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Gerrit Cole

Yankees Notes: Cole, Dominguez, LeMahieu

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Yankees ace Gerrit Cole spoke to reporters (including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch) about his rehab from right elbow inflammation, which has kept him from making his 2024 debut to this point. Cole indicated to reporters that he threw a 29-pitch bullpen session prior to the club’s game against the Rays this afternoon.

“The fastball profiles were good, and the location was good,” Cole said of the session. He added that his velocity, which averaged 89 mph, was “where we wanted it” at this point in his rehab.

In terms of next steps, Hoch indicates that Cole is scheduled for another session on the mound later this week but that, according to Cole, he does not yet have a set date for facing live hitters. Even so, Cole emphasized that he’s made “good progress” since he first resumed throwing off a mound at the beginning of the month, when reporting suggested that the veteran could be eying the middle of June for his return to the big leagues.

As a six-time All Star the reigning AL Cy Young award winner, Cole’s return to the Yankees rotation would obviously provide a massive boost for the club. With that being said, New York’s starting staff has handled itself well in the absence of its ace. Yankees starters rank seventh in the majors with a 3.36 ERA this season, thanks in part to strong performances from youngsters Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt.

Cole isn’t the only key player for the Yankees whose rehab is progressing, as Hoch also notes that manager Aaron Boone told reporters this afternoon that young center fielder Jasson Dominguez is set to begin a rehab assignment at Single-A on May 14. Dominguez, who underwent Tommy John surgery back in September, is set to spend the first two weeks of his rehab as a pure designated hitter before returning to work in the outfield. Boone told reporters (including Hoch) that Dominguez’s recovery has been “smooth” with “very few hiccups” since he went under the knife.

A longtime consensus top-50 prospect in the sport, Dominguez made his debut last season to plenty of fanfare and slashed .258/.303/.677 with four home runs in just eight games before having his season cut short by surgery. The 21-year-old seems sure to impact the Yankees in some capacity this year once healthy, though with Juan Soto and Aaron Judge locked into everyday outfield roles and both Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton hitting well to this point in the season, the club’s top prospect could have a hard time breaking into the lineup on a regular basis.

Also making progress toward a return is veteran infielder DJ LeMahieu, who fouled a ball off his foot during Spring Training and has been sidelined by a bone bruise ever since. LeMahieu began a rehab assignment back in late April as he seemingly neared a return to action but was almost immediately sidelined by right foot soreness and returned from the assignment. The veteran has worked back up to the point of facing live pitching in the weeks since then, with Boone telling reporters that live batting practice against rehabbing righty JT Brubaker “went well” for the veteran.

There still appears to be no clear timeline for the veteran’s return to action, but the fact that he’s once again participating in field work and hitting against live arms is a positive sign for the club nonetheless. It’s been difficult for the Yankees to replace LeMahieu’s production in the lineup this season even has he’s posted roughly league average numbers in recent years. New York has relied on Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti at the hot corner in the veteran’s absence, but Berti has slashed just .300/.344/.300 in ten games while Cabrera has fallen back to Earth after a hot start with a paltry .212/.257/.273 line in his past 20 games.

Gerrit Cole To Begin Mound Work

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The defending AL Cy Young winner will get back on a mound tomorrow. Yankees manager Aaron Boone told the New York beat that Gerrit Cole will throw from a mound on Saturday for the first time in his recovery from elbow inflammation (X link via The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner). The six-time All-Star has been throwing on flat ground in recent weeks.

Boone declined to provide a target for Cole getting back to major league readiness. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported last night that the right-hander was shooting for a mid-June return. Cole is technically eligible to return from the 60-day injured list during the last week of May, but it seems he’ll need a few weeks beyond that. Cole will need to get through multiple bullpens and live batting practice sessions before he’s ready for a minor league rehab stint, which would require a handful of starts to build his pitch count.

