Question to Yankees ace Gerrit Cole: Something is … different this year, right?

It was December 2022, and two-year-old Caden Cole’s hair had become unwieldy.

“It was getting in his ears and his eyes and we were going into Christmas,” Caden’s father, Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, said this week while standing in front of his Yankee Stadium locker.

Caden was not particularly interested in a trim -- until, that is, dad said he would do it, too. “That’s how I got him to get it cut,” Cole says.

And so Short Hair Cole was born, representing a striking aesthetic change after years of curls that pushed the boundaries of the Yankee Way. But while this was the most obvious alteration in Cole’s look for 2023, I suspected it was not the most significant.

Beyond Cole’s early-season dominance -- he brings a 4-0 record and 0.95 ERA to Saturday’s start against Toronto and might be the best pitcher in either league at present -- there seems to be an ineffable change in his … vibe? … demeanor ?

What is it? I have covered Cole closely for more than three years and, while he has always been confident, this year he just seems more that way … or maybe it’s that he has an extra level of … something?

Am I wrong here?

“I think you’re accurate,” Cole says. “Not that I wasn’t [confident], but yeah. You’re accurate.”

During an in-depth conversation, Cole both suggests and responds to potential reasons for this. The first point he raises is the ability, after two years complicated by COVID protocols and one by a lockout, to at last experience life as a normal Yankee.

“The normalcy of it all has helped me settle in and be a little more locked in,” Cole says. “Full fans. City is vibing. Everything in the clubhouse in the spring and here is back to normal. People are around who weren’t around, like Willie [Randolph] and Ron [Guidry], which I obviously haven’t experienced up to this point. This feels like the first normal year that I’ve had.”

is it the first time being a Yankee was actually what he hoped and expected it would be?

“Yes,” Cole says.

In a separate interview, pitching coach Matt Blake echoes those points.

“Oh, I agree,” Blake says when I share the opinion that Cole looks different this year in some subtle way.

“He’s in a good headspace. The 2020 year was tough because it’s COVID. He’s got a baby. In 2021 he has a solid year. Last year we’re coming out of the lockout. There was always something dramatic around us that made it hard for him to focus on just being Gerrit Cole. This year, it was almost like, getting Carlos [Rodon], the [Aaron] Judge stuff, and he kind of comes in under the radar and can just focus on the work.”

The nature of that work, according to Cole, is more satisfying than ever. Immediately after citing the newfound routine, he pivots to praising catcher Jose Trevino, Blake and analyst Zac Fieroh for game planning that Cole says is more on-point than ever before.

“Trevi has been locked in just as much [as I have], and our game planning from our coaches and Zac has been pretty great,” he says.

“In spring training, we identified what makes me good, and just trying to sharpen that blade between pitching to your strengths and pitching to their weaknesses … What do I have that day? How does what I have that day catch up with what I traditionally do?”

Blake provides additional detail on that game planning.

“Gerrit is very detailed in the work he does to prepare, and making sure he is looking at the right things that have substance to them and not getting caught up in small sample size,” Blake says.

“But also [we] remind him how talented he is, and to trust that he has a lot of options so he doesn’t get caught in a rut of just throwing similar pitches to similar areas. He can access different areas of the zone. He can be a little bit more unpredictable.”

In 2022, that predictability with fastball usage and location was a primary cause of the 33 home runs that Cole allowed, which led the league and stained an otherwise excellent season.

“Using a fastball in more areas has been a simplification of his process,” Blake says. “Last year, pitching with the fastball in areas that were too predictable, it was leading to slug because guys were just selling out for the fastball.”

One word that Blake used in his answer, “simplification,” was at the heart of another concept I tossed Cole’s way, which came out of a conversation with a Yankee official: Was the pitch clock helping Cole by giving him less time to think? After all, for all his pitching intellect, Cole might be better served at times by taking a less cerebral approach, that official posited.

“Hmmm,” Cole says about the pitch clock suggestion. “That’s an interesting thought. The preparation is the same. I feel that there is an element where you get to the ‘go’ — gotta go execute this and get into that zone a little bit quicker because the pace is defined.

“But to be honest, in terms of our pitch selection I think we’ve been doing better work. Trevi has been great. And either pregame or pre-series with Matt and Zac, there’s just a lot of synergy there. There is certainty in what we’re trying to do.”

The final element I asked about was one that felt overstated. A Yankees official said he was glad that Cole had pitched so well in the postseason last year so he could get past any questions about his performances in big games.

A glance at the numbers should kill that narrative: In 17 career postseason games, Cole has a 2.93 ERA. Compare that to CC Sabathia, who rightly carries a reputation as a big-game Yankee and had a 4.28 postseason ERA in 26 games.

Still, a wild card game debacle at Fenway Park in 2021 dented Cole’s standing among some Yankee fans. Last year, after Cole dominated the Guardians in a division series start in Cleveland, he stopped in the hallway between the press conference room and clubhouse, still in uniform, for a long embrace with his wife, Amy.

Was there actually relief in pitching like an ace last October?

“I would say that it doesn’t hurt, but the most important thing is to try to win the series, and just do my job,” Cole says. “Trying to throw a good ballgame and giving myself a good chance to win. There is a level of excellence that I’m trying to achieve, but I’m not trying to make it any bigger than it was.

“Definitely the wild card game against Boston and the wild card game against the Cubs [for the Pirates in 2015], those were not great starts. But other than that …

“I’ve been blessed with a lot of opportunities to pitch in the playoffs. I guess with volume comes some of your best performances and some of your not best performances.”

If there were any ghosts to exorcise after 2021, Cole did that last fall. He then spent the winter engaged in lengthy conversations with Blake about how to improve, and reported to Tampa in February with that new look we’re talking about.

Whether it’s in the eyes or the posture or the sense of certainty and conviction when Cole throws a pitch -- it’s hard to say exactly where and how this new guy shows up.

But you know it when you see it.