Luis Severino

Luis Severino was the homegrown ace who carried the New York Yankees rotation through the start of the Aaron Judge era, a hard-throwing righty out of the Dominican Republic who went from a 2016 demotion to a Cy Young ballot in the span of one year. He made two All-Star teams in pinstripes, anchored the 2017 and 2018 rotations, signed a $40 million extension that looked like a steal the day he signed it, and then spent most of five years fighting his own shoulder, lat, and elbow. Severino left as a free agent after 2023. The talent was never really the question.

Path to the Bronx

The Yankees signed Severino as an international free agent on December 28, 2011, for a $225,000 bonus -- he was 17, and by most accounts he'd already shaken hands with the Rockies before a Yankees scout swooped in and matched the offer. Good thing, too, since Severino grew up rooting for the team. (Imagine talking yourself out of your childhood team for slightly worse money. He didn't have to find out.)

He debuted August 5, 2015, against Boston at the Stadium, called up after Michael Pineda went down and the front office didn't add a starter by the deadline. Five innings, two hits, one earned run, seven strikeouts, zero walks -- the first AL pitcher in the modern era to pull off a debut that clean. He finished his rookie year 5-3 with a 2.89 ERA in 11 starts. Then 2016 happened.

The Crash and the Breakout

2016 was ugly. Severino opened as a starter and got rocked -- 0-6, a 7.46 ERA, eight homers allowed in 35 innings before the Yankees sent him to Triple-A. He came back mostly as a reliever and still finished the year 3-8 with a 5.83 ERA. Nobody watching that season projected a Cy Young ballot twelve months later.

2017 flipped the switch. Severino made his first All-Star team at 23, went 14-6 with a 2.98 ERA, 230 strikeouts, and a 1.04 WHIP over 193.1 innings, and finished third in AL Cy Young voting behind Corey Kluber and Chris Sale. He started four games that October, including a brutal one-third-inning Wild Card outing against Minnesota that ended almost as soon as it started -- and a seven-inning, nine-strikeout bounce-back in ALDS Game 4 against Cleveland that forced a decisive Game 5. The 2017 ALCS against Houston ended in a Game 7 loss that got a lot more complicated two years later, once the sign-stealing scandal broke.

The Second Ace Season -- and the Deal

2018 was, if anything, better. Severino carried a 14-2 record and a sub-2.50 ERA into the All-Star break, becoming just the fourth Yankees pitcher (and the first since Mel Stottlemyre in 1969) to take 14 wins into the Midsummer Classic. He finished 19-8 with a 3.39 ERA, 220 strikeouts, and his second straight All-Star nod, then started the Wild Card win over Oakland before getting shelled for six runs in an ALDS Game 3 blowout loss to Boston. He finished ninth in that year's Cy Young voting -- a real season, just not a top-three one, and worth saying plainly since it's easy to blur with 2017. (People conflate the two seasons constantly. They were both great. Only one got him actual Cy Young hardware attention.)

In February 2019, the Yankees locked him up: four years, $40 million, plus a $15 million club option for 2023. Off back-to-back ace seasons from a 24-year-old homegrown starter, it read like exactly the kind of extension a smart front office is supposed to make.

The Injuries Take Over

Then his body started arguing back. Severino was scratched from his first 2019 spring start with rotator cuff inflammation, went down again in April with a lat strain, and didn't pitch for the Yankees until mid-September -- missing 151 games in the process. He made three sharp starts down the stretch and started twice more that October, then walked into 2020 spring training with elbow soreness that turned out to be a partially torn UCL. Tommy John surgery followed on February 27, 2020. He didn't throw another big-league pitch until September 20, 2021 -- 706 days later, and strictly in relief.

2022 briefly looked like the old Severino -- a freakin' encouraging stretch, 19 starts with a 3.18 ERA and 112 strikeouts -- before a lat strain shut him down again in July. 2023 was worse -- another spring lat injury delayed his debut to late May, and he finished with a career-worst 6.65 ERA before a high-grade oblique strain ended his season, and his Yankees tenure, in September. (The extension that looked like a bargain in February 2019 became a cautionary tale by 2023. That's the injury business for you.)

He signed a one-year, $13 million deal with the Mets that December, closing the book on eight seasons -- 2015 through 2019, then 2021 through 2023 -- as a Yankee.

Where It Stands

Strip away the injuries and you're left with a pitcher who, for two full seasons, looked like a homegrown ace the Yankees had actually gotten right. Judge was still a rookie sensation and Gerrit Cole hadn't arrived yet when Severino was the guy taking the ball in Game 4 of the ALDS. Tanaka, Sabathia, and Severino formed a real rotation core during the Baby Bombers' rise, and for a couple of Octobers, Severino was the one they trusted with the ball first.

He was 24 years old, a week shy of his 25th birthday, when he signed that extension. That's the part that still stings.

Two ace seasons, a $40 million vote of confidence, and then five years of his own body getting in the way. Severino gave the Yankees everything he had when he was healthy. He just wasn't healthy nearly often enough.