The Yankees are out to a 20-13 start despite losing their ace. New York’s rotation entered play on Friday with the seventh-best ERA (3.48) and fifth-highest strikeout rate (24.3%) in the majors. The quintet of Marcus Stroman, Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt has taken all but one of the team’s starts. (Cody Poteet handled one spot start.) Each member of the front five has allowed between three and four earned runs per nine. That atypical level of consistency has kept the Yankees near the top of a competitive AL East.

While all of their starters have been productive, none have quite performed at an ace level. A healthy Cole should deliver that kind of production. He’s coming off a 2.63 ERA in an AL-leading 209 innings. That was the fifth sub-3.00 showing of his career. Cole punched out 222 hitters, his sixth time topping 200 punchouts.

Cole is in the fifth season of his nine-year, $324MM free agent deal. He can opt out of the remaining four seasons at the end of this year, but the Yankees could override that by triggering a $36MM club option covering the 2029 season.

Latest On DJ LeMahieu

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6:23pm: LeMahieu experienced right foot soreness and was removed after one inning, the Yankees announced (X link via Joyce). He’ll return to New York for further evaluation tomorrow.

5:31pm: The Yankees announced that infielder DJ LeMahieu has been sent to Double-A Somerset to start a rehab assignment. LeMahieu is leading off tonight’s game and playing third base, per the X account of the Patriots.

LeMahieu, 35, was supposed to be the club’s everyday third baseman here in 2024 but a Spring Training injury scuttled those plans. The veteran fouled a ball of his foot and was initially diagnosed with a bone bruise. After the swelling didn’t go down, he went for a second MRI, which revealed a non-displaced fracture. He was set to begin a rehab assignment this past weekend but his foot still wasn’t healing enough and the rehab assignment was pushed back by a few days.

Manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, that the plan is for LeMahieu to play four games and possibly rejoin the Yanks in time for their series against the Orioles next week.

The club is surely excited to welcome LeMahieu back but they will have a bit of a tricky decision to make in terms of distributing playing time. The veteran has hit .258/.345/.375 since the start of 2021 while battling various injuries. That’s still amounts to a 106 wRC+, indicating he was six percent better than league average in that time. But the Yankees were surely hoping for more, especially since he hit .336/.386/.536 for a 146 wRC+ over 2019 and 2020, before they re-signed him to a six-year, $90MM contract.

To start this year, Oswaldo Cabrera has taken over at the hot corner and is out to a great start. He’s hitting .290/.324/.478 so far on the young season, production that leads to a wRC+ of 133. That’s a small sample of 74 plate appearances, which means it likely doesn’t carry as much weight as LeMahieu’s career numbers, but the Yanks probably want to keep riding the hot hand.

Each of Cabrera and LeMahieu are capable of playing different positions, so the club will have some flexibility. First baseman Anthony Rizzo and second baseman Gleyber Torres are both out to slow starts, so perhaps they could get some breathers when LeMahieu and Cabrera are both healthy and looking for playing time.

Elsewhere in Yankee news, Gerrit Cole threw 50 pitches from a distance of 120 feet today, per Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. It hasn’t yet been decided when he’ll move to mound work, but Boone said it could be as soon as next week, per Greg Joyce of The New York Post.

Needless to say, any progress from Cole is a good development for the Yankees. The reigning American League Cy Young made just one official appearance during Spring Training before some elbow issues popped up. Since he wasn’t recovering as expected between throwing sessions, the club shut him down and sent him for testing. He was eventually recommended for non-surgical rehab and has been on that path for the past month or so.

Cole is on the 60-day injured list and won’t be eligible to return until late May at the earliest. Even if he begins throwing off a mound soon, he’ll likely need to redo Spring Training from scratch, meaning he’ll be out beyond that timeframe anyhow. His eventual return date will naturally be determined by how his arm holds up as he continues building up in the weeks to come.

MLBTR Podcast: Free Agent Power Rankings, Ohtani’s Stolen Money And The A’s Moving To Sacramento

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • How can a pitcher blow a save in the seventh inning? How early can a save be blown? (38:25)
  • Do you think the Tigers will release Javier Báez? It is painful to watch him. (41:15)
  • Who could the Braves target inside or outside the organization to replace Spencer Strider? (45:15)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

New York Notes: Belt, Martinez, Cole

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Veteran slugger Brandon Belt’s free agency has surprisingly dragged into the regular season, with the soon to be 36-year-old reportedly “baffled” by the lack of offers he’s received to this point. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly provided additional details on Belt’s free agency recently, noting that the Mets were the only club to offer Belt a guaranteed contract this winter, though he added that the deal was “almost entirely” incentives-based.

