The New York Yankees have surged to an MLB-leading 10-and-3 record behind a third-place 2.67 ERA, even without franchise ace Gerrit Cole, who has opened the season on the injured list with elbow issues. Despite their early success, the team certainly hopes he will return to striking out opponents as quickly as possible.
Cole has progressed to playing catch on his road to recovery and could get back on the mound as soon as May if everything progresses well. But ESPN MLB insiders Buster Olney and Tim Kurkjian cast doubt that Cole will ultimately be able to throw a pitch for the Yankees in 2024.
“With everything we’ve seen with the conversation around pitching injuries, as (we) sit here today and we talk about whether Gerrit Cole will come back, I’m assuming he’s not,” Olney said on the “Baseball Tonight” podcast. “And I don’t know — I don’t know what the physical state of his elbow is, he just started throwing. You hope he does come back. The injuries are so pervasive, I’m sure that internally the Yankees are planning on that.”
Olney was referring to the epidemic-like rash of injuries forcing top-tier MLB pitchers to undergo season-ending surgeries, even just a couple of weeks into this season. Though Cole visited a medical specialist who advised that he could avoid such a surgery with rest and rehabilitation, Kurkjian noted that it’s far from certain that his recovery will go as planned.
“They have to be planning on him coming back. They also have to be planning on him not coming back,” he said on the podcast. “They better have a Plan B.”
Gerrit Cole Has Been One of MLB’s Most Durable, Effective Pitchers
Cole is in the fifth year of a nine-year, $324 million contract with the Yankees. Up to this point, he has been one of most durable and dominant pitchers of the last decade, maintaining a 3.17 ERA over 1,859 innings in his 11-year career. He has never pitched fewer than 116 innings in that time, except during the truncated 2020 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last season was perhaps the best of his career as he pitched for an AL-leading 2.63 ERA across 15 wins in 33 starts, winning the league’s Cy Young Award.
To date, the Yankees have remained publicly optimistic regarding Cole, who has been a notable presence in the Yankees’ dugout during games.
“Cashman called Cole’s situation as the ‘second-best-case scenario’ with not being hurt as the obvious best-case scenario,” Chris Kirschner reported for The Athletic. “He couldn’t rule out the possibility of an additional injury popping up from this in the future, as pitchers are always at risk when they throw.”
Many MLB Pitchers Are Losing Their Seasons to Injury
Fueling Olney’s and Kurkjian’s concerns, though, has been the frequency of those risks turning into serious injuries for MLB’s best hurlers.
“The list of pitchers out with injuries is an All-Star cast — and it’s growing daily,” Jimmy Hascup noted for NJ.com. “Within the past week, Spencer Strider, Framber Valdez, Eury Pérez, Nick Pivetta and Shane Bieber joined Shohei Ohtani (who is only hitting), Jacob deGrom, Sandy Alcantara, Shane McClanahan, Félix Bautista and Lucas Giolito on the injured list.”
As Cole continues to progress, there’s reason for the Yankees to be optimistic about a return for their Cy Young ace. But it’s worth noting that MLB teams can never plan on the continued health of their pitching arms.
