Gerrit Cole is a mountain of a man at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds. The massive frame helped him be a relative bastion of health while averaging around 97 mph on his fastball for most of his career.
Like most young pitchers, the innings were slowly ramped up from 117 in his rookie season to 138 the following year. Then Cole morphed into an absolute workhorse, pitching over 200 innings six times in nine seasons. The three seasons he missed were the COVID season, “only” 181.1 innings in 2021 and 116 innings in 2016 when he suffered a triceps strain. Outside of that 2016 season, Cole was blessed with remarkable health, especially considering the number of innings and the velocity of his pitches.
But as with all things in life, nothing goes up or down forever and huge cracks in the armor appeared last season. During Spring Training, Cole experienced right elbow pain and didn’t make his season debut until mid-June. He ended up pitching 95 innings and the numbers were decent, but the fastball velocity averaged 95.9 mph, the first time below 96 mph in his career, while the FIP of 3.69 was the highest since 2020 and the third-highest in his career. In addition, the strikeout, walk and home runs allowed numbers were all slightly worse from 2023.
Cole did pitch well in the World Series last season, prompting some optimism for this season.
But the rain cloud followed Cole like Charlie Brown this year, as he complained of elbow soreness after last Thursday’s Spring Training game. On Monday, the cloud deposited its H2O upon Cole, Yankees Nation and the fantasy landscape as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Cole would undergo Tommy John surgery, ending his 2025 season before it began.
The Yankees rotation will now be headlined by Max Fried, with Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman and Clarke Schmidt filling out the next three slots. Will Warren will likely be the fifth starter.
The top two of Fried and Rodon should be solid. Both are lefties, and while Fried isn’t a robust strikeout pitcher like Cole or Rodon, he does an excellent job of keeping the ball in the yard. That said, he had spent his entire career in Atlanta, so there is some uncertainty as to how he will perform in a stacked AL East and Yankees Stadium.
After Fried and Rodon, things get mighty murky, as Stroman had a K/9 under 7 last season with a 4.62 FIP. Schmidt pitched 159 innings in 2023 with a 4.42 FIP, but that was his only season pitching more than 85 innings.
Warren pitched 22.2 innings last season in what was his rookie season. He definitely has swing-and-miss stuff, but the control is suspect and he was prone to the long ball last season.
There’s a good chance the Yankees will look to make a move for another starter before the regular season begins.
