The Yankees and Gerrit Cole agreed to a nine-year, $324 million contract earlier this week, the longest and most expensive ever signed by a Major League pitcher.

Heading into the offseason, Cole was the biggest name on the market, and the Yankees were prepared to spare no expense when it came to landing last year's runner-up for the American League Cy Young award. The right-hander was said to have preferred a team on the west coast as his landing spot, but the Yankees were able to convince Cole to don the pinstripes for the forseeable future.

It's easy to say that Cole had 324 million different reasons to become the ace of the Yankees' staff, but according to his agent, Scott Boras, it didn't come down to dollars and cents as much as it did wins and losses.

Scott Boras said that Gerrit Cole gave the Angels serious consideration, but his priority came in trying to win a World Series.
- Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) December 14, 2019

The Yankees clearly provided Cole with a better path to earning the ring he missed out on when the Nationals knocked off the Astros in the World Series.

While the Angels added Anthony Rendon to a roster that boasts the best player in baseball in Mike Trout and perhaps the most intriguing two-way player (though he did not pitch in 2019) in Shohei Ohtani, the 2010s were a decade to forget in terms of postseason success. They qualified for the playoffs just once -- in 2014-- and were quickly swept in the ALDS by the Royals that October.

Yankee fans have bemoaned the fact that the 2010s brought with them the franchise's own version of postseason futility. It was the first decade since the 1910s that the team failed to win, or even qualify for, a World Series.

But if their newest pitcher has anything to say about it, it won't be long until the Yankees are parading down the Canyon of Heroes in celebration of their 28th World Series title.

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