Tag Archives: Nestor Cortes

Nestor Cortes Returning to New York Yankees Rotation in Weekend’s Series vs. Houston Astros

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Nestor Cortes is getting back in the game!

The 28-year-old Cuban-American professional baseball pitcher will return to the New York Yankees‘ rotation this weekend in a four-game series against the Houston Astros after missing more than two months with a left rotator cuff strain.

Nestor Cortes 

Cortes was scheduled to make a third minor league rehab start on Wednesday.

When he arrived to get his things and travel to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the left-hander was told he would start either Saturday or Sunday.

“I was made aware of it today before I got in. I was supposed to come and pick up my stuff before I got to Scranton,” Cortes said. “That’s kind of what I know.”

Cortes will throw one more bullpen session Thursday and likely be limited to around 60 pitches in his first outing since May 30, when his shoulder started bothering him.

Cortes was initially placed on the 15-day injured list June 8 and hoped to only miss two or three starts. The Yankees moved him to the 60-day injured list July 7.

“I’ve been on the shelf too long,” Cortes said. “I want to come back and obviously show who I am and be back to the same form I was. So excited for this weekend.”

Cortes is 5-2 with a 5.16 ERA in 11 starts and has particularly struggled later in outings. Opponents are hitting .447 when facing him for the third time in a game.

Last year, Cortes was an MLB All-Star and went 12-4 with a 2.44 ERA in 28 starts.

New York manager Aaron Boone said he would likely know the exact date of Cortes’ return after Wednesday’s game.

Boone also said Luis Severino will make his next scheduled start Friday against Houston. Severino (2-5, 7.49 ERA) had a bullpen session with pitching adviser Andy Pettitte after allowing nine runs and 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings in a loss on Sunday.

Gleyber Torres Agrees to One-Year, $9.95 Million Contract with New York Yankees

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Gleyber Torres is staying put…

The New York Yankees have agreed to a $9.95 million, one-year contract with the 26-year-old Venezuelan professional baseball shortstop and second baseman, avoiding an arbitration hearing with the infielder by reaching a deal at the midpoint of proposed salaries.

Gleyber TorresThe Yankees announced the deal on Sunday.

Torres hit .257 with 24 homers and 76 RBIs in 140 games for the AL East champions last year.

Torres had asked for a raise from $6.25 million to $10.2 million in arbitration, and the Yankees had offered the second baseman $9.7 million.

A two-time MLB All-Star, Torres made his big league debut with New York. He is a .265 hitter with 98 homers and 310 RBIs in 576 career games.

He was New York’s last remaining player in arbitration. Nine Yankees agreed just before the exchange of proposed salaries on January 13: right-handers Frankie Montas ($7.5 million), Clay Holmes ($3.3 million), Domingo German ($2.6 million), Jonathan Loaisiga ($2,262,500) and Michael King ($1.3 million); left-handers Wandy Peralta ($3.35 million) and Nestor Cortes ($3.2 million); and catchers Jose Trevino ($2.36 million) and Kyle Higashioka ($1,462,500).

Twenty-nine major leaguers remain scheduled for hearings from Monday through February 17.

Carlos Rodon Agrees to 6-Year, $162 Million Deal with New York Yankees

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Carlos Rodon is the 162-million dollar man…

The 30-year-old Cuban American left-handed pitcher has agreed to a 6-year, $162 million deal with the New York Yankees, according to ESPN.

Carlos RodonRodon was the top pitcher left on the market after he opted out of a contract with the San Francisco Giants after last season. He was 14-8 with a 2.88 ERA in 2022, pitching a career-high 178 innings over 31 starts.

Rodon was the third pick in the 2014 draft by the Chicago White Sox but battled injuries during the first portion of his career before undergoing Tommy John surgery. He returned to elite form in 2021 when he compiled a 2.37 ERA over 24 starts though the White Sox were careful with him down the stretch. He never pitched more than five innings over the final two months of the season.

Even with his success that year the White Sox non-tendered Rodon that offseason leading to a two-year deal with the Giants. It included an opt-out which he chose to exercise in November.

Rodon joins holdovers Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas in the Yankees rotation which ranked fourth overall in ERA last year. That ranking wasn’t indicative of some second-half struggles as the Yankees were eliminated in the postseason by the Houston Astros.

