Carlos Rodon And Nestor Cortes after a strong start to the season, and the New York Yankees were in chaos with their rotation. Especially with Luis Gil going on the injured list with back problems, having one of their veterans step in will be crucial for them to not only win the American League East, but also win the World Series. It’s not easy to make adjustments midseason, but they are necessary if you want to remain effective throughout the season and combat the inevitable dips in performance.
Equipped with some nasty changeups, both are increasingly relying on this pitch against right-handers, and they’re coming into their own just when the Yankees need them most.
Changeups have brought Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes back to life
It wasn’t long ago that Carlos Rodon was completely out of the playoff race, and now he’s right in the thick of it. The left-hander has average stats across the board, but the ups and downs of this season have shown periods of utter futility in between periods of absolute dominance.
Last night, we saw the bright side of that inconsistency when Carlos Rodon went six scoreless innings against the Colorado Rockies, allowing just five of the 23 batters he faced to reach base. That has pushed his ERA up to an excellent 2.67 over his last six starts, but unlike his hot start earlier in the season, this stretch has included a lot of strikeouts. His 15% swinging strike rate is right in line with his peak years with the White Sox and Giants, and he’s undergone a significant change to be successful during this stretch.
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Carlos Rodon is a very different pitcher when he faces a right-handed hitter or a left-handed hitter. While he relies heavily on fastball sliders in these matchups with same-handed hitters, Change becomes his second most used pitch against righties. By incorporating the changeup more often, he finally gets something moving on his arm side, and it’s an excellent pitch that hits very well. His changeup ranks second in Stuff+ (129) and Whiff Rate (48.3), and that makes sense considering how much vertical distance he has off the fastball.
To strike out against opposite-handed hitters, you usually get the best results by throwing pitches that can fool hitters to the north and south, while against same-handed hitters, it’s best to try to move east to west. This explains why Carlos Rodon tries to throw as many sliders as possible when throwing against left-handed hitters, and we see that this pitch platooning helps him miss both hitters And Limit contact damage.
For those who don’t know what xwOBACON is, it’s essentially a way to measure how often you allow damaging contact by taking exit velocities and launch angles into account. The league average is around .370, and he’s gone from much higher-than-average damaging contact to a good portion of harmless contact. His pitching+ has also increased to an excellent 106 during this six-start stretch, and he’s coming into form at the right time. Carlos Rodon isn’t the only left-hander on the team throwing more changeups, as Nestor Cortes found a rhythm with that pitch in August.
Nestor Cortes was waived in July and trade rumors swirled around him during the deadline, so the Yankees apparently viewed him as expendable. One of the biggest problems I’ve seen with Cortes is that his fastball/cutter mix doesn’t fool right-handed batters, especially considering sweepers were usually his third most common pitch against them. Everything ended up in their hands and it’s easy to get ready to pull those throws in the air to do damage.
After allowing just 8 home runs with his four-seamer from 2022-2023, Cortes has allowed 12 on the pitch alone this season, and I think the batters have been spot on all summer. Now we’re seeing him mix up his changeup more often with right-handed batters, and he’s had two dominant starts in a row.
He tried that adjustment against the Los Angeles Angels, and while that start was a disaster, I didn’t think he allowed enough damaging contact to put all the blame on him. With his two brilliant starts after that, he’s lowered his ERA to a sparkling 2.89 in August, and right-handed hitters in particular have a hard time generating damaging contact against him. They had a .334 wOBA against him earlier this month, which is on par with Matt Chapman, who has a wRC+ of 117 this year.
If you want to make it as a starter in this league, you shouldn’t expect the average right-handed pitcher to be about 15-20% above your average on offense, but with the increase in changeups, that mark has dropped to .242. Much of what we discussed with Carlos Rodon applies to Nestor Cortes, although I think Rodon’s changeup is a better pitch than Nestor’s. Still, the point remains that both pitchers are at least trying to establish pitches down and out for righties, bringing a whole new look to what they’re used to.
If these two stay strong until the end, it could have a big impact on their potential playoff rotation as they try to put together their pitching staff.
The Yankees desperately need their veterans to find it
Gerrit Cole is back online after a rough start to the season, but their second and third best starters Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil are on the injured list. Both should be back soon, as Schmidt got off to a strong rehab start last night, but perhaps one of them will be moved to the bullpen. Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes could both start in the playoffs in October, and while they aren’t the safest options in the world, they are trending in the right direction.
The Yankees will need more from both of them if they want to rely on them in the postseason, and that’s a lot of pressure for two guys who can be very inconsistent. They’re about average run preventers this season, and if they finish the season strong, we could have two starters playing a good amount of innings overall. And have above-average ERAs that could do wonders for this bullpen.
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Moving someone like Marcus Stroman to the bullpen to serve as a bulk pitcher while Luis Gil or Clarke Schmidt bolster their high-leverage innings could be a huge advantage and tip the balance in their favor. After the ups and downs of this season for the Yankees, it now comes down to what they do in August and September, because if they play the right kind of baseball, they have a chance to pull away in the AL East and get a first-round bye.
Carlos Rodon wasn’t a great signing and Nestor Cortes hasn’t pitched at the same level as he did in 2022, but they have a chance to become popular pitchers. Nobody cares that AJ Burnett was overpaid; he delivered in Game 2 of the World Series when the Yankees were down 1-0 in 2009, and that will define his legacy here. A win heals everything, and hopefully they can etch themselves in franchise history with a big win down the stretch.
