New York Yankees reliever Jimmy Cordero accepted a suspension for the rest of the 2023 season under Major League Baseball’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy, the league announced Wednesday.
“The Yankees are fully supportive of Major League Baseball’s investigative process and the disciplinary action applied to Jimmy Cordero. There is no justification for domestic violence, and we stand with the objectives, standards and enforcement of MLB’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy,” the Yankees said in a statement.
“You get that news and you hear about that, and it’s sad. Your heart goes out to everyone involved,” Yankees Manager Aaron Boone told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t have any details. I don’t know what went down, which is part of the idea of the investigation and the policy in place — it’s meant to work that way.”
Cordero, 31, is a hard-throwing righty who was in his fourth major league season with his fourth major league team. The former Washington National had established himself as a steady bullpen option for New York, appearing in 31 games with a 3.86 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning at the time of his suspension.
The 76-game suspension is just under half a full regular season, or five games shorter than the suspension levied against Yankees starter Domingo Germán after a 2019 incident. It is the eighth-longest suspension since MLB and the players’ union implemented the policy in 2015 and the longest awarded to an active player since the league suspended Trevor Bauer 324 games in 2022. Bauer appealed that suspension, which was reduced to 194 games as a result. Cordero will accept his suspension and begin serving it when the Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night.
“My biggest thing right now is just feeling for the situation, hoping and praying something good comes out of this, that there’s maturity, that there’s growth, that there’s healing as far as everything going on,” Boone said. “As far as bullpen, that’s — I wouldn’t even say secondary. That’s baseball. We’ll deal with that. This is real life and a much more serious situation.”