The signing, which was first reported by the New York Post, is the latest for agent Scott Boras who once again is having a rich off-season. Other deals for his clients include Carlos Correa ($350M), Xander Bogaerts ($280M), Brandon Nimmo ($162M), Masataka Yoshida ($90M), Taijuan Walker ($72M), Sean Manaea ($25M) and Cody Bellinger ($17.5M).

According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the deal is the second-largest contract the Yankees have ever given a pitcher in total value, exceeded only by Cole’s $324 million deal in 2019. Rodon gets $1 million more than CC Sabathia‘s $161 million deal with the Yankees in 2008.

Between Rodon and Aaron Judge, who signed a nine-year, $360 million deal to stay with the Yankees earlier this month, the team has guaranteed $522 million in contracts this offseason.

Rodon won’t have to wait long to face his former Giants team, with the Yankees set to host the San Francisco Giants on Opening Day of the 2023 season.

Rodon is 56-46 with a 3.60 ERA in 152 major league appearances over eight seasons. He has 947 strikeouts in 847 1/3 innings.

Houston Astros Rookie Jeremy Peña Named American League Championship Series MVP

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He may have just missed out on the American League Rookie of the Year Award, but Jeremy Peña is celebrating another title.

The 25-year-old Dominican professional baseball player and shortstop is returning to Houston as the American League Championship Series MVP.

Jeremy Peña,Peña punctuated his epic four-game run in the Houston Astros’ sweep of the New York Yankees with his third homer of the postseason during the third inning of a 6-5 win in Game 4 at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.

The big blast spoiled an early Yanks’ lead, took the ticketed crowd of 46,545 out of it and served as the proverbial turning point in the final game of a series that was never really close.

“It’s surreal,” Peña said. “You dream about this stuff when you’re a kid, and shout-out to my teammates. We show up every single day. We stayed true to ourselves all year. We’re a step away from the ultimate goal.”

Peña finished the ALCS 6-for-17 with two homers and two doubles, good for a .353/.353/.824 (1.176 OPS) slash line.

The finishing touch featured the shortstop pummeling a middle-in slider from Nestor Cortes after the Yanks’ lefty led off the inning with walks to Martín Maldonado and Jose Altuve for a massive blast down the left-field line.

Statcast measured the homer a projected 408 feet and 104.8 mph off the bat.

With one epic swing — hands in, hips torqued — Peña tied the game at 3 after the Yankees took an early lead against Lance McCullers Jr., the first time that Houston had trailed New York at the end of an in-game inning in 11 meetings this season. The only other times they trailed were via walk-offs from Aaron Judge during a series in June.

It was an impressive sequence of making a mid-at-bat adjustment. Cortes, who exited immediately after the homer with a left groin injury, wouldn’t throw Peña a fastball, instead attempting to jam cutters and sliders inside, with one changeup way off the plate. So, on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Peña went hunting for offspeed ahead 3-1 in a hitter’s count — and he feasted when he saw the hanging breaking ball.

Peña knew he got all of it, transferring the barrel to his right hand as he paced out of the batter’s box, watching the ball sail before pinwheeling the lumber down the first-base line and breaking into a stride. As he rounded third base and glanced to the visiting dugout, he smiled toward his teammates and broke into a shrug, akin to the one that Michael Jordan made famous during the 1992 NBA Finals.

It was also another moment illustrating how well Houston has thrived with Peña hitting behind the leadoff man Jose Altuve. When Peña hit in the No. 2 hole during the regular season, the Astros went 42-7, and they entered Sunday undefeated this postseason with Peña hitting in that spot in every game.

“Jeremy has done a lot of good things,” Altuve said. “If I start talking about him, we might be here two hours. He’s a great player and I love the way he’s handling everything.”

Altuve and Carlos Correa had a relationship that Astros manager Dusty Baker likened to Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, so the words from Altuve — the 2019 ALCS MVP — carried weight.

“I think it’s important that Carlos passed the torch to him because I’ve seen some players don’t pass the torch,” Baker said. “They pass some dynamite. But Carlos passed the torch and he was a mentor to him. This is what baseball and life is all about, rooting for somebody else, because there’s a lot of jobs out there. We wanted to keep Carlos. Carlos wanted to stay but [we] couldn’t get things together. But the organization also felt that Peña was the right guy for the job, and he’s exceeded expectations.”

Aside from Sunday, Peña also put the Astros squarely on his shoulders with a solo homer in the 18th inning of their marathon ALDS Game 3 win in Seattle, the only run of what’s easily been Houston’s most tense game in these playoffs.

