Yankees righty Luis Severino will undergo Tommy John surgery this week; MLBTR’s Jeff Todd discusses the implications in today’s video. Jeff also has info on other spring injuries as well as thoughts on possible Yoan Moncada extension talks.
Yankees Rumors
Luis Severino To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
7:45pm: Severino will undergo Tommy John surgery on Thursday, the team announced.
2:05pm: Doctors have recommended Tommy John surgery for Yankees righty Luis Severino, general manager Brian Cashman told reporters Tuesday (Twitter link via Newsday’s Erik Boland). He’ll miss the entire 2020 season and potentially some of the 2021 campaign, depending on his recovery.
This is the second hit to a rotation that was enhanced over the winter through the addition of Gerrit Cole. The club is also facing uncertainty regarding southpaw James Paxton, who underwent back surgery and is expected to be sidelined until at least early May.
With Severino down for the season and Paxton set to miss several weeks of the 2020 campaign, at minimum, an imposing Yankees rotation now looks more mortal. Cole, of course, is still a bona fide ace, but the top options behind him are now Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. Both veterans have been durable sources of innings in recent seasons, and Tanaka in particular has been a consistent producer.
Beyond that trio, the Yankees will turn to a host of incumbent options — including Jordan Montgomery, Jonathan Loaisiga, Luis Cessa, Mike King and Deivi Garcia. Veteran righties Chad Bettis and Nick Tropeano are both in camp as non-roster invitees as well.
This’ll be the second consecutive lost season for Severino, who totaled a mere 20 innings between the regular season and the playoffs. Shoulder and lat injuries held the 26-year-old down last year from spring through September. That slate of injuries has combined to wipe out nearly all of the first two years that were covered under the four-year, $40MM extension Severino signed just one year and 10 days ago. He’ll be paid $10.5MM in 2020 while rehabbing on the 60-day injured list, and he’s set to earn salaries of $10.75MM in 2021 and $11.5MM in 2022. The Yankees also hold a $15MM club option (with a $2.75MM buyout) for the 2023 season.
MLBTR Poll: The Severino-Less Yankees
Remember when the Yankees were supposed to have one of the most dominant rotations in baseball? That didn’t last long. A couple months ago, they were set to boast a starting five of newly signed $324MM man Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. The shine has come off to a significant extent since the team won the Cole derby in December, however.
Severino – who, like Cole, is among the game’s premier starters – won’t pitch at all in 2020 in the wake of Tuesday’s news that he’ll need Tommy John surgery. Even before then, the Yankees were already reeling from the fact that the oft-injured Paxton will miss a significant portion of the season as a result of back surgery. The diagnoses Severino and Paxton received this month make it all the more fortunate for the Yankees that they added a legitimate ace in Cole, but their rotation (which doesn’t have clear answers in the No. 4 and 5 spots) looks decidedly worse than it did just a couple weeks ago.
At this point, it may be too late for the Yankees to find impact replacements for Severino and/or Paxton in free agency or via the trade market. But to the Yankees’ credit, they’ve shown an ability to overcome injuries and even thrive in the recent past. They seemed to lose one key player after another because of health woes last season (Severino, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Dellin Betances, to name just a few), yet they still found a way to win 103 games, earn their first American League East title since 2012 and get to the last round of the AL playoffs. And the team always has the financial advantage over just about everyone else in the game, meaning it should be able to bolster its roster by way of an in-season trade(s) if needed.
For now, with the Yankees’ rotation looking so much less imposing than it did a little while ago, their best chance may be to win games by beating the opposition into submission with their offense. The club’s hope is that Judge and Stanton will actually stay healthy; DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Luke Voit and Brett Gardner will continue as quality complements; Miguel Andujar will bounce back from an injury-ruined season; and the likes of Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman and Mike Ford won’t end up as one-hit wonders. A lot has to go right there, but if the Yankees’ offense does produce enough to give the team leads late in games, it’s in better shape than most with Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, Chad Green and Tommy Kahnle comprising the majority of its bullpen.
As horribly as 2020 has already gone for the Yankees, they still look like the favorites in their division. The Rays are outstanding, but the PECOTA projections “only” peg them for 87 wins (12 fewer than the Yankees, though that was before they lost Severino). The Red Sox are quite talented, too, but they don’t look nearly as tough as they did before they traded their previous franchise player – right fielder Mookie Betts – as well as lefty David Price to the Dodgers a couple weeks. The Blue Jays have definitely taken steps forward since last season ended, but they don’t appear to be in the Yankees’ class right now, and the Orioles are, well, bad. So, even despite the hardships the Yankees are facing as they head into a new season, they still have the makings of a playoff team. However, with no Severino at all and a limited amount of Paxton innings, just how formidable do you think they’ll be?
