Cole surgery sends Yanks’ spring from bad dream to nightmare

 PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.

It’s not as if everyone didn’t see this coming — from early Saturday morning, when Gerrit Cole repeatedly expressed “concern” about his suddenly ailing elbow, to Sunday, when general manager Brian Cashman said he was “prepared for the worst” regarding the second opinion for his $324 million ace.

Well, that second opinion was obtained Monday in Los Angeles, delivered by noted orthopedist Neal ElAttrache, and the verdict was every bit as devastating as the Yankees feared. Cole needs Tommy John surgery and ElAttrache will perform the UCL repair Tuesday. Now Cole is done until 2026.

That’s about as terrible a 72-hour stretch as the Yankees possibly could have endured, on top of everything else that has gone sideways since the team arrived at Steinbrenner Field a month ago. Giancarlo Stanton is unable to even pick up a bat because of “severe” tendinitis in both elbows. Luis Gil is lost for three months because of a high-grade lat-muscle strain.

Subtracting a $325 million DH and the reigning Rookie of the Year was bad enough. The Yankees already had plenty to figure out with the void at third base, Jasson Dominguez’s audition in leftfield and the fingers-crossed resurrection of Paul Goldschmidt at first. Did we mention that Juan Soto plays over in Queens now, too?

The absolute worst thing the Yankees could deal with this spring training — aside from a lengthy injury suffered by Aaron Judge, of course — was more damage to Cole, who rebounded from last year’s elbow issue to gradually work his way back to being the rotation’s ace by mid-August.

Despite the early scare, the Yankees and Cole got what they believed to be a happy ending: the World Series trip and an apparently healthy ace, his elbow problems seemingly behind him.

The reality, however, turned out to be very different, and we can’t help but wonder how much the elbow remained a red flag since Cole first complained of discomfort a year earlier. Sure, it required extra maintenance — what 34-year-old pitcher with nearly 2,000 innings on his arm doesn’t need that? But maybe Cole wasn’t quite as OK as everyone was led to believe.

On March 1, when Cole was asked if he thought the elbow was no longer an issue, he gave a cryptic reply: “I don’t know if it’s that black and white.”

In other words, the mileage on Cole’s arm already was significant. Barring surgery, that wear and tear doesn’t miraculously reverse itself, and he is paying the price for being one of the most durable pitchers in the sport. No one dodges the bullets forever. Pitching is a very hazardous activity — Cashman described the occupation as “brittle” — and Cole was on a slippery slope toward disaster after the warning shot the previous March. More a case of when rather than if.

“It’s hard to predict,” Cashman said.

But were the Yankees wary of Cole’s physical decline in November when they chose not to void his opt-out, a move that failed to guarantee a 10th year at another $36 million on his existing deal? You’d have to think it was in the back of their minds. Cole — in a move very out of character for a Scott Boras client — still passed on free agency to stay put in the Bronx.

Cole blinked first, but the Yankees are still on the hook for the remaining four years and $144 million. Now that’s down to 2 1⁄2 years, at best, and Cashman has to navigate this turbulent period without the anchor of his pricey rotation.

He did have the foresight to sign Max Fried, an ace-caliber pitcher, to an eight-year, $218 million contract in December, an acquisition that came off at the time as the Yankees doubling down on a strength.

Fried was more like an expensive insurance policy, a hedge against Cole’s wonky elbow blowing out completely, and the Yankees must have realized there was a decent chance of that happening at some point.

To be fair, that would’ve been the case even if Cole didn’t already have one strike against him. The older he got, the more starts he made, the more innings he threw, the more he fit the profile for Tommy John surgery. Thursday, against the Twins, was just his time.

“Obviously not what you want,” Cashman said Sunday, already knowing that Tommy John surgery was the likely outcome. “But it’s also, ultimately, part of our journey here in 2025.”

The Yankees now have legitimate reason to be worried about that journey. Cashman can’t just get a reasonable Cole substitute in mid-March, even if the Yankees are willing to spend the money or prospect capital for one. This isn’t like last year, when Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery were available on the free-agent market. The options now? How about Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson or Spencer Turnbull?

If the Yankees can get by with the current rotation, Gil is expected back in late June, and maybe Cashman will be willing to part with some of the team’s dwindling prospect pool to acquire another starter closer to the trade deadline. But it’s also worth asking how much more Hal Steinbrenner intends to spend on his 2025 roster. The Yankees’ payroll is at $305 million, and that has appeared to be the owner’s ceiling.

Either way, there’s no replacing Cole. And for a Yankees team that couldn’t win a World Series during his first five years in pinstripes, that task only gets more difficult from here.