Belt is coming off an excellent season with the Blue Jays that saw him slash .254/.369/.490 with 404 trips to the plate. That included a fantastic 146 wRC+ against right-handed pitching, the eleventh-best figure among all qualified hitters last year which trailed only Shohei Ohtani among this winter’s free agents. The performance was more or less par for the course for Belt, who’s hit .258/.369/.503 since the start of the 2020 season and is a career .261/.357/.460 hitter for his career. That type of production certainly would’ve made sense for the Mets, though the club ultimately landed slugger J.D. Martinez on a one-year deal to plug the hole in the lineup at DH.

With that said, it’s somewhat surprising that the Mets were the only club to offer Belt a big league deal this winter. The only player on MLBTR’s annual Top 50 free agents list still unsigned, Belt was predicted for a one-year, $15MM deal this winter. That would’ve been a small bump over the one-year, $9.3MM deal he landed with Toronto prior to 2023 on the heels of a below-average showing at the plate during his final season with the Giants. Belt recently indicated that he still hopes to play in 2024, but also noted that he doesn’t want to settle for a minor league contract after his strong season last year.

More from the New York teams…

  • Sticking with the Mets, Martinez was expected to make his debut with the club during this week’s series against the Braves, but that plan appears to have been scuttled. As relayed by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters that Martinez is dealing with “general body soreness” and is not yet ready for his big league debut. Now, DiComo reports that the plan is for Martinez to take the next two days off and return to minor league action on Tuesday, with Friday as the earliest Martinez could make his big league Mets debut. The 36-year-old slugger slashed an impressive .271/.321/.572 with 33 home runs in 113 games with the Dodgers last year and figures to provide a major boost to the big league lineup, which ranks 28th in the majors with a 64 wRC+ so far in the young 2024 campaign.
  • Looking toward the Bronx, Yankees fans received positive news regarding ace right-hander Gerrit Cole this morning, as manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including Greg Joyce of the New York Post) that Cole is nearing the beginnings of a throwing program. Cole started the season on the injured list while rehabbing nerve inflammation on his elbow, and now is expected to begin playing catch as soon as tomorrow. Cole, 33, is the reigning AL Cy Young award winner and a six-time All Star who pitched to a sterling 2.63 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate in 209 innings of work. If the right-hander can make a relatively speedy return from his rehab, it would surely provide a major boost to the Yankees as they look to return to the postseason.

Yankees Place Gerrit Cole On 60-Day Injured List

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The Yankees announced a series of Opening Day roster moves today, with right-hander Gerrit Cole placed on the 60-day injured list. His 40-man roster spot will go to right-hander Nick Burdi, who was previously reported to have made the club.

Over recent weeks, Cole and the Yankees got a big scare when he was dealing with some elbow issues and was sent for testing. While this led to all kinds of panic about possible surgery and lengthy absences, the eventual news ended up being on the mild side compared to those doomsday scenarios. He was diagnosed with nerve inflammation and edema and recommended for non-surgical rehab.

That’s obviously a better outcome than sitting out the entire year or longer, but he’s still going to miss some time. His return will depend on how he progresses in the coming weeks but it’s been suggested he’s at least a month or two away from coming back. This move means he’ll be ineligible to be activated until late May, so the Yankees evidently don’t think he’ll be able to return before then.

In the meantime, the Yanks will roll out a rotation of Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil to start the season.

Gerrit Cole Recommended For Non-Surgical Rehab On Elbow

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March 16: Cole will be shut down for the next three to four weeks before re-evaluating his condition, the Yankees ace told reporters, including Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. He added that it is too soon to determine a date for his return (per Hoch). The reigning AL Cy Young winner is nursing some nerve inflammation and edema, which he is planning to treat with “rest and recovery.” He does not anticipate getting any PRP injections.

