Gerrit Cole will relish ‘hard’ opportunity to repeat as Cy Young winner: Ron Guidry

TAMPA — Ron Guidry has walked in the shoes that Gerrit Cole is gearing up to wear as the reigning unanimous Cy Young award winner.

So the former Yankees ace knows what the current Yankees ace is in for.

“Everybody’s gonna be shooting for you the next time out because you’re elevated, you’re the best,” Guidry said Friday at Steinbrenner Field before Cole made his Grapefruit League debut against the Blue Jays.

“Now every team wants to beat you. Every hitter wants to get a hit. Everybody just wants to beat you. It’s harder to beat those guys. … When you have a great, great year, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a good year the next year. It’s just going to be hard to duplicate what you did because somebody else might have a great year. But it doesn’t diminish who you are. You still gotta go out every five days and do the job you’re supposed to.”

Ron Guidry speaks to the media at the New York Yankees Old Timer’s Day. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST

Guidry handled everybody’s best shot at him with little problem coming off his Cy Young year.

His ERA rose by over a full run, but it was still only 2.78 while placing third in the 1979 Cy Young voting — with rotation mate Tommy John finishing second to the Orioles’ Mike Flanagan.

The Yankees would sign up for that scenario if it meant Cole would get more help from his rotation than last year, when it largely crumbled around him.

But Guidry expects Cole to relish the opportunity of every team and hitter coming for him.

“He doesn’t shy away from anybody, which [is what] a No. 1 is supposed to do,” Guidry said. “You only pitch better when you pitch against the best guys.”

Besides Cole breaking a few of Guidry’s Yankees records over the last few years, the two have also developed a strong relationship, which gets renewed each spring training with Guidry serving as a guest instructor.

After Cole finally won his first career Cy Young in November, joining Guidry as only the second Yankee to win it unanimously, he said it was “fitting.”

He credited Guidry for helping him get “acclimated to the pressures and the role and the organization and the style with which to pitch to maximize my contributions to the team.”

New York Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole throws a pitch against the Toronto Blue Jays. Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

For his part, Guidry appreciates that Cole is a mix of old and new-school.

“He works hard to perfect what he does on the mound,” Guidry said. “He’s taken all the analytical things and then he’s put it together with a little bit of the old style of pitching. He understands analytically there’s a lot of stuff that goes with it, but there’s also the experience part. Because if you can’t do what you want on the mound with the baseball, analytics don’t do you any good. I think he understands that. I think he proved that to himself last year. Instead of worrying all about analytics, it’s a little bit of both.”

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It’s an equation that Cole will keep trying to use to his advantage this season as he continues to evolve as a pitcher.

Even before taking home the Cy Young, he was always trying to gain an extra inch wherever he could, continually making adjustments and trying to stay ahead of the curve.

Gerrit Cole hopes to repeat as AL Cy Young. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

That resulted in a dominant season last year in which Cole posted a 2.63 ERA with 222 strikeouts in 209 innings.

Now he will be tasked with finding a way to top it.

“I got to see a lot of great pitchers come through here,” Guidry said after bringing up Andy Pettite, Mariano Rivera, David Cone and CC Sabathia. “When you have guys like Sabathia and Pettitte, they’re left-handed, so naturally and normally they’re going to go talk to left-handed pitchers [like Guidry] who have done it before. So that was always fun.

“Even though Gerrit’s right-handed, it’s fun to talk to him because he understands — I think he’s taken a little of the old-school that I’ve talked to him about and he’s put it with the stuff he knows in today’s game.”