A pitcher worthy of being called the best ace in existence is Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees.
However, he has never received a Cy Young Award. This is in contrast to the fact that Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, and Jacob deGrom, who are in the ace ranks together, have received two or three Cy Young Awards.
Maybe that’s why Cole is always far from the top in the player rankings published by influential local media every year. Aaron Judge, a teammate of the Yankees who set the record for the most home runs in a season in the American League last year and became the MVP, raised an objection.
“I don’t look closely at those lists, because 99 percent of them are wrong,안전놀이터” Judge told The Athletic on the 11th (Korean time). People who have never had it write that list.”
It is said that the player rankings regularly announced by influential local media are wrong in themselves because they are written by people who do not play only by looking at records.
Let’s look at the ‘2023 MLB Top 100’ announced by MLB.com during the spring training period in February. Cole was ranked 37th. It fell further from the 16th place in the 2022 ranking of the media.
Shohei Otani (LA Angels), Judge, Mike Trout (Angels), Mookie Betts (LA Dodgers), Manny Machado (San Diego), Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt (St. Cleveland), Jordan Alvarez (Houston), and Freddie Freeman (Dodgers).
Judge argues that the media’s ranking lacks relevance and objectivity in that Cole was excluded from the “Top 10.”
Judge evaluated Cole this way and emphasized that he was the best player.
“If he’s not the best pitcher in the majors, there’s probably only one or two above him,” he said. If you get a chance to see what he does behind the scenes and how much he cares about the baseball and his teammates, you’ll be impressed. Once on the mound, he throws a 100-mph ball with a sloppy slider, a terrific curveball, a changeup and two-seam. How about it. It’s very impressive. I honestly don’t think he’d be interested in ranking like that.”
Cole has a good start to his season. He threw 12⅓ innings in 2 games, including the opening game, and has 2 wins, an earned run average of 0.73, 19 strikeouts, a WHIP of 0.892, and a batting average of 0.150. “You can see from those numbers that Cole is the greatest player at his position,” Judge said.
However, Cole does not seem to be interested in his position. He told The Aspectie, “I don’t feel bad that I was excluded from the rankings. But my wife gives all sorts of reasons and complains that such a list is wrong.” is that I think I am the best,” he said.