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Expecting the worst only takes out so much of the sting when it happens. As if the baseball world needed any reminder, the Yankees announced on Monday evening that Gerrit Cole is bound for Tommy John surgery.
This had seemed inevitable since Cole felt discomfort after leaving his start against the Twins on Thursday and went for an MRI. The Yankees and their ace received a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache, obviously hoping for something along the lines of “Oh wait, that other doctor was reading this upside-down, he’s fine.” What they got was an appointment for surgery on Tuesday in Los Angeles.
I wrote about Cole’s injury in the context of a brutal weekend for top American League pitchers, including Cole’s teammate Luis Gil, who’s out until midseason with a lat strain. I’ll repeat the substance of that article in brief: At the very least, Tommy John surgery writes off Cole’s 2025 season. And because Cole is one of the best players in the league at a position of tremendous scarcity, to some extent there’s no making up for that loss. Even if the Yankees trade for another starter during the season, whoever they get almost certainly won’t be as good.
With that said, the Yankees do still have starting pitching depth. At least for now. Max Fried was one of the top arms on the market this winter. Carlos Rodón has no. 1 starter upside when healthy. Clarke Schmidt was excellent last year when healthy. Marcus Stroman isn’t the pitcher he was five years ago, but he’s also far from the worst no. 4 starter among playoff contenders.
The other Yankee starter worth mentioning is 25-year-old rookie Will Warren, who impressed Eric Longenhagen enough to land at no. 65 on our preseason Top 100 prospect list. Eric cautions that “Guys with sinking/tailing stuff like Warren’s can tend to be more vulnerable to extra-base damage when they make a mistake,” and sure enough, Warren allowed 19 home runs in just 109 2/3 innings at Triple A last year. That ratio would’ve been one of the five highest among qualified starters in the majors if he’d done it one level up. When Warren did pitch in the big leagues, he allowed five more homers (and 27 runs in total) in a 22 2/3-inning cameo. Suffice it to say, he’s not a like-for-like replacement for Cole or Gil.
Losing those pitchers in such rapid succession eats up all of the Yankees’ remaining rotation depth. They can’t afford another injury to their remaining four starters, at least two of whom have major durability concerns. If the Yankees were favored to win the AL East when they were trying to find a side door to shove Stroman out of, it wasn’t by much. Nobody with a conscience celebrates a player getting injured, but the outlook looks much more favorable for Boston, Baltimore and Toronto than it did a week ago, though as I wrote, the Orioles have their own pitching woes to worry about.
Seeing Cole — one of the most durable frontline starters in baseball — get injured also conjures frightening images of what the Yankees’ lineup would look like should something happen to Aaron Judge.
Losing Cole makes the Yankees vulnerable to such what-ifs. It should surprise nobody if the Yankees conjure a playoff berth without their ace. But now, they’re in a position where any other significant injury to a key player — Fried, Rodón, Jazz Chisholm Jr., or even Judge — could sink the whole ship.
