Right-hander Gerrit Cole decided Monday to remain with the New York Yankees on the four-year, $144 million contract he opted out of Saturday, the team confirmed late in the day. Originally, the only way Cole would remain a Yankee without reaching free agency was if the club voided his opt-out with a one-year, $36 million extension to his contract, making it a five-year, $180 million deal. The Yankees declined to do so, but they came to an agreement for Cole to remain in New York anyway, as if he had not triggered the opt-out in the first place. "It was something at the moment we weren't necessarily comfortable doing, but we wanted our player and our ace back, and he certainly didn't want to go either at the same time," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said Monday at the general managers meetings in Texas. "And so we had a lot of healthy dialogue about trying to just thread the needle and just keep it in play." The two sides originally had until Sunday to decide Cole's...