(Poll link for app users)
How many Yankees wins do you expect?
91-95
33.41%
(3,844 votes)
96-100
32.86%
(3,781 votes)
101 or more
16.45%
(1,892 votes)
86-90
12.22%
(1,406 votes)
85 or fewer
5.06%
(582 votes)
Total Votes: 11,505
Yankees Likely To Rely On Internal Rotation Options
The news that Luis Severino will miss the 2020 season due to Tommy John surgery was a devastating blow for the Yankees — one that already has many fans debating which pitchers can be acquired in exchange for prospects. General manager Brian Cashman, however, downplayed the possibility of adding an arm from outside the organization.
“You rely on your depth,” Cashman said in aftermath of the Severino announcement (Twitter link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). “I wouldn’t expect any domino effect or cause and effect in terms of us being able to go to marketplace. The winter marketplace this time of year, it doesn’t exist.”
To Cashman’s point, it’s difficult to imagine a club trading off a significant rotation piece at this juncture of the offseason. The GM did acknowledge that he’s always on the lookout for means to improve the club, regardless of circumstances, so it’s likely he’ll at least explore the trade market to some extent. But most teams have set their rosters at this point. And even rebuilding clubs with some assets to sell off might still hold out for a godfather offer that the Yankees simply won’t pay.
Perhaps the Yankees could look to a few of the yet-unsigned veterans on the market — Jason Vargas, Clay Buchholz and Clayton Richard are still free agents — but it’s not clear that any are clear upgrades over what the Yankees have in house. With Severino and James Paxton IL-bound to open the season, it’s likely that southpaw Jordan Montgomery will step into the fourth spot in the rotation behind Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. In-house candidates for the fifth spot include Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga, Mike King and prospect Deivi Garcia. Non-roster right-handers Chad Bettis and Nick Tropeano may also see their odds of cracking the Opening Day roster in the wake of the Severino news.
As Spring Training progresses, it’ll be interesting to see if the Yankees inquire on any other veterans who signed non-roster deals with other clubs. Most veterans who agree to minor league pacts have spring opt-out dates baked into the deals. It’s possible that some familiar names could return to the market and become options for New York.
Camp Battles: Yankees’ First Base Situation
The Yankees have gotten more from first baseman Luke Voit than they realistically could have expected when they acquired him from the Cardinals in July 2018. A 22nd-round pick of the Cardinals in 2013, Voit ultimately managed just 137 plate appearances with the team before it sent him to the Yankees in a swap that has worked out well for both sides. Voit has been quite productive as a member of the Yankees, with whom he has hit .280/.384/.517 in 658 trips to the plate, while reliever Giovanny Gallegos emerged as an integral piece of the Cardinals’ bullpen a year ago. However, despite the good numbers Voit has put up with the Bronx Bombers, he doesn’t necessarily have first base on lockdown heading into the new season. Rather, the team’s “open to other options” there, Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News writes. Let’s take a look at who’s in the mix…
- Luke Voit: The 29-year-old slashed a robust .263/.378/.464 with 21 home runs in 510 PA in 2019, his first full campaign as a Yankee, but his production dropped precipitously in the second half. Voit battled sports hernia issues throughout, though he insists those problems are behind him. “I had a bunch of MRIs during the season and I finally saw Dr. Myers, a specialist in Philadelphia, and he told me I tore everything down there,” Voit told Ackert. “I was just like, ‘Wow,’ I didn’t really know it was that bad. I tried to fight through it. I’m a competitor I want to play… the past is the past, but now I’m feeling good and ready to get things rolling.”
- Mike Ford: Voit’s injury troubles last year helped pave the way for the lefty-hitting Ford’s major league debut, and he took full advantage. The 27-year-old batted .259/.350/.559 with prodigious power numbers (.301 ISO, 12 homers) over 163 plate appearances. And Ford didn’t sell out for more power by racking up a lot of strikeouts, as he fanned just 17.2 percent of the time (compared to a 10.4 percent walk rate). Moreover, his swinging-strike rate (8.1) checked in exactly 3 percent better than average, and he was actually far more effective versus same-handed pitchers than righties (albeit during a limited sample of work). The track record in the bigs is still small – even Ford recently said to Brendan Kuty of NJ.com, “Anyone could be good for 160 at-bats” – but he also held his own in Triple-A, where he owns a .274/.364/.514 mark in almost 900 PA.
