Injuries Are Piling up for the Yankees

It’s spring training, and you know what that means for the Yankees: A never-ending list of players getting hurt. Every team has injuries, but why does it seem like the Yankees always lead the way? Lets get to it.

We are barely a week into the Grapefruit League schedule and the Yankees are already in midseason injury form, looking like an old, dilapidated team.

For Christ’s sake, it is simply absurd how every damn year this team seems to use spring training to get hurt rather than get ready for the season, but should any of us be surprised when it comes to the Yankees inglorious health history? Of course not.

To catch up on the folly of last week down there in Tampa: 2024 AL rookie of the year Luis Gil has a sore shoulder which will almost certainly cause him to miss the start of the season; Giancarlo Stanton and his two tennis elbows have already been placed on the injured list to start the year, so forget about seeing him probably until May; DJ LeMahieu suffered a calf injury Saturday in his first game of the spring; and Scott Effross tweaked a hamstring throwing his first pitch in a game situation.

Unbelievable. It really is.

Let’s start with Gil. I guess this was predictable, right? Gil had thrown just 29.2 innings combined in 2022 and 2023 due to Tommy John surgery, but then threw 159.1 innings counting the postseason in 2024. Making a jump in work like that was always going to be a risk, and sure enough, he’s hurt.

Throughout the second half of the season, his workload was a talking point and many believed the Yankees should have backed off a bit, but they were in go-mode chasing the AL East and ultimately the AL pennant so Gil kept making his starts, though the Yankees did try to limit his innings. In only one of his last 1o regular seasons starts did he surpass 100 pitches and he never threw more than six innings.

Gil was throwing a bullpen session when he cut it short complaining of pain, after which Aaron Boone said, “When a pitcher stops his bullpen, that’s concerning. But I also don’t want to get too far ahead. We’ll see what we have. But anytime they pull themselves from a bullpen a couple pitches in, that’s concerning.” He underwent an MRI but the Yankees have yet to announce the results.

Stanton went back to New York to tend to a personal matter, and while he was there he received platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections in both his elbows and he won’t be able to do much of anything once he returns to Tampa. “The biggest thing is getting him right, and if that costs us a little bit on the front end, so be it,” Boone said. “I do feel like we’ll get to a good spot with this. It’s a long year.”

I said this last year, and I’ll say it right now: LeMahieu is done. He has simply broken down and what sucks is that he’s a payroll albatross because they still owe him $30 million over the next two seasons. Rather than just eat that money and move on, they’re trying to draw blood from a stone. Unsurprisingly, there is not a drop in there.

“That’s not ideal, just with all that he’s had to deal with,” Boone said of the calf injury which he suffered running to first base in his second at bat. “We’ll see what we have there, and we’ll see how significant it is. These soft tissue things have popped up on him, so it’s at least a little concerning.”

LeMahieu was actually the leading candidate to be the starting third baseman which was never a favorable situation. With this injury, my guess is he won’t be ready to play Opening Day so unless the Yankees do something, the third base competition is between Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza. In other words, it remains unfavorable.

“It’s not anything major, but it’s probably going to be a little bit before I start doing baseball stuff again. I can’t put a timeline on it,’’ LeMahieu said. “I wanted to come in this spring and prove that I’m healthy and I’m not off to the hottest start with that. I’m confident I can help this team, I know that.’’

Anyone out there confident about that? I didn’t think so.

And then there’s Effross, who you may not even know exists because, quite frankly, how could you? Since being acquired in an Aug. 1, 2o22 trade from the Cubs for pitcher Hayden Wesneski, Effross has thrown exactly 16 innings in pinstripes.

After looking exactly like the reliever the Yankees were hoping he’d be for them in his first 13 appearances in 2022 (2.13 ERA, 1.026 WHIP), he blew out his elbow and had to undergo Tommy John surgery. That cost him all of 2023, and then he spent most of 2024 in Triple-A with the exception of three lousy late-season appearances for the Yankees where he had a 5.40 ERA and 1.500 WHIP in 3.1 innings.

The 31-year-old was expected to be a part of the bridge innings section of the bullpen this year before his latest setback. With four other bullpen candidates - Jake Cousins, JT Brubaker, Clayton Beeter and Jonathan Loiasiga - also on the shelf, the Yankees are scrambling.

Leadoff spot is wide open

LeMahieu was a candidate to bat at the top of the order before he got hurt, and that alone tells you what a problematic spot that is for the Yankees.

Last year, Gleyber Torres won the job coming out of the spring, then stunk for two weeks so Anthony Volpe took over. Volpe got off to a great start but then completely hit the skids and after several players were tried, Boone eventually went back to Torres full-time in mid-August and he rewarded Boone’s faith and hit well and stayed in that position all the way through the World Series.

Now Torres is gone, and Boone is using spring training as an audition to bat leadoff. So far we’ve seen Jasson Dominguez, Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm, and Austin Wells and I would guess that at some point Volpe, Cabrera, and Peraza might get chances.

