third or fourth start, it might be more consistent to what I’m used to.”
The wild card here is Weathers, who made only eight starts last season after suffering a forearm strain during spring training and a lat strain in June. He’s averaged only 11 major-league starts in his five-year career and has made as many as 16 only once since 2021, when he had 18 for the Padres.
Even so, Weathers has been an attention magnet at camp. His fastball was clocked as high as 99.8 mph on Wednesday when the 26-year-old lefthander struck out five in 3 2/3 innings against the Marlins. That’s some serious heat before March, but Weathers insisted he’s not pushing too hard.
When asked about the differences coming over from the Marlins, he believes the new environment has been a big plus.
“I wish I could have thrown more strikes when I was with Miami,” Weathers said. “I think here they’ve really helped me just simplify the game. Trust my stuff over the heart of the plate. Gerrit and Carlos and Max have done a really good job of teaching me, in this league, you have to pitch to contact.”
Said Rodon: “Obviously the stuff is there. It’s just keeping him on the field. Keep him on the field and he’s going to do great things.”
Added Fried: “Big stuff, wants to learn. Definitely motivated to getting better and wanting to do what he can to be able to stay on the field.”
It’s been a common theme for these Yankees. Spring training often becomes more about survival than preparing for regular-season success. They lost three starters before St. Patrick’s Day a year ago, and now they’re looking to flip the script with the returns of Cole and Rodon, and even Schmidt after the All-Star break. The Yankees would prefer to do more than merely stay afloat until then, but they’ll need this next generation to step up.
“It’s going to be exciting to watch these guys go to work, and unfortunately Gerrit and I won’t be there,” Rodon said. “That kind of sucks. But it will be fun to see these guys have an opportunity and hopefully they [do] well with it. I think every one of them is capable of being great.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