- Miguel Andujar: An AL Rookie of the Year candidate back in 2018, Andujar fell on hard times last season because of shoulder woes that held him to a mere 12 games. Andujar was the Yankees’ starting third baseman in his first year, but Gio Urshela filled that role with aplomb when he was down last season and is in line to enter 2020 as their starter there. Andujar, 24, could therefore pick up time at first base and in the corner outfield if the Yankees want to keep his bat in the lineup.
Fortunately for the Yankees, they’re not at immediate risk of losing any of these players if they don’t earn MLB roster spots to begin the season. All three have two minor league options apiece remaining, so New York could send any of them to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre if it wants. But they’ve all shown well as big league hitters so far, and the Yankees do have the luxury of deploying a DH. So, regardless of position, Voit, Ford and Andujar could each make a notable impact in the majors this season.
Health Notes: Paxton, Rodgers, Morrow, Buttrey
As spring training games kick off, let’s check in on some injury situations around the game.
- The early stages of James Paxton’s recovery from February back surgery have been promising, reports Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News. Paxton is “optimistic” he’ll begin a throwing program around ten days from now, relays Ackert. Paxton suggested he could be back in the Yankees’ rotation by May, which would be at the early end of the three to four month estimate for his recovery immediately post-surgery. A prompt return from the southpaw is perhaps even more important with Luis Severino now dealing with uncertainty of his own. The 31-year-old Paxton posted a solid 3.82 ERA with strong strikeout (29.4%) and walk (8.7%) rates over 150.2 innings in his first season in pinstripes in 2019.
- Rockies’ infielder Brendan Rodgers is ahead of schedule in his own recovery from surgery. The season-ending shoulder procedure he underwent last June was expected to keep him out until sometime in May, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com, but that timetable could be moving up. Rodgers is hitting without pain, Harding reports, and the infielder estimated he could log reps at DH by March 3. The next step, Harding adds, is for Rodgers to begin a throwing program from shortstop, although he’s already throwing from 160 feet without pain, he says. The former top prospect tells Harding not to rule out a potential Opening Day return.
- In less promising news, Cubs’ reliever Brandon Morrow has been shut down “for at least a few days” with a “mild right upper chest strain,” reports Jordan Bastian of MLB.com (Twitter link). Morrow’s timetable for return is unclear, Bastian adds. Standing alone, a non-arm problem wouldn’t be all that worrisome at this stage of spring training. With Morrow’s litany of prior injuries, though, it’s certainly concerning to hear he’s again fighting through pain. Morrow re-signed with the Cubs on a minor-league deal this offseason after injuries wrecked his first two years with the organization. When healthy, the 35-year-old has proven a highly-effective option in the late innings.
- Another high-leverage reliever, Angels’ right-hander Ty Buttrey, expects to throw off a mound by next Thursday, reports Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. Buttrey suffered an intercostal strain last week, but it never seemed particularly serious. He should be a full go for Opening Day, Fletcher adds.
MLBTR Poll: Last Year’s Division Champs
Of the six teams that finished in first place in their divisions in 2018, three (the Red Sox, Indians and Brewers) failed to defend their crowns last season. Two (the Red Sox and Indians) didn’t even make the playoffs, so ruling your division one year doesn’t mean you’ll end up in the postseason the next. Last season, the Yankees, Astros and Twins finished atop their divisions in the American League, while the Braves, Dodgers and Cardinals were the top seeds in the NL. Among those six, who’s the most vulnerable going into the new season? Let’s review the offseasons they’ve had…
AL:
- Astros: If you’ve paid any attention to baseball in the past several weeks, you know this offseason has been a catastrophe for the Astros. They got rid of general manager Jeff Luhnow and skipper A.J. Hinch as a result of a sign-stealing scandal that has rocked baseball, replacing them with James Click and Dusty Baker. The Astros are still loaded with talent, but they lost the great Gerrit Cole even before their sign-stealing shenanigans came to light. Now, there’s plenty of skepticism they’ll put together a fourth straight 100-win season after such a horrendous winter – one in which they were very quiet in free agency. What’s more, they’re stuck in a division with a legit challenger in Oakland and two improving clubs in the Angels and Rangers.
