NY Yankees Covering the Bases: Gerrit Cole, Aaron Judge and replacing Anthony Rizzo (2024)

Gerrit Cole is finally back on the mound for the Yankees, striking out five and allowing two runs in four-plus innings in his season debut versus the Orioles on Wednesday. Aaron Judge seems to have avoided missing time with a hand injury, while Anthony Rizzo was not as lucky, suffering a fractured arm last week.

Catch up on those stories and all things Yankees from the past week below, as delivered by our national and beat writers.

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Power rankings: New York Yankees are No. 1

The Yankees remained at the top of our latest MLB Power Rankings, where this week’s topic was each team’s unsung hero.

Record: 50-24(as of Tuesday morning)
Last power ranking: 1

Unsung hero: OF Alex Verdugo

Verdugo certainly did not look unsung on Friday night, when he walloped a home run off the first pitch he saw in his first trip back to Fenway Park since being traded by the Red Sox in the offseason. But he arrived in the Bronx this past winter with far less fanfare than he received when Boston acquired him as the centerpiece of the Mookie Betts trade in 2020. The Yankees traded for Verdugo because he offered the sort of skill set — particularly as a left-handed hitter who did not strike out at an elevated rate — that their lineup could use.

Verdugo, on the verge of free agency, has lived up to his billing. He has played solid defense and been an above-average hitter, adding some variety to the lineup behind the team’s approach. — Andy McCullough

The latest hits

ICYMI, our national writers weighed in with what they were hearing and seeing.

1. MLB trade deadline watch: Yankees’ ‘gold coins’

MLB trade deadline watch is a collection of news and notes from our reporting team of Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon, Katie Woo and Ken Rosenthal. Here’s a Yankees item from earlier in the week.

With the New York Yankees on pace for around 110 wins, and Juan Soto set to become a free agent after this season, Chicago Cubs right-hander Hayden Wesneski understands what the organization’s pitching prospects must be thinking right now: “I could be gone in a month.”

“Not that you’re necessarily hoping for that,” Wesneski continued, but history shows that the Yankees are a behemoth that develops players in the minor leagues, markets those prospects to the rest of the baseball industry and then cashes them in as trade chips.

Said Wesneski: “They’re just gold coins.”

Leading up to the 2022 trade deadline, it became a running joke for Wesneski and his Scranton/Wilkes-Barre teammates. They were playing the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals at the end of July, wondering who might walk over to the other clubhouse as the new guys from a Soto trade.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman wound up trading Wesneski to the Cubs for sidearm reliever Scott Effross on the same day (Aug. 1) they acquired Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino from the Oakland A’s for four prospects (three pitchers). The next day, the Nationals finalized the blockbuster Soto deal, an eight-player trade with the San Diego Padres.

Despite consistently drafting near the bottom of the first round and rarely being sellers at the trade deadline, the Yankees had a strong enough farm system to acquire Soto last winter when the Padres went into cost-cutting mode. While their collection of prospects has been depleted, the Yankees will once again have resources to upgrade this summer and improve the odds of winning their 28th World Series title. Perhaps that means adding a corner infielder if Rizzo or D.J. LeMahieu don’t come around, or another reliever for October, or a big swing that no one anticipates. A team playing at such a high level also might not need that much external help.

“They know who they’re trying to get,” Wesneski said. “They have a lot of the pieces. But you’re waiting for that call.”

Wesneski credited the Yankees for their scouting acumen, a modern, tech-savvy approach to player development and an organizational patience that runs counter to their reputation as a big-market team that’s supposed to win the World Series every year. Prospects aren’t rushed to New York and handed jobs at Yankee Stadium.

“They play the long game,” Wesneski said, citing Clarke Schmidt as an example. Schmidt, who underwent Tommy John surgery and fell to the No. 16 spot in the 2017 draft, is now a key starter for a championship contender. “He was supposed to be a top-10 pick. Some teams were staying away from him because he had injuries. They go, ‘No, we’ll have time to develop him. We’ll take the ceiling. We’ll try to get the ceiling.’ They can wait for you to be the best version of yourself.”

2. Judge gets ‘Weird and Wild’

The most recent edition of Jayson Stark’s column looked back at the Yankees slugger’s impressive showing against the Dodgers the previous weekend.

Also appearing in these games: A man named Judge. And yep, Aaron Judge would be heard from.

He reached base 10 times in this series and crushed three long balls. But on Saturday, even in defeat, he did something to inspire yet another Weird and Wild question of the day:

Who was the last Yankee with a multi-homer game against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium?

