The 2005 Yankees spent over $200 million on their roster, and the two guys who saved the season were a 34-year-old career minor leaguer and a pitcher Colorado couldn't wait to dump. Aaron Small went 10-0. Shawn Chacon went 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA. Together, they dragged a New York Yankees rotation off life support and fueled a second-half run that won the AL East. On a team built by the checkbook, the scrap heap delivered.
I love this story because it's everything baseball is supposed to be. You can't buy your way out of every problem. Sometimes you need the guy who spent 15 seasons riding minor league buses to show up and pitch like his career depended on it -- because it did.
How the Rotation Fell Apart
Brian Cashman's offseason plan was simple: fix the pitching. He got Randy Johnson from Arizona. He signed Carl Pavano to a 4-year, $39.95 million deal. He added Jaret Wright. The Yankees entered 2005 with a rotation that looked bulletproof on paper.
By July, it was in ruins. Pavano made 17 starts before a stress fracture in his humerus shut him down -- initially misdiagnosed as rotator cuff tendinitis, because of course it was. (Pavano's injury history with the Yankees reads like a medical textbook nobody wanted to study.) Wright landed on the DL in April and stayed there. Kevin Brown was cooked. Johnson, at 41, won 17 games but surrendered 32 homers and wasn't the ace everyone paid for.
The Yankees sat at .500 in early July, six games behind in the East. The expensive rotation plan had failed. Cashman needed warm bodies who could eat innings.
Enter Aaron Small
Small was 34 years old. He'd bounced through six organizations across 15 minor league seasons. He was pitching at Triple-A Columbus -- not because he was a prospect on the rise, but because he was a career organizational arm filling a roster spot. Nobody outside the Columbus locker room knew his name.
Then the Yankees called him up, and he stopped losing. Small went 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA in 15 appearances. He won five games in September alone when every start felt like a playoff game. He struck out only 37 batters in 316 faced -- this wasn't a guy blowing hitters away. He located. He changed speeds. He pitched like a man who understood this was his one shot and he wasn't giving it back.
Ten and oh. From a guy who'd spent a decade and a half in the minors. Freakin' incredible.
Enter Shawn Chacon
Chacon's story was different but equally unlikely. He was 1-7 with Colorado before the Rockies traded him to the Yankees for minor leaguers. His ERA was ugly. His confidence was gone. The common assumption was that he'd be another warm body eating meaningless innings.
Instead, Chacon threw six scoreless in his first start as a Yankee and never slowed down. He went 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA in pinstripes. Some of that was escaping Coors Field (Chacon wouldn't be the first or last pitcher to look better outside Denver), but the improvement was too dramatic to explain away with altitude alone. He found his slider. He found his composure. He pitched like he belonged.
What They Did Together
Small and Chacon combined for a 17-3 record and stabilized a rotation that had been hemorrhaging runs since April. They didn't just fill innings -- they won games. The Yankees climbed from .500 in July to 95-67 by season's end, catching the Red Sox and winning the AL East on a 10-9 season-series tiebreaker.
A-Rod won MVP. Mo saved 43 games. Cano emerged as a rookie. But none of that matters without Small and Chacon keeping the rotation from collapsing entirely. The most expensive roster in baseball needed two bargain-bin arms to survive.
Chacon's October Moment
The ALDS against the Angels went five games. Johnson got torched in Game 3 at the Stadium -- pulled in the fourth to boos. The Yankees were down 2-1 in the series and facing elimination in Game 4.
Chacon took the ball and delivered the pitching performance of the season. He kept the Angels to two runs, the Yanks won 3-2, and the series went to a deciding fifth game. The guy who'd been dumped by Colorado pitched the most important game of the year.
(The Yankees lost Game 5 anyway. Jeter singled in the ninth, A-Rod grounded into a double play, and the season ended. But Chacon's Game 4 kept the team alive for one more day. That counts for something.)
The Aftermath
Small pitched for the Yankees in 2006 but couldn't recapture the magic. Chacon returned too but eventually wore out his welcome. Lightning-in-a-bottle seasons are called that for a reason -- the bottle breaks.
But the 2005 rotation rescue influenced how Cashman thought about building teams going forward. The era of overpaying for free-agent arms started giving way to developing homegrown pitchers -- Chien-Ming Wang, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain. The lesson was right there: sometimes the answer isn't on the free-agent market. Sometimes it's in Columbus.
Small's 10-0 run remains one of the most improbable stretches in modern Yankees history. Two nobodies saved a $208 million roster. Baseball doesn't write better scripts than that.
| Aaron Small (NYY) | 10-0, 3.20 ERA, 15 apps |
| Shawn Chacon (NYY) | 7-3, 2.85 ERA |
| Chacon (COL) | 1-7 before trade |
| Combined Record | 17-3 |
| Yankees July Record | .500, 6 GB in AL East |
| Final Record | 95-67, AL East champs |
Yankees at .500, Six Games Back
The rotation is in shambles. Pavano is done, Wright is on the DL, Brown is fading, and Johnson is inconsistent. Cashman needs arms.
Chacon Acquired from Colorado
The Yankees trade minor leaguers for the struggling right-hander. He throws six scoreless in his debut and goes 7-3 as a Yankee.
Small Called Up from Columbus
The 34-year-old career minor leaguer begins the most improbable undefeated run in modern Yankees history.
Small Goes 5-0 in Final Month
Small wins five games down the stretch as the Yankees chase Boston for the AL East title.
Chacon Saves the Season in Game 4
Facing elimination, Chacon pitches the Yankees to a 3-2 win over the Angels to force a deciding Game 5.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Aaron Small's record with the 2005 Yankees?
Small went 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA in 15 appearances after being called up from Triple-A Columbus. The 34-year-old had spent 15 seasons in the minor leagues across six organizations before his breakout with the Yankees. He struck out only 37 batters, winning on location and command rather than overpowering stuff.
How did the Yankees win the 2005 AL East with a broken rotation?
Aaron Small (10-0, 3.20 ERA) and Shawn Chacon (7-3, 2.85 ERA) rescued the rotation after Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and Kevin Brown went down. Combined with A-Rod's MVP offense and Mariano Rivera's 43 saves, the Yankees climbed from .500 in July to 95-67 and won the division on a season-series tiebreaker over the Red Sox.
Who was Shawn Chacon on the Yankees?
Chacon was a right-handed pitcher acquired from the Colorado Rockies midseason in 2005. He'd been 1-7 with Colorado before the trade and reinvented himself in pinstripes, going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA. He also pitched the Yankees' biggest game of the year -- a 3-2 Game 4 ALDS win over the Angels to stave off elimination.