- Yankees: New York took Cole from Houston, which has been the Wile E. Coyote to the Yankees’ Road Runner in recent postseasons. The Yankees looked as if they’d have a tremendous rotation with Cole, Luis Severino, James Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka as their top four, but health woes are already haunting the club yet again after an injury-riddled 2019. Severino, who barely pitched last season, is now facing a very worrisome situation with his forearm; meanwhile, Paxton will sit out until at least May or June as a result of back surgery. The Yankees are still laden with talent, and they remain capable of pulverizing the opposition with their offense, but some of the shine has come off since the Cole signing because of the Severino and Paxton situations. Fortunately for the Yankees, there may only be one team capable of standing up to them in the AL East – the Rays.
- Twins: It was quite a winter for the Twins, who bolstered their rotation with the additions of Kenta Maeda, Homer Bailey and Rich Hill. They also retained Jake Odorizzi and Michael Pineda. Perhaps more importantly, they signed third baseman Josh Donaldson for four years and $92MM – the largest contract they’ve ever given out in free agency. So, a team that hit an all-time record 307 home runs in 2019 seems as if it’ll put a similarly scary offense on the field this year. The Twins could face more resistance in their division from the White Sox, who had an aggressive winter, though the Indians haven’t really bettered themselves. The Tigers have, but they’ll still struggle to win many games, while the Royals also figure to wind up among the game’s worst teams.
(Poll link for app users)
Who is the AL's most vulnerable reigning division winner?
Astros
63.20%
(7,781 votes)
Twins
23.33%
(2,873 votes)
Yankees
13.47%
(1,658 votes)
Total Votes: 12,312
NL:
- Dodgers: What do you get the team that won 106 games last season? How about Mookie Betts, who’s on the short list of the greatest players in the game? With Betts in tow, the Dodgers will enter 2020 as the overwhelming favorites to win their division for the eighth year in a row, but an improved Arizona club should at least offer a decent challenge. The Padres have also worked to get better since last season ended, but they don’t appear to be any match for the stacked Dodgers, while the Rockies and Giants look to be way behind.
- Braves: Atlanta’s down Donaldson, but it was rather active in adding free agents. The team plucked the likes of Marcell Ozuna, Will Smith, Cole Hamels, Travis d’Arnaud and Chris Martin off the open market. Hamels is dealing with shoulder problems, however, and it’s unclear when he’ll be able to pitch in 2020. Regardless, the Braves still have quite a bit of premier talent (Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies and Mike Soroka spring to mind), so it’s easy to envision them winning a third consecutive division title. At the same time, the reigning world champion Nationals, the Mets and Phillies are realistic contenders for the NL East championship.
- Cardinals: Aside from the Reds, a 75-win outfit a year ago, it wasn’t really a busy offseason for any NL Central team. That includes the Cardinals, whose biggest addition was Korean left-hander Kwang-Hyun Kim (and they lost their No. 1 free agent, the aforementioned Ozuna). They’re now set to open 2020 without one of their best starters in Miles Mikolas, who just received a platelet-rich plasma injection. The good news for St. Louis is that there’s no apparent juggernaut in its division, as the Cubs and Brewers have either stayed roughly the same or gotten worse since last year ended.
(Poll link for app users)
Who is the NL's most vulnerable reigning division winner?
Cardinals
73.68%
(9,600 votes)
Braves
20.97%
(2,732 votes)
Dodgers
5.36%
(698 votes)
Total Votes: 13,030
Luis Severino Shut Down Due To Forearm Discomfort
11:05am: Boone said this morning at Yankees camp that Severino will travel to New York and undergo another series of tests on Monday (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler).
February 21, 9:10am: A pair of MRIs and a CT scan have all come back negative, general manager Brian Cashman told reporters yesterday (video link via MLB.com). For now, Severino has been placed on a new anti-inflammatory and will be reevaluated in a few days’ time.
February 20: In yet another bit of troubling injury news for Yankees fans, manager Aaron Boone revealed Thursday that right-hander Luis Severino is experiencing forearm soreness that dates all the way back to his final ALCS appearance in 2019 (Twitter links via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch). Severino also has a loose body in his elbow, per Boone. He’ll be shut down for at least the next few days and will be examined by team physician Dr. Chris Ahmad tomorrow. Asked if Severino would be ready for Opening Day, Boone could only reply, “We’ll see.”