And that answer is … a different guy named Reggie who also participated in that 1977 World Series. By which I mean this man:

1977 World Series, Game 6. The Bronx. Reggie Jackson walks on four pitches in his first at-bat. Then he homers on the first pitch of his second at-bat. And his third. And his fourth. Off three different pitchers. And the Yankees are world champions.pic.twitter.com/tx0Sx2izvh

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) June 5, 2020

Yep, Judge was the first Yankee to hit more than one homer in any game against the Dodgers in New York since Reggie Jackson, in the three-homer World Series game that stirred more October drinks than any other!

So how about that little trip down memory lane? Doris Kearns Goodwin … your thoughts?

3. Who did the Yankees get in Keith Law’s latest mock draft?

Law’s newest projection of the first round of next month’s MLB draft is out. Here’s where he has the Yankees going with the 26th pick.

Dakota Jordan, OF, Mississippi State
The Yankees have been going more for ceiling the last few drafts, and Jordan is the sort of explosive, high-upside athlete they’ve favored at many points in Damon Oppenheimer’s tenure as scouting director. They’d also be a fit for UNC outfielder Vance Honeycutt or, if they go pitcher, Iowa’s Brody Brecht.

Viral moment of the week

The Yankees join the baseball community in mourning the loss of Willie Mays, who was an iconic figure during a Golden Era of baseball in New York City and simply one of the greatest players that the game will ever see. We offer our deepest condolences to the Mays family, the… pic.twitter.com/LXTIfQwe9a

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) June 19, 2024

The Yankees were one of many sports organizations, athletes and dignitaries to pay tribute to all-time great Willie Mays, who died Tuesday at the age of 93.

Baseball beat

Our beat writers Brendan Kuty and Chris Kirschner picked out what you need to know.

1. Yankees get good Aaron Judge news, but is a beef brewing with Orioles?

The Yankees breathed a sigh of relief as X-rays on Judge’s hand showed no fracture after he was hit by a pitch in Tuesday’s game versus the Baltimore Orioles. But could it be the start of bad blood between the AL East rivals?

2. Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo could miss 4-6 weeks with an arm fracture

While recent injuries to Judge and Soto proved to be much less serious than originally feared, the veteran first baseman was not as fortunate. He’ll likely be out until August, assuming he needs a rehab assignment before returning to the big-league roster.

3. Why Yankees promoting Ben Rice ahead of next month’s trade deadline was the right move

One potential beneficiary of Rizzo’s injury? Prospect Ben Rice, who will get an opportunity to showcase his skills after replacing Rizzo on the active roster.

Did you catch this?

Yankees manager Aaron Boone has started a new tradition this season, giving a game ball to his personal player of the game after every win. Kuty had more about the origins of the idea in a profile last Friday. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s never the obvious pick, Boone said. That’s the player who gets the championship belt from his teammates. Instead, Boone usually chooses either that day’s next-best player or someone who did something crucial that may have flown under the radar yet still aided the win.

“It’s something that I wanted to do to have a little personal touch,” he said.

The idea blossomed in spring training. Boone was talking with Chad Bohling, the Yankees’ senior director of organizational performance and mental skills expert, about another way to build camaraderie in the clubhouse. After all, there were lots of new faces. Over the winter, the Yankees looked to rebound from a terrible fourth-place finish in 2023 by bringing in star slugger Soto. They also added outfielder Verdugo and pitcher Marcus Stroman, whose histories as strong, somewhat individualistic personalities were well documented.

Boone didn’t want to just rely on second-year captain Judge to make all the personalities mesh. The 51-year-old was entering his seventh season as Yankees manager, and the last guaranteed year of his contract. He wanted his players to know he has their backs.

“I try to be myself and try to be authentic and I feel like the connection part with these guys, on a different level, is really important,” he said.

Boone played 12 seasons in the majors. He was an All-Star in 2003 with the Cincinnati Reds, who traded him that season to the Yankees, where he finished the year. Boone became part of Yankees lore with his walk-off home run to beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series.

“I know how hard the game is,” he said. “I know what a grind the season is. I know the pressures these guys face.”

How it works is simple.

After a win, Bohling flips a game-used baseball to Boone, who pockets it and ponders his candidates while in the high-five line. Then he ducks into his office to write a personal note on the ball before bestowing it upon his choice.

Boone doesn’t consult anyone. He wants his choice to come from the heart.

“Usually,” he said, “it’s a word or a sentence to capture what they did in a game that helped us win. It’s something I’ve enjoyed. I’m glad we’re doing it.”

Photo of the week

After Red Sox fans welcomed him back to Fenway with a cacophony of boos on Friday night, Verdugo turned on a first-pitch sinker from Brayan Bello and slammed it 406 feet to straightaway center for a two-run homer, giving it back to the crowd as he rounded third base.

(Top photo of Gerrit Cole: Adam Hunger/Getty Images)