March 14: The Yankees and their fans can breathe a sigh of relief. Jon Heyman and Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post report that defending AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole is expected to avoid surgery after further evaluation on his ailing elbow. The recommendation is for a treatment program of rest and non-surgical rehab.

Heyman and Sanchez report that Cole is expected to be out for roughly one to two months. Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that the timeline for a return to MLB action should be closer to 10-12 weeks. In either case, surgery isn’t on the table at present and the Yankees should get their ace back within the season’s first half.

That was the initial expectation. Team doctors reportedly identified the issue as elbow inflammation and concluded that Cole’s ulnar collateral ligament was intact. He nevertheless visited noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache for additional testing today. It seems that in-person evaluation confirmed the initial indication that Cole has not sustained any UCL damage.

It’s a positive development given the concern any time a pitcher, especially one at Cole’s level, heads for an MRI on his throwing elbow. Still, the Yankees are going to have to navigate the early portion of the schedule without him. If the timeline checks in closer to 10-12 weeks, he probably wouldn’t make his season debut until June. There’s a chance he winds up on the 60-day injured list.

There’s obviously no way to replace a pitcher of Cole’s caliber, but his absence puts additional pressure on the rotation depth. Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman and Nestor Cortes project as the top three arms in the season-opening rotation. Clarke Schmidt is penciled into the fourth spot. There’s not a clear #5 starter at the moment. Prospect Clayton Beeter is on the 40-man roster, as are Yoendrys Gómez and Luis Gil. The latter two were optioned to minor league camp in the first week of March, suggesting they’re a bit further down the depth chart. Chase Hampton and Will Warren are not on the 40-man roster, but they’re upper level starting pitching prospects with more advanced control than Beeter has shown in the minors. Luke Weaver has plenty of starting experience and returned to the Yankees via $2MM free agent deal. He’s coming off a 6.40 ERA season.

The Yankees could benefit from adding veteran stability to the back end. They recently checked in with Michael Lorenzen, arguably the #3 starter still on the free agent market. Lorezen certainly doesn’t have the upside of either of the top two unsigned pitchers, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, but he’d come at nowhere near the cost. That’s an obvious concern for a franchise that would pay a 110% tax on further spending.

If New York expected Cole to miss the entire season, perhaps that’d have increased their urgency to land one of Snell or Montgomery regardless of the money. That seems less likely with the Yankees anticipating Cole’s return in late May or early June, but a mid-tier arm like Lorenzen or Mike Clevinger could remain in play.

Gerrit Cole Meeting With Dr. Neal ElAttrache Today

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March 14: Cole is meeting with Dr. ElAttrache today, tweets Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. Manager Aaron Boone expects more information on his status this evening, although that doesn’t ensure that the Yankees will publicly disclose an update tonight.

March 13: Reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole will miss at least the first month or two of the season due to an elbow injury, report Jon Heyman and Mark Sanchez of the New York Post. Cole underwent an MRI earlier this week after experiencing difficulty recovering between spring starts and throwing sessions. The Yankees haven’t made a formal announcement on the injury or a timetable yet. Heyman reports that initial imaging on Cole’s right elbow has not detected a ligament tear, though there’s some inflammation and swelling still present. Cole’s MRI has been reviewed by multiple parties, including renowned surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache. Per the report, ElAttrache did not see a ligament tear but nonetheless suggested an in-person visit to personally examine Cole.

While it’s a sigh of relief that early imaging didn’t reveal a major tear, the fact that Cole is going for further testing remains an ominous sign. Inflammation can at times be substantial enough that it masks structural damage. Only time will tell whether that’s the case with Cole. Regardless, to call even an absence of roughly four to eight weeks for Cole a major blow for the team would only be stating the obvious. The 33-year-old righty is on the short list of baseball’s best and — until now — most durable pitchers. Furthermore, the Yankees’ rotation behind Cole is rife with question marks.

