Yankees 2024 Roster Report Cards: Cody Poteet

Yesterday at 12:00 PM

Poteet was solid when called upon in 2024.

While pretty much every team goes into the season with a five-man rotation, no team ever makes it through the season with just those five pitchers starting. Whether it be due to injuries, trades/roster moves, or doubleheaders/schedule build up in general, every team has to have some amount of rotation depth going into the year.

That depth doesn't mean you have to have six or more guys who are proven genuinely good major league pitchers, but you'd like to have some people in the reserves who might be able to give you five-ish innings without completely falling apart every once in a while. For the Yankees in 2024, Cody Poteet was one of those rotation depth guys, and he filled that role fairly admirably.

Grade: B

2024 Statistics: 5 games, 24.1 innings pitched, 2.22 ERA, 4.03 FIP, 4.33 xFIP, 5.92 K/9, 2.96 BB/9, 0.2 fWAR

2025 Contract Status: Pre-arbitration eligible

Having failed to catch on with the Royals after a minor league deal in 2023, the Yankees signed Poteet to a $750,000 deal in January 2024, precisely to provide some depth and competition. To start the year, the Yankees sent him to Triple-A, before a doubleheader in April led to him getting the callup as the Yankees' 27th man for the day. In the second game on April 12th, he went six innings, surrendering just one run as the Yankees beat the Guardians.

After that, Poteet returned to the minor leagues before reappearing in June. With Nestor Cortes placed on the IL, Poteet was the choice to fill in for a couple weeks in his place. He made three starts in that time, and while he was hardly mowing down batters like he was a Cy Young contending ace, he did about as well as you might hope.

The best outing in that time probably came June 7th against the Dodgers. Matched up opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Poteet went inning for inning with him for the first couple frames. Taking on that stacked lineup, he allowed just two hits and three walks in 4.2 scoreless innings. Although the Yankees lost the game 2-1, Poteet again did about everything you could've asked of him.

However shortly after that, Poteet suffered a triceps strain that landed him on the IL, and eventually the 60-day version. He did not reappear in the big leagues again until late September and the penultimate series of the season. In his one post-injury appearance, Poteet put in 3.1 solid innings out of the bullpen against the Orioles, but wouldn't make the playoff roster.

While his initial pact with the Yankees was only for one year, Poteet had only appeared in parts of two prior MLB seasons, and still has some team control left. Sitting here in early December, it seems pretty likely that he'll have a similar role for the 2025 season. While he was pretty good last year, he was hardly good enough to pencil into a full-time rotation role, but not someone you have to jettison off the 40-man roster as of right now. Of the Yankee pitchers to make spot starts last year, you'd certainly have to rank him ahead of the likes of Will Warren at the moment.

Back of the 40-man roster spot starter can often be a pretty thankless role, but Poteet earned some amount of thanks in 2024.