It would be hard to argue that the newly acquired Gerrit Cole is the most important Yankee this year. The $300 million man was not signed for nine years and that much money to not make a significant impact on not only this season but many, many more to come.
Without him, the Yankees won 103 games last year, winning their division, poised to make a run in the postseason before falling to who we can all assume is the most hated team in sports, the Houston Astros. Whether or not they were cheating in 2019 remains to be seen, (as does Jose Altuve’s supposedly ugly tattoo), but I digress.