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The Yankees have announced that ace Gerrit Cole will undergo Tommy John surgery on Tuesday. Dr. Neal ElAttrache will perform the procedure. The team will provide further updates following the surgery, but there is no doubt that the 2023 AL Cy Young winner will miss the entire 2025 season.
Cole, 34, went for diagnostic tests on his elbow last week. He told reporters he was “concerned” by the results of the initial testing but expressed some hope that a second opinion could assuage the worst of his concerns. Unfortunately, Cole’s appointment today with Dr. ElAttrache only confirmed that the right-hander needs Tommy John to repair a torn UCL in his pitching arm.
This is a crushing blow to the reigning AL champions. The typical recovery timeline for Tommy John surgery is roughly 12-18 months. New York survived without Cole for just under three months last season when elbow inflammation kept him out until mid-June. This year, the Yankees will have to get by without their number one starter at all. They must be glad they won the bidding war to sign Max Fried this offseason, inking the two-time All-Star to an eight-year, $218MM deal. The southpaw will now lead a rotation that also features Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt. Rounding out the starting five to begin the year will likely be Marcus Stroman (whom the Yankees are surely glad they didn’t trade earlier this offseason) and top pitching prospect Will Warren. Last year’s AL Rookie of the Year, Luis Gil, will miss the beginning of the year with a lat strain but will hopefully return sometime in June. Non-roster invitee Carlos Carrasco is another arm who could offer rotation depth.
That group of arms could still make up a perfectly capable starting rotation for a contending club, but the error bars are much wider now, and there is no question the Yankees are a much less dangerous World Series contender without Cole. It doesn’t help that they’re also dealing with injury issues on the other side of the ball. Veteran bats Giancarlo Stanton (elbows) and DJ LeMahieu (calf) are likely to miss the beginning of the season.
Presumably, the Yankees will consider their options to upgrade their rotation externally. Available free agents include Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, and Spencer Turnbull, although none of those names offer anything close to the star power the Yankees lost. Thus, if GM Brian Cashman wants to find a top-of-the-rotation replacement for Cole, he’ll have to turn to the trade market. Some of the most interesting potential trade candidates include Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins, Luis Castillo of the Mariners, and Dylan Cease and Michael King of the Padres. The most recent reporting on all of those pitchers suggests that an offseason trade is unlikely, but a desperate Yankees team could certainly change that.
The Yankees had a chance to part ways with the six-time All-Star this offseason when Cole triggered his opt-out clause in November. The team could have blocked his opt-out by adding another year and $36MM to the end of his contract, which they chose not to do. However, the two sides ultimately agreed to stick together as if Cole had never triggered his opt-out in the first place, with the Yankees keeping him around for the four years and $144MM remaining on his original guaranteed deal. In other words, while the Yankees may have had their concerns about Cole’s longevity, they could not have been overly worried that his elbow troubles would rear their ugly head again so soon.
From 2017-22, Cole led all pitchers with 173 starts and 1070 2/3 innings pitched. He dealt with some elbow inflammation in 2016, but from then until 2024, his only IL stint was due to COVID-19 protocols. In an age of ever-increasing arm injuries and ever-decreasing inning counts, Cole has been a workhorse, topping 200 innings in a season six times in the last ten years. Sadly, his run of healthy seasons came to an end last year, and this coming season will be the first since 2012 in which Cole does not pitch. Instead, he will turn his focus toward his rehab in an effort to miss as little of the 2026 campaign as possible.
Image courtesy of Imagn.
