BOSTON — Carlos Rodón quickly endeared himself to the New York Yankees’ fan base shortly after signing his six-year, $162 million contract. One of the key reasons why he wanted to be a Yankee, he said in December, was how he knew at the start of every season, the team would be one of the handful that could potentially win a World Series.
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He welcomed the pressure, the outsized expectations that come with signing a large contract in New York and embraced the passion of a restless fan base starved for its next title.
When he injured his forearm in spring training, which would inevitably delay his Yankees debut, he once again said the right words. Rodón told reporters in March how he was with the organization to pitch well into October, not to the All-Star Break like other teams whose seasons are sometimes over by then.
Hype is fleeting in New York, but the excitement was palpable with Rodón throughout the offseason because his fiery attitude would play well in the Bronx, especially if he could deliver similar results to the past two seasons when he was a Cy Young candidate.
The Rodón hype has mostly been extinguished in his first year with the Yankees, as the results have been ghastly. Going into Tuesday’s outing against the Boston Red Sox, Rodón has been one of the worst starting pitchers in MLB. His -0.4 fWAR ranked ninth-worst for all starters who’ve thrown at least 40 innings this season. He has the sixth-worst HR/9 ratio and fifth-worst FIP.
There have been very few positives for someone who was signed to establish one of the best, if not the best one-two punches with Gerrit Cole at the top of any rotation in baseball. Cole is the favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award while Rodón is in contention to win The Athletic’s Jayson Stark’s annual Cy Yuk Award.
But even with the discouraging results, there’s still reason for optimism that his contract won’t age similarly to past Yankees busts like Carl Pavano’s, A.J. Burnett’s or Randy Johnson’s. The reason is that Rodón’s stuff is similar to what it was last season when he led MLB in K/9 and established himself as one of the best pitchers.
His fastball Stuff+ is 106 this season. Stuff+ is a valuable metric that measures the physical characteristics of a pitch such as release point, velocity, vertical and horizontal movement and spin rate. Pitchers and organizations, including the Yankees, pay attention to this publicly available metric because it shows where individual pitches stack up across baseball. Last season, Rodón’s fastball had a 113 Stuff+. It graded out as the second-most effective fastball behind Justin Verlander’s, according to Statcast’s Run Value metric. His slider finished at a 123 Stuff+ last season, and it graded out as the 15th-best slider in Run Value last season. He has a 124 Stuff+ slider this year.
Carlos Rodón, Wicked Sliders. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/0PXFinz3CR
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 13, 2023
One of the main reasons why Rodón has struggled with the Yankees this season is he has nowhere near the level of command he showed with the San Francisco Giants. That’s shown itself with his BB/9 being over four, his whiff rates being down and the amount of hard contact opposing hitters have registered against him this year. Rodón’s mistakes have generally been demolished. He’s already given up 13 home runs this season in just over 50 innings; he gave up 12 in 178 innings last season. It’s an alarming trend; however, it isn’t because his pitches have greatly diminished.
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“He’s throwing strikes but it’s just not getting to the good areas,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said before Rodón’s start. “If you check the boxes on if there’s anything different with his stuff, it’s no, then he should have the ability to be the same guy. Now it’s a matter of being able to have the consistency on the mound to execute pitches against these lineups.”
Rodón had his best start as a Yankee on Tuesday. In five innings against the Red Sox, Rodón registered a 36 percent whiff rate en route to his third win of the season. He’s normally a two-pitch pitcher, but he worked in his curveball and changeup more than he has this season at a 19.4 percent usage rate.
Carlos Rodón's 3Ks in the 3rd.
8Ks thru 3 pic.twitter.com/xiFu1s8PEu
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 13, 2023
Rodón acknowledged after the game that he and the Yankees pitching coaches committed this past week to using all four pitches to help his fastball play better than it has recently. The fastball-slider combo hadn’t been working, and he was coming off a start against the Detroit Tigers where he felt like it was all too predictable.
Only having two pitches as a starter isn’t as big of a deal as some fans make it out to be, especially if they’re two elite pitches, which they were for Rodón when he was with San Francisco. Spencer Strider of the Atlanta Braves is also a fastball-slider pitcher and he’s unquestionably one of the best pitchers in the sport. Two-pitch starting pitchers run into trouble though if they don’t execute and the command is off. Then, opposing teams have a better sense of how to attack and it can become batting practice.
“This guy has been, at times in his career, dominant,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “The stuff is there. It just comes down to execution and getting the ball where he wants to, getting it into lanes, having a presence with secondary pitches and then being able to expand with both his fastball and his slider to get swing-and-miss. It’s there. It’s been a tough year for him obviously. He’s been through a lot. Hopefully, a lot of things learned and hopefully, he can finish the season with some momentum going into the offseason.”
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Regaining command can be fixed, especially if Rodón can have a normal offseason where there are no injury concerns and no setbacks with his throwing program. If he can rediscover his command, perhaps he can be the second ace the Yankees thought they were getting this past offseason. He’s acknowledged on many occasions how he simply hasn’t been very good this year, but the quality of pitches that got him paid is still there. He just has to put it all together next season because there’s likely no chance of salvaging Year 1.
“I just think there’s a lot going on in the first year of a new contract in this environment with the expectations and coming off the injury and not going through the full progression in his rehab,” Blake said. “He kind of came back a little early and there was some stop and start. I think there are a lot of things that have gotten in the way.”
(Photo: Eric Canha / USA Today)