New York signed right-hander Marcus Stroman to a two-year, $37MM deal in the offseason, but Stroman’s All-Star 2023 season was cut short by second-half injuries — a hip issue and rib cartilage fractures. He was sporting an ERA in the low-2.00s for much of the season but was hit rocked in July while pitching through the hip injury and struggled down the stretch after returning from what wound up being an extended absence due to the rib troubles.

Lefties Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes were both limited to fewer than 65 innings in 2023, and neither pitched anywhere close to his 2021-22 form. Rodon’s season was particularly alarming, given that he’d pitched at Cy Young-caliber levels the prior two years and inked a six-year, $162MM deal with the Yankees just last offseason. A forearm strain and hamstring strain combined to limit Rodon to 64 1/3 innings — during which time he posted a 6.85 ERA with a 22.4% strikeout rate that was 11.5 percentage points shy of his ’21-’22 rate. Cortes, meanwhile, twice hit the IL with a strained rotator cuff in his left shoulder. His 4.97 ERA in 63 1/3 innings was more than double the 2.44 number he’d posted the year prior.

Right-hander Clarke Schmidt was the only other Yankees pitcher to make even 20 starts last year. He took the ball for a full slate of 32 games, pitching 159 innings with a 4.64 earned run average. Schmidt’s 21.5% strikeout rate was below the league average, but his 6.6% walk rate was strong and his 43.8% grounder rate, which clocked in a couple percentage points ahead of the average starting pitcher. Schmidt was too homer-prone (1.36 HR/9) but at least looked like he could give the Yankees around five competitive innings every fifth day, which could prove crucial with Cole shelved for a notable period and several injury question marks alongside him on the starting staff.

The Yankees traded away a significant amount of rotation depth when dealing Michael King, Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez to the Padres as part of the Juan Soto trade. Remaining in-house options for the now-vacant rotation spot include young righties Clayton Beeter, Luis Gil and Yoendrys Gomez — all three of whom are on the 40-man roster. Veteran righty Luke Weaver inked a one-year, $2MM deal and was expected to serve as a swingman, but he has ample starting experience in the majors and pitched well in three September starts for the Yanks last year. Top prospects Chase Hampton and Will Warren were both invited to camp as non-roster players, but neither is on the 40-man roster.

Of course, the possibility remains that the Yankees will go outside the organization to bring in a more established arm. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery remain unsigned, but the 110% luxury tax the team would pay on top of either player’s salary could prove exorbitant. Snell, in particular, would also cost the Yankees their second-highest draft choice in 2024 and require them to forfeit $1MM in bonus space from next year’s international amateur free agency pool. Ownership’s appetite for signing either player will now be tested. If not them, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote last night that righty Michael Lorenzen “could be an option” for the Yankees, though it’s not clear if the two parties have had any serious talks recently.

The trade market offers at least one more marquee name, and that seems to be the Yankees’ current area of focus. GM Brian Cashman and his staff have reportedly already presented the White Sox with a new offer for top starter Dylan Cease, though they’re joined by both the Rangers and Padres in their late pursuit of the 2022 AL Cy Young runner-up. The ChiSox had previously insisted that the Yankees include top outfield prospect Spencer Jones in any trade for Cease. The Yankees have balked at that ask. The new proposal to the Sox reportedly does not include Jones, though with several teams in the mix for Cease and the Yankees now staring down a potential two-month absence for Cole, it’s possible they’ll eventually acquiesce and meet Chicago’s asking price.

MLBTR Podcast: Injured Pitchers, Brayan Bello’s Extension, Mookie At Shortstop And J.D. Davis

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Who had the worst offseason and why is it the Angels? (25:15)
  • Fact or Fiction? The Red Sox are going to trade Masataka Yoshida. (28:50)
  • Considering the amount of effort the Tigers front office has put into fielding a major league team in the past 10 years, should Tiger fans feel slighted? “They can wait” seems to be the attitude. Should Tiger fans just stop buying Little Caesars pizza and encourage their friends to buy their pizzas elsewhere? I am sure franchise owners enjoy being associated with a cheap loser. (31:20)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Yankees Notes: Judge, Cole, Rotation

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Yankees star Aaron Judge has been slowed a bit by some abdominal discomfort recently, with manager Aaron Boone telling reporters yesterday that the 2022 AL MVP is “mid-spring banged up” while downplaying concerns of a more serious injury. Judge revealed this morning that he underwent an MRI on his abdominal region yesterday to ascertain that there was no significant injury at play (X link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). That imaging came back clean. Judge says he won’t swing a bat until later this week but is hopeful he’ll be in the Opening Day lineup.

