Yankees fans staring into darkness over Gerrit Cole injury

In less than a month’s time, sentiment surrounding the New York Yankees has deteriorated due to injuries; going from “strongest team in the AL,” to “temporary setbacks are only temporary,” and finally, to “well, there’s always next year.” While endless litanies of injuries are nothing unusual for the Yankees, both the timeframe and magnitude of injuries have been devastating this time around.

Indeed, the rate at which Yankees’ players have been falling is nothing less than shocking, and we are yet to mark even one month into spring training before the cataclysmic train wreck that has effectively crumbled the Yankees’ organization came to fruition.

To note a few of the important major-league players that will be missing time (since noting all of them would be a long, arduous process), let’s run down a brief list of Yankee casualties that could have served as important bats or starting rotation options come Opening Day: Giancarlo Stanton will be out for the foreseeable future, Luis Gil will miss at least three months, JT Brubaker will miss significant time but a timeframe is uncertain, DJ LeMahieu will miss a “couple weeks, at least,” according to the former batting champ, and now, the latest blow is by far the biggest.

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Gerrit Cole is out for the entire 2025 season and Yankees fans are wrecked

Like with every good horror movie, there is always a twist of fate that plunges the protagonist’s future into uncertain chaos. For the Yankees, Gerrit Cole’s injury rises to this distinction in this New York nightmare.

Cole is set to undergo Tommy John surgery on Tuesday. For Yankee fans, the fact that their ace and Cy Young award winner will be out well into next season has been blindsiding to say the least. These are just a few reactions on X:

The Yankees entered spring training with one the best starting rotations in the game featuring Cole, Max Fried, Luis Gil, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt. Now, it appears they will head into the season with Fried, Rodon, Schmidt, Marcus Stroman, and Will Warren.

In his Cy Young year of 2023, Cole pitched to a 2.63 ERA in 209 innings of work winning his second ERA title. He missed a significant portion of the 2024 season with elbow inflammation but returned before the second half. His performance was pivotal to the Yankees’ postseason success last season. Without him, the Yankees’ 2025 season now sits in limbo as the team doesn’t appear prepared to replace their ace.