New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is not expected to make his 2026 debut until May or June as he continues recovering from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in mid-March last year. Manager Aaron Boone confirmed that timeline on the first day of spring training, when maintaining that the veteran right-hander is right on track in his rehab.
But then he added, rather surprisingly, that there is a possibility that Cole pitches in spring training games over the next six weeks.
“We’ll see how all of that shakes out and if we want to do that or not,” he added.
Cole has been throwing off a mound at least in some capacity since October, but most pitchers do not ramp up to full competitive throwing until 12 to 14 months after their procedure. The 35-year-old has been throwing bullpen sessions in California throughout the offseason and is scheduled to throw live batting practices in “a couple of weeks.”
Should he check the necessary boxes the team needs to see, he could toe the rubber in an exhibition game toward the end of spring training.
Fellow Yankees starter Carlos Rodon, who had offseason elbow surgery, is more than a month ahead of Cole and is expected to make his 2026 debut in late April.
They are two of the centerpieces of what is a vaunted rotation in the Bronx — perhaps one of the very best in baseball when healthy. Cole was a year removed from winning the Cy Young before his surgery, and Rodon was coming off the best season of his career in 2025.
Max Fried asserted himself as one of the top left-handed starters in baseball, and Cam Schlittler has shown flashes of top-end stuff, specifically in his Game 3 start of the AL Wild Card series in which he shut the Boston Red Sox out across eight innings.
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