A Yankee ace goes down, a three-true-outcomes hitter thinks it's time to prevent home runs if he can (just wait), and some injury concerns around two other teams. Spring training 2025 continues apace.
Old Dinged Cole Dept. — Well, "dinged" would be an understatement in describing both Gerrit Cole's pitching elbow and the Yankees' chances of surviving a pennant race without him. No matter how eager their free agency prize Max Fried is to step up and pitch up. Losing Cole to elbow surgery for this season is lethal to the Yankees' chances.
About the only good news was Cole selecting a comparatively new procedure — not Tommy John surgery with its 14-18 month recovery time, but internal bracing, which reinforces his ligament and cuts inflammation, and which is also said to require up to twelve months recovery and rehab.
That, alas, exhausts the good news for the Yankees. The team who started spring training with a projected dominant starting rotation is in the middle of spring training with that rotation decimated. Luis Gil — three months out with a lat strain. Clarke Schmidt — continuing to rehab from a back problem. Behind Fried, Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman, and a rookie named Will Warren line up, but the Yankees' pitching depth has gone unconscionably shallow unconscionably fast.
And, unless you're one of those who equate injury with mortal sin, it's nobody's fault. (Don't even think about the cause being the Yankees' relaxing of their longtime, long-notorious facial hair policies, either.)
Let's Not Do It Again Dept. — The bad news, for those who think spring training records mean something above and beyond merely knocking teams back into season-long shape, is the White Sox with a .364 spring training winning percentage as I sat down to write.
But the good news is that the White Sox don't have the lowest win percentage of the spring. The Padres (.348) and the Mariners (.304) are behind them. And, unlike the Padres going .500 in their previous ten games with the Mariners going 2-8 over theirs, the White Sox as of Sunday evening were 5-4 in their previous nine.
Which may or may not provide hope in Dudsville, but it just might give the White Sox serious rays of hope.
Say It's So, Joe? Dept. — That friendly-looking fellow who either hits big, even game changing home runs, or strikes out as though he was informed the ballpark at the moment required improved air conditioning, has reached a decision about his career, including getting the White Sox to release him. I couldn't possibly improve on the manner in which MLB Trade Rumors phrased it:
Gallo announced on social media in the aftermath of his release that he plans to convert to pitching going forward. The news shines additional light on Chicago's decision to release Gallo, who can now search for a fresh minor league deal with a team interested in seeing what he can do on the mound. While Gallo has no professional experience on the mound, he did pitch in high school (even throwing a no-hitter) and has long had among the most impressive throwing arms in the game among position players, which was key to him earning two Gold Gloves in right field.
This, if successful, would amount to Rick Ankiel in reverse. But do recall that it was a lot simpler for Ankiel to convert from injury-spent pitcher to slugging/on-base machine outfielder, even if the conversion's success barely lasted three out of an eleven-season career. Which team would actually be willing to take a chance on letting Gallo give it a whack?
Gray Skies Dept. — A Michael Toglia liner flying as fast as Aroldis Chapman's fastball used to travel left Rangers pitcher Jon Gray with a fractured wrist 14 March. It also leaves him on the 60-day injured list going in, probably, since it's likely to be six weeks before Gray's cleared just to throw at all.
Which is just what the Rangers don't need happening to a rotation that looks to be good-to-great if its membership stays healthy — including Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jack Leiter, and Kumar Rocker.
Shouldering Off Dept. — Mariners mound star George Kirby has been told he can't shoulder inflammation in there, so he's going to open 2025 on the injured list. GM Justin Hollander insists there's "no structural damage," and it wasn't exactly Kirby's own idea to hit the injured list. But Hollander and the Mariners decline politely to take chances on making things worse.
"[Kirby] has not been feeling great after his outings," said Hollander to a reporting pool.
In the outings, he's throwing the ball well — same velocity as you would expect. He just hasn't felt like he's bouncing back great. We did an MRI — MRI looks great. No structural concerns whatsoever, and I will repeat that: zero structural concerns. There is some inflammation in there that we need to get out, so much to George's chagrin, we are going to take the ball out of his hands . . .This is more like a week-to-week thing than a day-to-day thing. We just want to make sure we're doing the right thing for the big picture of the whole season as opposed to worrying about Opening Day.
Would that one and all on one and all teams took that kind of care with young, talented pitchers.
Leave a Comment