On the one hand, the fact that Judge has avoided any kind of serious injury is an obvious cause for relief. On the other, it’s hardly ideal that the season hasn’t even begun and he’s less than 100 percent. Judge specified that the discomfort he’s felt has been in the middle of his abdominal muscles — not his oblique region. That’s particularly notable given that Judge has had a pair of oblique strains in the past, including a Grade 2 strain in 2019 that cost him two months of the season.

“I think just from swinging from November all the way until now, every single day, it put some wear and tear on it,” said Judge (via Hoch). “Especially coming back after a [right] toe injury when your mechanics are a little messed up and you’re just working on some things.”

Judge, 32 in April, was once again excellent in 2023 — though a hip strain in late April cost him 10 days, while the sprained toe he referenced wound up shelving him for more than a month. In all, he played in 106 games — his fewest in a 162-game season since 2019 — and posting a brilliant .267/.406/.613 slash with 37 home runs in just 458 trips to the plate.

The Yankees are already awaiting MRI results on ace and reigning Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole. Coupling that with even minor concern about the team’s best all-around player makes for an uncomfortable few days for the club and its fans. The Yankees indicated yesterday that Cole is expected to receive multiple opinions on his MRI results. An announcement today is not necessarily a given. SNY’s Andy Martino wrote yesterday that club officials have characterized the Cole MRI as “precautionary” and downplayed concern over a potential long-term injury. Time will tell whether that proves to be the case.

In the wake of the Cole news, there’s been a renewed focus on the Yankees’ rotation depth and ample speculation on contingency plans. The remaining pair of high-profile Scott Boras clients — Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery — have been at the forefront of that speculation. Martino reported in his piece that the Yankees haven’t yet circled back to Snell since concerns about Cole arose. Joel Sherman of the New York Post throws some cold water on the idea of the Yankees pivoting to either left-hander.

The luxury tax concerns for the Yankees have been highlighted at length by now. As a reminder, they’re a third-time payor who’s in the fourth and final tier of penalization. Any further additions to the payroll will be taxed at a 110% rate (based on the contract’s AAV) on top of the player’s salary. In the case of Snell, he’d also require forfeiting the team’s second-highest draft pick and surrendering $1MM of pool space in next year’s international free agent bonus pool, because Snell rejected a qualifying offer from the Padres.

Perhaps in part because of that, Sherman reports that the Yankees were more interested in Montgomery earlier in the offseason than in Snell — despite making a reported offer to the latter. The Yankees, per Sherman, “could not get a strong engagement” from Montgomery at the time, however. That lines up with some late-February reporting from The Athletic’s Jim Bowden, wherein he wrote that Montgomery’s hope had been for a return to the Rangers and that it was “believed” he did not “prefer” a Yankees reunion. With Montgomery still lingering on the market and the Rangers seemingly disinclined to spend further, none of that should expressly rule out an eventual match between Montgomery and the Yankees.

Sherman suggests that the likeliest course of action for the Yankees is to stand pat regardless of the news on Cole, though he opines that if they do make a move, they’re likelier to meet the White Sox’ asking price for right-hander Dylan Cease than they are to sign Snell or Montgomery. Cease is making $8MM this season and is controlled through 2025 via arbitration. He’d come with an $8.8MM luxury hit, but that’s a pittance relative to the tax hits it’d take to sign Montgomery or Snell for an AAV of $25-30MM — if not more. Prior reporting has indicated that the ChiSox were insistent on the inclusion of top outfield prospect Spencer Jones in talks regarding Cease, while the Yankees have been loath to consider moving him in any deal.

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