Gerrit Cole reportedly opts out of contract, but Yankees have a way to void the move

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on Nov 2, 2024

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole reportedly triggered the opt-out clause in his contract Saturday, putting his future in the Yankees’ hands.

The ace opted out of the final four years and $144 million on his deal, according to ESPN, but the Yankees can void the opt-out by adding another year at $36 million to Cole’s contract.

Doing so would inflate the 34-year-old Cole’s remaining money to $180 million over five years and keep him under contract until he is 39.

It would turn the nine-year, $324 million contract Cole signed before the 2020 season into an overall commitment of 10 years and $360 million.

Cole’s agent, Scott Boras, indicated last offseason that an opt-out was likely.

“Gerrit’s contract has an opt-out, but the Yankees can opt back in,” Boras said at the Winter Meetings in December. “So we would anticipate that those things are going to happen. So it’s not been anything of length we’ve talked about.”

Those comments came before Cole was diagnosed during spring training with inflammation and edema in his right elbow — an injury that cost the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner nearly the first three months of the season.

Cole went 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA and 99 strikeouts over 95 innings in the regular season, then pitched to a 2.17 ERA over 29 innings in five starts in the playoffs.

He allowed only one earned run over 12 2/3 innings in two starts in the World Series. He was burned in the Yankees’ season-ending Game 5 loss to the Dodgers, however, by shoddy defense in a five-run fifth inning, during which his teammates committed two errors before Cole did not cover first base on Mookie Betts’ run-scoring infield single.

“This is, like, as bad as it gets,” Cole said of the Yankees losing in the World Series. “It’s the worst feeling you can have, especially because you have to keep, sometimes, willing yourself to believe to give yourself a chance. You keep pushing and you keep pushing, and ultimately we came up short. It’s brutal.”

Cole is 59-28 with a 3.12 ERA in his five seasons with the Yankees. He finished in the top-10 of AL Cy Young Award voting in each of the first four, including winning the honor in 2023 after going 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA.

His contract was the biggest ever for a pitcher in terms of total value when he signed it, but the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto has since passed it with a 12-year, $325 million deal.

“He’s been everything we could’ve hoped when we brought him here,” manager Aaron Boone said before Game 1 of the World Series. “He’s been one of this era’s aces. Obviously, he’s had a great career on a Hall of Fame track.”

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