Yankees right-hander Clarke Schmidt will undergo Tommy John surgery tomorrow. Manager Aaron Boone passed the update along to reporters today, with Chris Kirschner of The Athletic among those to pass it along. The righty is on the 15-day injured list but will be moved to the 60-day IL once the Yankees need his roster spot.
The news isn’t surprising. It was reported a few days ago that Schmidt had been recommended for the surgery. It seems he and the Yankees took a few days to perhaps due some final tests before confirming the path forward.
Now that Schmidt’s fate is sealed, he will miss the remainder of this season and possibly all of 2026 as well. It normally takes 14 to 18 months for a pitcher to return from such a procedure. That gives Schmidt a shot to return late in 2026, though only if he doesn’t experience any setbacks.
It’s a rough blow for the Yankees, who have already taken a few rotation hits. Gerrit Cole required Tommy John back in the spring and will miss the entire 2025 season. Luis Gil has been on the IL all year so far due to a lat strain. Marcus Stroman has also missed most of the season due to left knee inflammation.
Despite those injuries, the Yankees held the top spot in the American League East for most of the first half. Their rotation was held aloft by a strong one-two punch of Max Fried and Carlos Rodón. That duo was supported by strong performances from Schmidt, Ryan Yarbrough and Will Warren.
More recently, Yarbrough has been sidelined by an oblique strain and now Schmidt has hit the shelf as well. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Yanks have found it a bit more difficult to win games lately and have slid to second in the division behind the Blue Jays.
Even before Schmidt’s injury, it seemed likely that the Yankees would look for more starting pitching at the deadline. Now the need should be even greater. General manager Brian Cashman spoke openly about this week about the club placing a priority on pitching.
For Schmidt, it’s his second straight injury-marred campaign and next year will be three in a row. He logged 159 innings for the Yanks back in 2023, though with a middling 4.64 earned run average. Last year, he dropped his ERA to 2.85 but a lat strain put him on the IL for about half the season, limiting him to 85 1/3 innings. Here in 2024, he logged 78 2/3 innings with a 3.32 ERA before this elbow injury shut him down. Now that he’s got a date with the scalpel, he won’t be able to add to that total and will be capped in 2026 as well.
A Super Two player, Schmidt is currently in his second of four arbitration seasons. He made $2.025MM last year and is making $3.6MM here in 2025. He’ll be due an arbitration raise for 2026 and 2027 but the lengthy injury absence will limit how his ability to push that number up. He’ll turn 30 in February and will be 31 in his final season of control before he’s slated for free agency.
Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images
See you in 2027.
With the impending lockout at the end of ‘26, I wonder how much of a ‘27 season we will have.
Manfred is already starting to sow chaos, so a lockout is a given. If the season doesn’t start on time, it’s going to get ugly between the players union and MLB…
Lockout is a high possibility. A strike isn’t. There is a distinction.
My apologies, meant a lockout is pretty much guaranteed. A strike is pretty drastic, I don’t think it’s going to come to that.
Yeah I agree. Team ownerships want a shorter free agency period. They might hold out even longer than the last CBA negotiations.
They’ll negotiate a deal and they’ll play the full 162 game season, Birdie man. Keep fantasizing, though.
They might, but then again, they might not.
Poorest Schmidty get well!!!
Man I get it… these things happen.
Just the 12 yr old from my past wants to see the best compete….?
Well call the Brewers on Quintana or Cortes .
I remember the many Tommy John surgeries from the 80s and 90s. Nothing to see here.
Wow, what a day for the Yanks!
Red Sox fan here… it’s amazing the Yankees can take hit after hit like this and still be in the thick of it…. But it seems hole in boating just got a bit larger….
If he’s lucky perhaps TJ Lite will due and he can return sooner.
In the words of Joez McFly about the trade deadline: doing nothing is CRAY-ZEE!
Rudy,
That man is going to have a heart attack if Cashman doesn’t make any moves lol
I think I need Tommy John Surgery just from watching all these pitchers try to throw at max velocity and max spin on every pitch.
Keller for Dominguez
They should make an exception for pitchers rehabbing from TJ to take PEDs to allow them to heal faster.
TJ takes them out for 2 years and then first year back they have to be babied and don’t usually perform well anyways, that’s a 3 year problem on a relatively short career.
Wonder how his Bonnie Dong surgery went?