Peña’s 22 homers in the regular season were tied for sixth among shortstops and ranked second among first-year players to only Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez, who was named the AL Rookie of the Year Award winner. But Peña, who is good friends with fellow Dominican Rodríguez, will probably be fine with that given that his team is headed to the World Series.

Oakland A’s Pitcher Frankie Montas Acquired by New York Yankees

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Frankie Montas is heading to the Northeast…

The 29-year-old Dominican professional baseball right-handed, starting pitcher has been acquired by the New York Yankees, alongside part-Latino closer Lou Trivino in a deal with the Oakland Athletics.

Frankie MontasThe A’s are receiving left-handers Ken Waldichuk and J.P. Sears, right-hander Luis Medina and second baseman Cooper Bowman from the Yankees. Waldichuk, 24, was the fifth-highest-ranked prospect in the Yankees’ farm system, according to MLB.com.

The American League-best Yankees have had a busy deadline, acquiring outfielder Andrew Benintendi and rookie reliever Scott Effross before solidifying an already strong rotation and bullpen with the acquisitions of Montas and Trivino.

The trade for Montas is the second involving a highly sought-after starting pitcher this week, following Seattle’s acquisition of right-hander Luis Castillo from the Cincinnati Reds for a four-prospect package.

Montas, who is not eligible for free agency until after the 2023 season, has shown flashes of excellence since signing with Boston in 2009. He was traded to the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers before moving to Oakland, where he blossomed over the past six seasons into the pitcher who this season has 104⅔ innings of 3.18 ERA ball with 109 strikeouts, 28 walks and a dozen home runs allowed.

“His level of talent, especially with how he’s pitched the last couple years, just excited to get him in the mix,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s got the full arsenal and stuff you look for top of the rotation guy. Gone out and proved last couple years he is that kind of caliber pitcher.”

A shoulder injury sidelined Montas for a mid-July start, but he returned with three shutout innings, followed by a five-inning, two-earned-run start against Houston. That was enough of a sample to draw a broad range of teams — large-market and small.

”I think we’re comfortable with where he’s at shoulder-wise,” Boone said.

Montas joins a rotation headed by MLB All-Stars Gerrit Cole (9-3, 3.30 ERA) and Nestor Cortes (9-3, 2.53 ERA) that has faltered of late.

Left-hander Jordan Montgomery is 0-2 with a 5.36 ERA in his last eight starts and right-hander Jameson Taillon is 1-1 with a 5.04 ERA in his last five. Luis Severino has not pitched since July 13 because of a lat strain and was moved to the 60-day injured list Monday along with right-handed reliever Miguel Castro, out since July 10 with a strained right shoulder.

Going into Monday night’s series opener against Seattle, Domingo German had an 8.22 ERA in his first two starts after recovering from a right shoulder impingement.

By winning the Montas sweepstakes, the Yankees add a starter who will slot into a playoff rotation with a fastball-slider-splitter pitch mix that has proved effective all season. Montas went at least five innings in 15 of his first 16 starts, with the only exception being a game in which he got hit in the hand on a comebacker and left the game after 1⅔ innings.

Trivino, a 30-year-old right-hander, is 1-6 with a 6.47 ERA — double his 2021 figure — and 10 saves in 13 chances. Right-handed batters are hitting .289 against him this year while lefties are hitting .392 with nine walks in 60 plate appearances.

“Little bit down year statistically but we don’t think it lines up with what we’re seeing on some underlying things and who we think he is,” Boone said. “He’s been a very good reliever for them on some playoff-caliber teams.”

Trivino joins one of the better bullpens in the majors, but one that has struggled with injuries of late. Chad Green, Michael King and Zack Britton are all on the 60-day injured list with Green and King expected to miss the rest of the season.

Waldichuk, who is pitching at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, is 6-3 with a 2.71 ERA overall in 17 starts for two clubs in the Yankees’ minor league system this season and has 116 strikeouts in 76⅓ innings.

Sears, 26, is 3-0 with a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings for the Yankees in the majors this season and is 1-1 with a 1.67 ERA in 43 innings in Triple-A. Medina, 23, is 4-3 with a 3.38 ERA in 17 starts for Double-A Somerset this season.

Bowman, 22, is hitting .217 with eight home runs and 35 RBIs for Class-A Hudson Valley this season.

The Yankees also optioned right-hander Clarke Schmidt to Scranton and promoted right-hander Carlos Espinal from the RailRiders.