Yankees nearing confirmation of what was once viewed as worst-case rotation plan

Gerrit Cole is out for 2025. Luis Gil is probably out for the first half of the year. Clarke Schmidt is not fully healthy and will have a delayed start. The New York Yankees' rotation has taken far too many detrimental hits this offseason.

Before spring training began, the Yankees looked to have the best starting rotation in MLB. So when they signed over-the-hill veteran Carlos Carrasco to a minor league contract in early February, fans said to themselves "we better hope we don't need this guy in late March."

Turns out, they do! Badly. And he'll be starting the 2025 season in the back end of the rotation after YES Network's Jack Curry confirmed Carrasco will be added to the 40-man roster in order to avoid the right-hander from triggering his opt-out clause on Saturday.

At first, without question, any projection of Carrasco in the Opening Day rotation was viewed as a potential disaster for Yankees fans. And we'll admit, it's still definitely not a great plan. But given the circumstances, the early panic should have subsided by now.

Carrasco has been good this spring, and if he can be somewhat serviceable for a couple months he will have done his job admirably. And the Yankees will be better off for it.

Yankees expected to add Carlos Carrasco to 40-man roster ahead of Opening Day

As of now, the rotation is expected to look like this:

• Max Fried
• Carlos Rodón
• Marcus Stroman
• Carlos Carrasco
• Will Warren

For anybody wondering about Schmidt, he simply cannot be projected into the plans right now because he's only pitched 1 2/3 innings this spring and is nowhere near built up to make starts. The Yankees claim he'll be ready to go for their April 3 game against the Diamondbacks, but we'll believe it when we see it. An IL stint to begin the year seems more likely.

Though Warren got knocked around in his most recent outing, he's performed well this spring for the most part. Additionally, it feels like the time is now for the right-hander. He has 44 games under his belt at Triple-A as he enters his age-26 season. The organization can't keep waiting around for him to take the next step.

There are a lot of question marks here, even with the healthy group. Can Rodón avoid another rollercoaster campaign? Can Stroman rebound from his awful 2024 second half and the distracting offseason trade rumors? Can the Yankees get 12-15 average starts from Carrasco, who has a 6.18 ERA in his last 41 MLB outings?

We're living on the edge here, but this is all the Yankees got due to the untimely injuries.