The New York Yankees might be done making their big moves this offseason. In light of chairman Hal Steinbrenner’s recent comments espousing the “difficulty” of keeping up with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spending, it makes sense that general manager Brian Cashman is looking to upgrade around the margins of his roster as spring training approaches. That doesn’t mean the free agent market is out of name-brand players, and the Yankees were able to get one to agree to terms on a minor league contract Monday.
More news: Free Agent Jack Flaherty Confirms His Own Signing on Social Media According to multiple reports Monday, free agent pitcher Carlos Carrasco will join the Yankees in spring training after facing them twice in the postseason over his long and decorated career. Jack Curry of the YES Network was first to report the deal on Twitter/X. Carrasco, 37, is 110-103 in parts of 15 seasons with the New York Mets and Cleveland Guardians. He was 3-10 with a 5.64 ERA in 103.2 innings with Cleveland last season.
Carrasco won the Roberto Clemente Award in 2019, and collected American League Cy Young Award votes in 2015 and 2017. In 2016, Carrasco posted a solid 3.32 ERA in 25 starts, helping Cleveland break the American League’s longest drought between World Series appearances. In Game 3 of the 2017 AL Division Series, Carrasco threw 5.2 shutout innings against the Yankees, a game the Yankees ultimately won 1-0 to stave off elimination down 2-0 in the best-of-five series. New York came back to beat Cleveland before losing to the Astros in the AL Championship Series.
In 2020, Carrasco started Game 2 of the AL Wild Card series against the Yankees and allowed four runs in an eventual 10-9 Cleveland loss.
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For Carrasco, merely pitching postseason games was a victory at that point in his career. He was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in May 2019 but amazingly missed only three months out of the season to undergo treatments. However, the break marked a turning point in his career. He was 83-68 with a 3.78 ERA at the time. Since then he is 27-35 with a 5.02 ERA. More news: Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Dies at 86 Nonetheless, Carrasco has made no fewer than 12 starts in any season since. With the Yankees, he’ll be no higher than seventh in a pecking order of starting pitchers that includes Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt and Marcus Stroman. Stroman has been rumored to be on the trading block all winter. If the Yankees are able to unload his contract before the start of the season, it could put Carrasco in a better position to seize a major league rotation job.
