Right off the bat, I get the fallacy in the headline. It wasn’t really possible for Gerrit Cole to live up to expectations — in December 2019, when he signed that nine-year, $324 million contract, some Yankee fans thought he would run the table atop the team’s pitching staff, strike out 400 men, then outmatch Madison Bumgarner’s 2014 postseason run, and somehow hit the World Series-winning home run to boot.
That wasn’t ever going to happen, but I think it’s fair to try to be as objective as possible in assessing Cole’s season.