Getty Yankees starter Gerrit Cole has an unidentified elbow injury, but the team has not yet shown interest in Blake Snell.
It certainly sounds like cause for concern, even if the Yankees are downplaying it. But ace starter Gerrit Cole, last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner, has undergone an MRI on his pitching elbow to attempt to identify a mystery ailment that is keeping him from being able to bounce back from short Spring Training stints. Reports note that, from the Yankees perspective, the test is “precautionary.”
Elbows generally don’t just miraculously heal themselves, though, and the fact that Cole is not quite feeling himself here in March has raised the possibility that he won’t be available for Opening Day, just a little more than two weeks away. That has sparked speculation that the Yankees could return to the possibility of adding another Cy Young Award winner, Blake Snell, who is still a free agent.
But as of now, that appears to be a no-go, according to SNY’s Andy Martino. It would make eminent sense for the Yankees to re-examine adding Snell, but internally, the team has not broached the subject.
Blake Snell Interest Ended in January
Martino had reported that the Yankees made an offer to Snell months ago, but later pulled it. The longer he remains unsigned, the greater the speculation that he and the Yankees will reconnect and make a deal happen. Alas, Martino said, that’s not to be.
“The Cole news has not reignited the Yankees’ onetime pursuit of free agent ace Blake Snell,per league sources,” he wrote this week. “SNY reported last month that the Yankees pulled their offer to Snell in January, after Snell turned it down and the team signed Marcus Stroman. As of Monday afternoon, nothing had changed on that front.”
That reporting was seconded by veteran baseball writer Bob Klapisch of NJ.com, who wrote that Snell’s agent, Scott Boras, was steering Snell toward either the Giants or the Angels, and that the Yankees had not talked to Boras for weeks.
Klapisch noted that Cole’s injury was a “shock” for the organization, because of Cole’s durability. Cole has made at least 30 starts in each of his last three seasons, and led the league with 33 starts the past two years. He has gone 51-23 with a 3.08 ERA in four seasons with the Yankees.
“Even if it’s minor, Cole’s setback comes as a shock to the organization. He’s been the rotation’s rock since 2020 – not only the Yankees’ best pitcher, but their most competitive, most intuitive, most devoted to the craft,” Klapisch wrote. “And, above all else, most durable.”
Yankees Shocked by Gerrit Cole Injury
Snell remains a bizarre case in that he is still unsigned so close to the start of the season. The lefty seemed to recapture some of the magic from the season he had in Tampa Bay in 2018, when he won the A.L. Cy Young Award, a year in which he went 21-5 with a 1.89 ERA.
He struggled to stay healthy from there, but looked much better in his last two seasons, culminating in a 14-9 season with a league-best 2.25 ERA.
According to multiple reports, the offer the Yankees made to Snell was six years and $150 million, but Snell wanted at least $30 million per year. Spotrac, for what it’s worth, has Snell’s market value at $24 million per year, worthy of a six-year, $144 million contract.
So, the Yankees moved on, signing Marcus Stroman on January 11, and shutting down the possibility of a Snell-Yankees deal.
That possibility, apparently, is still closed, even with a potential Cole injury looming.