Carlos Rodón’s 2023 season was … less than ideal.

After inking a massive six-year, $162 million free-agent deal with the Yankees in December 2022, the two-time All-Star missed the first three months of the season due to a back injury. After he returned in July to much expectation, Rodón never quite found his footing. The lefty hurler looked uncomfortable throughout his first season in pinstripes, finishing the campaign with a brutal 6.85 ERA across 14 starts.

With all the chaos in YankeeLand last year, Rodón’s underperformance was somewhat overshadowed. But with so much of the organization’s pitching depth dealt to San Diego this winter in exchange for Juan Soto, the Yanks are counting on a bounceback year from their sturdy southpaw. That puts every pitch Rodón throws this spring under a microscope.

In his first spring training start of the year, the 31-year-old gave us something to look at. Across Rodón’s nine-year MLB career, he has thrown 15,540 total pitches — but never a cutter. That is, until now. (Note: Statcast had Rodón throwing a cutter last year, but if you watch the video … well …)

But against the Blue Jays on Sunday, Rodón threw five cutters, all to right-handed hitters. The results — two balls, two foul balls and an Alejandro Kirk home run — are unimportant; this is spring training, after all. Worth noting is that during the game, The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner reported that Rodón has been chatting with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole about how the addition of a cutter helped Cole down the stretch last season.

In general, February and March exhibition games offer very few data points of relevance. Players are more focused on getting prepared for the regular season, and the small-sample haze obfuscates the truth. But the two key dynamics in spring training are changes to pitch data and player health. Those are the most meaningful happenings that could have an impact on, you know, the real season.

Rodón’s new cutter falls into that first category. But to understand how effective this new pitch might be, we must first investigate why Rodón disappointed a year ago. That will help us understand whether a cutter is the key that fits this particular lock.

The weirdest part of Rodón’s 2023 was that his raw stuff didn’t slide. In 2022, he performed like one of the best pitchers in the world for the San Francisco Giants. A sixth-place NL Cy Young finish and a delightfully small 2.88 ERA in 178.0 innings earned him that hefty contract from the Yankees. He also racked up a mountain of strikeouts, thanks to a dastardly fastball/slider combination.