Despite having a fairly quiet offseason, the New York Yankees are still one of the best teams in the American League, at least when healthy. Their offense, which ranked first in MLB in slugging, OPS, and home runs last season, carries a lot of star power in players like Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Giancarlo Stanton, and Ben Rice. However, the strength and depth of their starting rotation is quietly among the best in all of MLB as well. They will be without Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Clarke Schmidt to begin the year, though, and all are on different timetables to return.
Cole, whose bullpen session went viral on social media after touching 96 mph, is aiming to be back in June at the earliest. Rodón should return in late April/early May, and Schmidt will be out until at least July. These three pitchers gave the Yankees 355 1/3 innings with an average ERA of 3.62 the last time they all pitched in the same rotation (which was in 2024). Still, even without these key arms, New York’s rotation should be just fine thanks to the sheer amount of depth they carry.
Gerrit Cole’s first bullpen of the spring pic.twitter.com/WhPoU1woht
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) February 13, 2026
Projecting the Yankees’ Rotation on Opening Day
Solid Starting Five
As it stands, New York’s Opening Day rotation will, barring further injuries, include Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Luis Gil, Will Warren, and Ryan Weathers at numbers one to five. These five pitchers are all quality starting pitchers, or at least have had stretches of MLB success. However, all of them except for Fried are either wildly inexperienced or prone to injuries. In other words, this rotation looks great on paper, but could easily fall apart after an injury or series of bad performances.
Schlittler, who pitched very well in his first taste of the postseason last fall, will almost undoubtedly keep his spot in the rotation. With the number two spot (temporarily) up for grabs, the Boston native could even end up slotting next to Fried in the rotation. Warren looked good at times in his first full campaign, but couldn’t find a sense of consistency; the same goes for Luis Gil, who won the AL Rookie of the Year less than two years ago, but fell apart this past postseason. The ceiling is pretty high for this group, but the floor is also pretty low.
What to Look For This Spring
There are also quite a few questions for the Yankees’ rotation that will have to be answered in spring training. The most important is probably whether Cole can return to Cy Young form, and whether Rodón and Fried can build on/repeat their excellent regular seasons in 2025. However, it’s the bottom part of the rotation that really has to prove itself. Warren and Schlittler are both coming off their rookie seasons, and with young pitchers, success does not always repeat itself right away. These two have to fine-tune their games in the spring if they want to help the Yankees compete in the fall.
The other big what-if for this rotation is their ability to stay healthy. This is especially concerning because of New York’s bullpen, which is not necessarily loaded with depth or talent. If the rotation falls apart, the already shaky back-end of the staff will be sure to follow, so staying healthy will be key for this group. Otherwise, there is absolutely no reason why the Yankees shouldn’t have one of the best sets of starting pitchers in the entire league.
Main Photo Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images