Gerrit Cole

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.

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.