The New York Yankees made a risky offseason trade for slugger Juan Soto after ending a six-year playoff run previous season.
However, once the AL Cy Young winner and star pitcher Gerrit Cole suffered an arm injury that was later determined to be nerve irritation and edema, the excitement generated by that trade all but vanished. The Yankees aren’t constructed to handle Cole’s departure; they gave up a lot of pitching depth in the Soto trade.
Not many teams, if any, are.
The Yankees aren’t without hope, though. They just find themselves in dire need of a major improvement, and coincidentally, there is still one on the free agent market. After pitching to a 3.20 ERA in the previous season and being even more stingier (2.90 ERA over 31 innings) come playoff time while leading the Texas Rangers to their first World Series title, Jordan Montgomery, who began his MLB career with the pinstripes, is still unsigned.
Earlier in the offseason, Jon Heyman of the New York Post stated that Montgomery’s camp had communicated with New York, and “they are back in contact.”
Now is the moment to close the deal. It might very well be the deciding factor in the Yankees’ season-long hopes.
