{"id":97706,"date":"2025-03-17T16:25:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T20:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=97706"},"modified":"2025-03-17T16:25:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T20:25:45","slug":"yankees-carlos-carrasco-starting-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/17\/yankees-carlos-carrasco-starting-rotation\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees May Rely on Carlos Carrasco for Rotation Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Yankees signed Carlos Carrasco for some veteran insurance, but now he is not just a backup plan, he is a potential starter. When the Yankees brought in Carrasco this offseason, they viewed him as a depth piece – someone who could step up if injuries piled up. Now, with Gerrit Cole out for the season<\/a>, Luis Gil sidelined<\/a>, and Clarke Schmidt dealing with a shoulder injury, the Yankees could be cashing in on their insurance policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, New York\u2019s <\/span>No. 5 prospect<\/span><\/a>, Will Warren, is the favorite to secure the final spot in the Yankees rotation. The veteran right-hander Carrasco is also likely to contribute significantly to the pitching staff, taking on either a starting role or long-relief duties. He rejoined the Cleveland Guardians last season following three years with the New York Mets, pitching 103 \u2154 innings with a 5.64 ERA. <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite his inconsistencies in recent years, the 37-year-old has emerged as one of the Yankees\u2019 most reliable arms in camp. He looked sharp in his latest outing against the Philadelphia Phillies, allowing just one earned run and striking out six over 3 \u2153 innings. Of the six strikeouts, he used four different pitches, a slider, sweeper, sinker, and a changeup, to sit Philadelphia down. Carrasco owns a 2.45 ERA over 11 spring innings, striking out 9.82 batters per nine with a 56% ground ball rate.<\/span><\/p>\n

His success, and the changeup he finally feels as if he found, have not gone unnoticed by the Yankees. \u201cIt\u2019s looked good,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said of Carrasco\u2019s repertoire after Friday\u2019s Grapefruit League victory, \u201cit\u2019s looked consistently good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Veteran Carlos Carrasco Making Strong Case for Final Yankees Rotation Spot<\/h2>\n

Once prone to giving up home runs and hard contact, the former Cy Young candidate could crack New York\u2019s Opening Day roster. <\/span>Jack Curry of the YES Network<\/a> reported on Monday that the Yankees have been raving about Carrasco\u2019s swing-and-miss stuff. Curry reports that indications are that Carrasco, who has an opt-out on March 22nd, would likely join the rotation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carrasco\u2019s main competition for the fifth rotation spot is Warren. The young right-hander has been outstanding this spring, but unlike Carrasco, he can still be optioned to the minors. Warren struggled following his major league debut last season, giving up 27 runs (26 earned) across 22 \u2154 innings pitched. He will pitch plenty of innings this season, but keeping Carrasco gives them veteran depth they would not otherwise have. Sending Warren back to Triple-A to start the season allows New York to maximize as many veteran innings as possible. However, if Schmidt ends up missing time, both Warren and Carrasco could open the season in the Yankees starting rotation.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo Credit: \u00a9 Jim Rassol-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Yankees signed Carlos Carrasco for some veteran insurance, but now he is not just a backup plan, he is a potential starter. When the Yankees brought in Carrasco this offseason, they viewed him as a depth piece – someone who could step up if injuries piled up. Now, with Gerrit Cole out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":97734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071],"tags":[1562,1418,611,2860,6491],"class_list":["post-97706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","tag-carlos-carrasco","tag-clarke-schmidt","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-luis-gil","tag-will-warren"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97706"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97735,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97706\/revisions\/97735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}