While tomorrow’s doctor visit will shed more light on the specifics of Severino’s issue, obviously this isn’t at all how the righty hoped to begin his Spring Training, especially not in the wake of what was essentially a lost 2019 season. Severino pitched only 20 1/3 total innings (12 in the regular season, 8 1/3 in the postseason) last year after a shoulder injury and then a lat strain kept him from making his season debut until September 17.
Any mention of a forearm injury also raises the specter of Tommy John surgery, the worst-case scenario that would sideline Severino until Opening Day 2021 at the earliest. Back in 2016 (and on the updated list in 2017), MLBTR contributor Bradley Woodrum created a model for predicting what pitchers are the largest risks for TJ surgeries, with Severino ranking as having a better-than-average chance at a future procedure in both rankings.
It was a little over one year ago that Severino signed a four-year, $40MM extension that has yet to yield any return for the Yankees. The deal covered Severino’s four arbitration-eligible years (and, via a club option for 2023, the first of his free-agent seasons) so the Yankees gained some cost certainty with the extension, though it did boost the right-hander’s luxury tax number over the course of the next four seasons. While a $10MM average annual value is small potatoes for a big-market team like New York, every extra dollar is impactful for Competitive Balance Tax purposes, considering the Yankees were over the luxury tax threshold in 2019 and are currently projected to soar well over the highest luxury tax penalty threshold of $248MM in 2020.
With James Paxton already out of action until at least May, the Yankees’ rotation would take a further hit if Severino is required to miss any time. Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ are the projected top three in the rotation, with a group that consists of Jordan Montgomery, Luis Cessa, Deivi Garcia, Michael King, and Jonathan Loaisiga now potentially battling for two rotation spots, rather than just the fifth starter’s role in Paxton’s absence.
MLBTR Video: Kris Bryant Likely To Start Season With Cubs; DJ LeMahieu’s Future In New York
MLBTR’s Jeff Todd breaks down Kris Bryant’s situation with the Cubs and DJ LeMahieu’s walk year with the Yankees in today’s video:
Quick Hits: Mikolas, K. Seager, Judge, D-backs
Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will begin the season on the injured list after receiving a platelet-rich plasma injection, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As of now, it appears Mikolas will make his 2020 debut toward the end of April or in the beginning of May, according to Goold. It’s a blow to the Cardinals’ rotation, which got back-to-back quality seasons from Mikolas in 2018-19 and now has to fill a couple openings behind Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright and Dakota Hudson. Carlos Martinez and Kwang-hyun Kim were already known to be in the running before Mikolas went down, and now Daniel Ponce de Leon, Austin Gomber, Ryan Helsley, Alex Reyes, John Gant and Genesis Cabrera are also in the mix, Goold writes.
Here’s more from around the game…
- Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager was the subject of trade rumors over the winter, when “a handful of teams” discussed him with the M’s, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times writes. Seager has stayed put to this point, and he’s now the longest-tenured player on Seattle’s roster, though he realizes a deal could still come together. The 32-year-old admitted to Divish that a trade remains “a definite possibility.” Seager enjoyed a bounce-back season in 2019, but he’s still owed $37MM over the next two years. His contract also includes a 2022 $15MM club option that will turn into a player option if he’s dealt, which could help stand in the way of a trade.
- Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has been battling a right shoulder issue early in camp, but he’s progressing in his recovery, George A. King III of the New York Post relays. Judge told manager Aaron Bone he’s “game-ready,” but the Yankees are taking it slow with their prized slugger, whom injuries limited to a combined 214 of a possible 324 regular-season games from 2018-19. “Start reintroducing him to full swinging and stuff in the next couple of days I would think,’’ Boone said. “I am sure in the next day or two it will probably start to ramp him back up.’’
- Thanks to a productive 2019 season at the Double-A level, Diamondbacks first base prospect Pavin Smith has a chance to make his major league debut sometime this year, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic observes. Smith was the seventh overall pick of the Diamondbacks in 2017, and while he hit well in low-A ball that year, he provided little to no power (zero home runs, .097 ISO). He then didn’t produce at a particularly impressive clip at the high-A level the next season, but Smith turned it around last year. In his Double-A debut, he put up a .291/.370/.466 line with 12 homers and almost as many walks (59) and strikeouts (61).