What’s interesting about that group is Wells and Rice are catchers. “You never know here,” Boone said of the slow-footed Wells as a possibility. “It’s something I would consider. I’ve liked Jazz there, especially against right-handed pitching, I could absolutely see that being a thing.”

With Juan Soto gone, Aaron Judge is going back to the No. 2 spot and he will need guys to get on base in front of him. So often last season, no matter who hit leadoff, Soto was at least on base when Judge came up which is partly why Judge led MLB with 144 RBI.

Marcus Stroman will get his wish

Stroman made it perfectly clear that he’s a starter and not a reliever, and now with the injury to Gil, plus the slow ramp up for Clarke Schmidt who began the spring battling a sore back, it almost guarantees that Stroman will be part of the early-season rotation.

Given the way the second half of 2024 went for him, coupled with his rocky start to this spring, that’s not comforting in any way.

In Stroman’s first start he allowed two hits and no runs in one inning of work, and in his second outing on Sunday, he was terrible during an 11-1 loss to the Braves. He gave up back-to-back homers in the first inning to studs Austin Riley and Matt Olson, he hit a batter with a pitch in the second, then yielded two runs on two doubles in the third before Boone yanked him at 43 pitches.

“Overall body-wise, I felt great,” Stroman said Sunday. “Just made some bad pitches that they capitalized on, but definitely good to get the workload up, get into the third and then just kind of build from there. I’m a pitch-to-contact guy, so things can get frustrating at points. I want to win. I’m not someone who wants to just go out there and go through the motions. So yeah, I might get a little riled up occasionally, but that’s just the competitor in me.”

Here a few things that stood out last week

➤ With Gil likely out for the start of the season, Will Warren may earn a spot as the sixth man in the rotation. Last year was a mess for him as he made his MLB debut and pitched to a 10.32 ERA and 1.897 WHIP in six games, five as a starter. So far this spring, he has made two starts and across five scoreless innings against the Rays and Cardinals he allowed just one hit and one walk with seven strikeouts.

➤ Carlos Rodon, on the other hand, has started poorly. He has two appearances and in 5.1 innings he has allowed six runs on nine hits and his ERA is 10.13. There’s no need to panic, obviously, because like all veteran pitchers, Rodon is working on things and results mean nothing. At least for now.

➤ Gerrit Cole’s spring debut went well Friday as he started against the Blue Jays and went 3.1 innings, gave up a run on three hits, struck out five and threw 33 strikes on 46 pitches. “I feel way different (than this time last year),” Cole said afterward. “I really like where I’m at. I liked what I saw.”

➤ Speaking of debuts, Judge made his on Saturday and went 1-for-2, the hit a two-run single as the Yankees beat the Astros 9-3. “I’ve been trying to do a lot of stuff on the back fields or whatever,” said Judge, who took it slow during the first week and did not play. “I’m shooting for 40-50 (at-bats); I think that might help us start April off a little better.”

Last spring, Judge played only 10 games in the spring, had just 22 at bats and batted .208 with no home runs. Then the season started and he was terrible throughout March/April as he was batting just .220 before turning things around and going on to put up one of the greatest offensive seasons in franchise history.

➤ Journeyman first baseman Dominic Smith, who is trying to win a bench role as a backup to Paul Goldschmidt and as a left-handed option at DH, has already cranked two home runs, though he made outs on his other eight at bats. His chances of making the roster hinge almost solely on injuries, so that being the case, at least he’s in the right camp.

After spending parts of six seasons with the Mets, Smith has been on the move the last two years as he played for the Nationals, Red Sox and Reds before coming to Tampa as a non-roster invite. “He’s here because we know if that lane does open up, we’ve got a quality hitter, a quality person that you can add in the mix real easy,” Boone said.

➤ Cody Bellinger has gotten off to a nice start. Although he went 0-for-3 Sunday, he’s 5-for-13 with a double, a homer and two RBI in five games. As for Goldschmidt, he’s 3-for-13 with two RBI and seven strikeouts.

➤ The Yankees seem to be giving Rice every chance to make the roster. When he came up to make his debut in 2024, he did so as a first baseman to fill in for injured Anthony Rizzo. He had been a catching prospect who was learning how to play first to add to his repertoire, but so far, he’s getting plenty of work behind the plate because the Yankees need to find a full-time backup to Wells. To date, he’s 3-for-12 with a homer and two RBI.

Rice is competing with weak-hitting Alex Jackson who came over in the trade that sent Jose Trevino to the Reds, while longshot JC Escarra has also appeared in four games. One of the storylines in Tampa is how Rice has added about 10 pounds to his frame and he seems to be hitting the ball with more authority. He showed some pop last season - remember that three-homer game had against the Red Sox - before his bat went silent and he played himself right out of a postseason roster spot.

➤ The other piece of the Trevino trade that came back to New York, reliever Fernando Cruz, needs to get some things worked out. The 34-year-old possesses a wipeout splitter, but he hasn’t found it yet. He gave up three runs to the Tigers in his first appearance on Feb. 23 and then a run to the Phillies on Feb. 27.