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Once Gerrit Cole went down, the freshly imported Max Fried clearly rose to the front of the Yankee rotation. Though the Yankees had signed him with the intention of pairing him with Cole to form one of the best one-two combos in baseball, Fried was now the ace, with no questions as to who the team would rely on to be their workhorse.

What was less clear then, and is still unclear now, is the matter of who the Yankees’ second-best starter is. We posed that question to Yankees fans, giving them the choice of Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, and the currently rehabbing Luis Gil:

Kyle Thele

Fans emphatically responded in favor of Rodón, clearly won over by the scintillating run the left-hander has been on. Rodón carried a perfect game into the sixth inning against the Orioles his last time out, and has a 0.95 ERA and .430 OPS allowed across his last three starts. Glance at his Baseball Reference page and you’ll spot some black ink, with Rodón leading the AL in strikeouts and K/9 rate while posting the best H/9 rate in baseball.

That said, it might not be just this hot streak that has fans convinced, but also Rodón’s overall body of work over the last year or so. Since the start of 2024, Rodón has been durable, if not completely consistent, and has rolled up a 3.86 ERA and 247 strikeouts against 76 walks over 217 innings. He hasn’t been quite the front-line arm the Yankees expected when they signed him to a six-year deal after the 2022 season, but he’s been close, and the adjustments he’s made overall the last several months (see: the effective changeup he’s been using more than ever in 2025) should leave fans optimistic he’ll be one of the league’s better starters going forward.

Had you asked this question just under a year ago, Gil may have been the unanimous answer. The eventual AL Rookie of the Year had a stellar 1.82 ERA two months into his 2024 campaign, racking up 85 strikeouts across 69 innings. But Gil remains on the shelf with a lat problem, and only just started a throwing program, leaving him roughly two months from a return if all goes well.

Schmidt has also dealt with injury issues this spring, with a back problem throwing a wrench into his spring training prep. The right-hander is back in the fold, and has shown both positives and negatives so far: his bendy sweeper is drawing as many whiffs as ever, and his cutter still looks like a weapon against lefties, but his hard pitches are continuing to get hit hard. It’s all added up to a 5.52 ERA for Schmidt over three starts.

All that said, it’s not hard to envision the Yankees cobbling together a strong rotation at some point this year. Fried has been as advertised, and Rodon looks like a capable running mate. Schmidt and Gil have more than an enough to talent to hold down mid-rotation spots. As ever, it’ll come down to getting all those arms healthy and firing at the same time.

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