Multiple insiders tab Yankees as Cole favorite

Here we go again.

On Monday, Brian Cashman confirmed that the Yankees were going to pursue Gerrit Cole. He also indicated that he had no directive from ownership to stay under the luxury tax threshold for 2020.

Yesterday, two MLB insiders seemed confident that Cashman would land his man. Former GM Jim Duqette said that, "I think they are the front-runner for Gerrit Cole more than any other team out there because they have the ability to spend money, and the ability to wait as long as it's going to take for him to sign."

https://twitter.com/snyyankees/status/1194384397597843467?s=20

Shortly after Jim Duquette made his statement, Andy Martino seemed to agree. He quote tweeted a video of the interview on twitter with the caption saying, "Me too."

Last year, Martino was dead on in saying that the Yankees were "lukewarm" on Machado and "not interested" in Harper. This year, he is adamant that the Yankees are serious about Cole.

It's very early in the process, but at the very least Cashman seems much more interested in big game hunting this year than he was last year. Remember, despite publicly backing his starting pitching, he replaced the pitching coach. He knows the Yankees need to improve their run prevention. This improvement needs to come from both the coaching/development/video side as well as the talent side.

It should be an exciting three months.