TAMPA — He is 35 now, another year older, with some more facial hair, a slightly different windup and a surgically reconstructed ulnar collateral ligament.
But Gerrit Cole stepped onto the bullpen mound Friday morning at Steinbrenner Field and, as much as one can over the course of two simulated innings without any hitters in the box, looked like Gerrit Cole.
There is still a long way to go — in a best-case scenario, three months, with more hurdles to clear along the way — before Cole might take the mound in a big league game.
But just over 11 months removed from undergoing Tommy John surgery and having the entirety of his 2025 season wiped out, the former AL Cy Young award winner gave the Yankees a tantalizing reminder of what could be waiting for them later this year.
“He looked like a Cy Young pitcher,” catcher Austin Wells said. “He looked smooth and in control. Looked confident in his ability.”
Of course, it was just a bullpen session in February, one that checked another box on the way to potentially facing hitters in another week or two and possibly getting into a Grapefruit League game before camp ends.
In his conversations with the Yankees and the surgeon who repaired his elbow, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the target return date has always been 14-18 months, Cole said, and that remains on track.
He had the surgery last March 11, so 14 months would be May 11.
And exactly what version of Cole the Yankees get once he does return to game action remains to be seen.
For some pitchers coming back from Tommy John, it takes a full season to get their stuff back and feel like themselves.
For others, it comes quicker.
Cole knows this and is not getting ahead of himself for what to expect this season.
But to this point, every step of the rehab process that he described as “long and tedious” has gone well, giving him and the Yankees hope that there is some light at the end of the tunnel inching closer.
“I’m a confident guy. I have high expectations for my execution internally,” Cole said. “But overall, in terms of performance and expectations, I don’t really have any set goals or numbers or things like that. It’s been working really well to just stay day to day and execute the task at hand. So I think the challenge is to continue to do that as things become more exciting and things start to get rolling more and more.”
In his throwing session Friday, Cole’s fastball hit 94-96 mph, the pop of Wells’ glove ringing throughout the bullpen with a crowd of interested Yankees personnel watching.
At this point in the rehab process, Cole acknowledged that it is important for him to pay close attention to the velocity, making sure he is staying within the suggested ranges to “load the new [elbow] tissue strategically.”
“When I’m told to push, I push,” he said. “When I’m told not to, I don’t. I really haven’t deviated hardly at all from our targets.”
Along those lines, the Yankees will not push Cole back too soon, regardless of how encouraged they may be at each next step.
There is no sense in bringing him back quickly just to have him pitch in early-season games at the expense of having him available later in the year when the stakes are higher.
“We want to make sure we give him the proper time to make sure he is good and ready to come back, built up in a smart way,” manager Aaron Boone said. “So we won’t rush that with him, even if it continues to go incredibly well.”
Cole, too, expressed a cautious optimism about how he was feeling.
His old elbow got him 2,000-plus innings in the big leagues, and the new one is feeling “different than it has been in quite some time,” he said.
Whether that could mean throwing harder when he returns, Cole pumped the brakes and said with a smile, “We’ll see.”
More than anything, Cole just seemed to be longing for things to get back to normal, for the day when he can finally rejoin what has the potential to be a high-end rotation with him a key part of it.
“I just miss playing,” he said. “I miss that outlet of working hard and feeling exhausted every five days.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
