The New York Yankees’ offseason pitching puzzle just got a little more complicated. After missing out on Edward Cabrera, the club’s options for bolstering the rotation are narrowing-and the names now surfacing aren’t exactly game-changers. According to MLB insider Jon Morosi, the Yankees may be shifting their focus toward depth arms, with Lucas Giolito emerging as a potential target.
That name might raise eyebrows for Yankee fans-and not necessarily in a good way.
Giolito, once a rising star with the White Sox, has taken a winding road in recent years, and his stop in Boston last season didn’t exactly end with fireworks. While the surface numbers from 2025-145 innings pitched and a 3.41 ERA-might look solid, the story underneath tells a different tale. Giolito missed the postseason due to an elbow injury, and Boston’s decision to decline both a mutual option and a qualifying offer speaks volumes about where they think his value stands.
Let’s rewind a bit. From 2019 to 2021, Giolito looked like a frontline starter.
He was punching out hitters at an above-average clip, keeping his ERA in the mid-3s, and generally holding his own in the AL Central. But things started to unravel in 2022.
His strikeout rate dipped, his ERA ballooned to 4.90, and the long ball became a recurring issue. The following year, he bounced between three teams-the White Sox, Angels, and Guardians-and never found his footing.
Cleveland, a team known for developing pitching talent, couldn’t unlock anything meaningful from him. That’s a red flag.
Then came 2024, a lost season due to a torn UCL. He returned to the mound in 2025, but the numbers suggest his old form didn’t come with him.
His 7.51 K/9 was his lowest since his first full big league season in 2018. Dig into the advanced metrics, and the picture gets even murkier.
A 90.3 mph average exit velocity put him in just the 22nd percentile. His chase rate (26.7%), whiff rate (22.9%), and walk rate (9.1%) were all below league average.
That’s a cocktail of contact and control issues you don’t want to serve in Yankee Stadium.
And it showed. Opponents hit him hard, with a .265 expected batting average (16th percentile) and a 5.06 expected ERA-numbers that line up closely with his struggles from 2022 and 2023. Factor in a career 1.45 home runs allowed per nine innings, and it’s not hard to imagine Giolito getting roughed up in the Bronx.
If this is the tier of pitcher the Yankees are seriously considering, it underscores just how tricky their current situation is. Even the top-tier free-agent arms still on the board-names like Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez, and Zac Gallen-come with question marks of their own. Which is why a trade might be the most realistic path forward.
But that’s no walk in the park either. Freddy Peralta is reportedly high on the Yankees’ wish list, but with multiple teams in pursuit, the bidding war could get steep. Another name to watch is MacKenzie Gore, though young, controllable starters like him don’t come cheap-especially in a market where the demand for pitching is sky-high.
So here’s where the Yankees stand: they need rotation help, badly. The internal options aren’t likely to carry the load, and the free-agent pool is thinning fast. If they want to avoid patching the rotation with minor league signings and non-roster invites, they’ll need to make a bold move-because Lucas Giolito, for all his past promise, doesn’t look like the answer in 2026.