The Yankees absolutely needed to land pitching prodigy Carlos Rodon, and it’s not only to keep up with the crosstown Cohens. 

Rodon was the very pitcher the Yankees had to have for enough reasons to almost fill this page. 

1. Rodon was the only real hope remaining to give them a second ace to go along with Gerrit Cole. To match the better teams, a dynamic one-two punch is almost a necessity now. 

2. Rodon is left-handed, which still works much better in Yankee Stadium, where the short porch even bedevils a great right-hander like Cole. 

3. He may just be entering his prime, having turned 30 just Saturday and having transformed his game over the past couple seasons, and especially last year, when he piled up the innings (178) and strikeouts (237) in San Francisco. 

4. He’s got the rep of a tough character, exactly the kind to thrive in pinstripes. As a bonus, the Yankees heard early word he wanted to be in The Bronx, which is all they needed to hear to solidify his name atop the pitching wish list. 

5. He was the only one left who could give the Yankees a rotation to match up against their nemesis in Houston, known around here now as “the Dragon,” as in “slaying the dragon” (hat tip, Aaron Boone), something they haven’t come close to doing. Four years out of the past six, those nasty, trashy Astros knocked the Yankees out of the playoff derby. 

The Yankees had to have this guy. And it wasn’t an easy get. When the negotiations started to get a little dicey a couple days ago, there were hints they were about to start looking at second choices. However, the problem was that the other two available aces this winter — Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom — were long ago off the board. 

The Yankees didn’t seriously consider deGrom, not because he was a homegrown Met and our teams are conducting some sort of unholy alliance but because he’s only led the league in MRIs lately. Word is, his medical pictures were all clear, but some things were obviously keeping him inactive. The Yankees also weren’t about to outbid baseball’s new spending kings, the Mets, for Verlander, though that deal aided them as well since it removed the reigning American League Cy Young winner from the hated, vaunted Astros. 

The more recent pickings were noticeably slim. They started considering ex-Yankee Nate Eovaldi, who’s tough to be sure, but not nearly as talented. 

There were hints of a potential trade, but for who? There’s almost no one viable who was available beyond some kids in Miami — Pablo Lopez, Jesus Luzardo and Edward Cabrera. Sure, we can verify: those are three arms. But they are no Rodon, who resurrected his career like almost no one before him, posting a 2.88 ERA, making the All-Star team and earning some Cy Young votes for a second straight season in 2022 in a very deep field. 

And to think: Just two years ago he was in pitching purgatory. Rodon had no choice but to go back to his original White Sox team in 2021 for $3 million, a figure that signified how little confidence teams had in his ability to stay on the mound and almost qualifies him as a volunteer by free-agency standards. Now he lands the second biggest pitching deal of the winter — $162 million guaranteed over six years. 

It’s OK, the Yankees can afford it. This was the right deal for the right guy. 

While Mets owner Steve Cohen leads in spending and headlines — he picked up a fourth catcher, Omar Narvaez, with pocket change (for him) Thursday — credit the Yankees for putting the AL’s leading revenues to work. Cohen laughs at their $290 million (or so) payroll, but it’s right up against the perfectly named Steve Cohen tax threshold of $293 million. That’s closer to where the Yankees should be. 

They had to bring back Anthony Rizzo, and did that, fairly reasonably by this winter’s standards on a two-year, $40 million deal. And they absolutely had to have AL home run record-holder, Aaron Judge, the face of the sport as well as the team. 

Same goes for Rodon, and by the way, Judge gets an assist on this one, as he suggested to managing partner Hal Steinbrenner in one of their multiple meetings that he’d like to see some improvements. So Judge is already performing well as captain before officially being named one. 

The biggest reason they needed Rodon — who led the majors among qualifiers with 12 strikeouts per nine innings — is not keep up with the new kings in Queens or even to please the face of their franchise but to give themselves a legit shot at beating that juggernaut in Houston that keeps knocking out the Yankees, even legitimately a few times. 

Rodon, who regularly throws between 98 and 99 miles per hour, fits nicely between Cole and Nestor Cortes. In the American League he gives the Yankees a fighting chance, and maybe even better than that.