Elbow surgery will sideline one of Major League Baseball’s best pitchers in 2025, presenting an enormous challenge for his team as it tries to return to the World Series.
Gerrit Cole, the hard-throwing right-hander for the New York Yankees who also endured elbow problems to begin last season, will undergo surgery after he again suffered discomfort in his right elbow during spring training, the Yankees announced Monday.
Dr. Neal ElAttrache will perform the Tommy John surgery at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Cole, 34, won the Cy Young Award as the American League’s best pitcher in 2023, but New York shut him down last spring after he reported discomfort in his throwing elbow. Surgery was not necessary, and Cole ultimately started 17 regular-season games and helped the Yankees reach the World Series after a strong performance to help clinch the league pennant. In Game 5 of the World Series, he was on the mound as the Los Angeles Dodgers mounted an extraordinary comeback that helped clinch them the championship.
As the Yankees gathered last month in spring training to mount what they hope will be a return campaign to the World Series, Cole told reporters that he had begun his offseason throwing program earlier than usual and that as a result felt he was “in a really good spot.” But last week, reports emerged that discomfort in the same elbow had led Cole to undergo testing. The Athletic subsequently reported that doctors had recommended that Cole undergo Tommy John surgery but that he was seeking a second opinion.
When he is healthy, Cole has proven an ability to dominate like few peers. With a career-high 326 strikeouts in 2019, he joined an exclusive club of pitchers who have produced the only 69 seasons with 300-plus strikeouts in MLB history. Cole has twice led the American League in earned-run average, and he twice finished with a league-high number of strikeouts, including a career-high 326 in 2019. His ratio of 4.5 strikeouts to walks ranks eighth best all-time and fourth best among active pitchers, according to Baseball Reference. Cole also has the fifth-highest Wins Above Replacement statistic among active pitchers.
The Yankees proactively bolstered their rotation in the winter by signing a top free-agent pitcher, Max Fried. Yet the prospect of losing Cole deals a sizable blow to a team that earlier in the winter lost another lineup pillar when outfielder Juan Soto signed a 15-year, $765 million deal to join the New York Mets.
