Gerrit Cole to New York Yankees

Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees have agreed to a 9 year, $324 million deal with an opt out after five years, it has been reported. Cole also gets a full no-trade clause.

It appears all the stories that the Yankees were going to do whatever it took to land the righthander were correct.

Cole emerged as one of the best starting pitchers in baseball over the past two seasons after being traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Houston Astros. He was seen as being, along with Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg, the top tier of free agents this offseason, and while he was expected to break David Price’s record of $217M for the largest contract received by a pitcher, I think this exceeded most folks expectations.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels were also aggressively pursuing Cole, which helped create a scenario where he could cash in big.