OC Register: Report: Gerrit Cole, Yankees agree to record $324M, 9-year deal

[AngelsWin.com]

In the end, it turns out geography didn’t matter after all.

Prized free-agent pitcher Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees agreed to a record nine-year, $324 million contract on Tuesday night, ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported, the perennial contender outlasting both the Angels and Dodgers for the services of the former Orange Lutheran and UCLA star.

Cole, the runner-up to teammate Justin Verlander for the American League Cy Young Award, was dominant during the regular season and the postseason as the Houston Astros led the majors with 111 total wins. Many believed Cole might prefer a chance to pitch closer to home. He grew up in Newport Beach and met his wife at UCLA, but the team that tried to draft him out of high school (he chose to spend three seasons at UCLA instead) and nearly traded for him a few years ago, finally got its man.

The 29-year-old hard-throwing right-hander set an Astros record by winning his last 16 regular-season decisions and topped the AL with a career-best 2.50 ERA. His career-high 326 strikeouts were the most in the majors and set an Astros franchise record that had stood since 1979, when J.R. Richard struck out 313.

He had only one loss since May 22. That came in Game 1 of the World Series against the Washington Nationals, but he redeemed himself with a stellar outing in Game 5. During the postseason, Cole went 4-1 with a 1.72 ERA in 36-2/3 innings.

Eleven years ago, Cole, then a first-round draft pick, said no to an offer from the Yankees. Actually, he and his father arrived at a decision so quickly that the Yankees never even made him a contract offer, and Cole spent three seasons at UCLA.

Two years ago, the Yankees tried to get Cole again, this time in a trade from the Pirates. But Pittsburgh preferred the package from the Astros, dealing him in January 2018 as part of a five-player swap. In his two seasons with Houston, armed with a revitalized four-seam fastball and improved mechanics where he left fewer pitches out of the strike zone, Cole went 35-10 with a 2.68 ERA, 602 strikeouts and had a 12.1 WAR.

Cole, the No. 1 overall selection in the 2011 draft, went 12-12 with a 4.26 ERA and 196 strikeouts for the Pirates in 2017, and he was traded to Houston that offseason in exchange for pitchers Joe Musgrove and Michael Feliz, third baseman Colin Moran and outfielder Jason Martin.

He had finished fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2015 and earned the first of his three All-Star selections that season, but he was less effective in his other four seasons in Pittsburgh.

Cole also finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting in 2018. Over his seven MLB seasons, Cole has a 94-52 record with a 3.22 ERA and 1,336 strikeouts in 1,195 innings – his ratio of 10.062 strikeouts per nine innings ranks sixth among active players and eighth all-time.

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