THROWIN’ PAINS
YANKS ACE OUT FOR YEAR
Luis Severino needs Tommy John surgery and will miss 2020 season, joining James Paxton and Domingo German on Yankee shelf.
DUNEDIN, Fla. — The Yankees took a big blow Tuesday. After months of testing, resting and anti-inflammatory treatments, Luis Severino was diagnosed with a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. The right hander will have Tommy John surgery and will miss the 2020 season, Yankees GM Brian Cashman announced.
Considering that Severino first felt the soreness in his right forearm back in October, it’s been a frustrating journey of months lost trying to diagnose the issue. The injury, however, did not present the normal red flags of a torn UCL and needed a contrast dye MRI and the consultation of team doctor Chris Ahmad and Mets team doctor David Alchek to finally confirm the diagnosis, Cashman said.
Severino is still deciding what surgeon will do his procedure, Cashman said, but the bottom line is that a Yankees
rotation that was once considered overflowing after the signing of ace Gerrit Cole, is now looking for two arms to fill spots.
“He’s out for the year, so it just, obviously, he’s not a choice for us in the 2020 season so it leaves us with obviously people competing for the vacant spot,” Cashman said.
Veteran left-hander J.A. Happ, who the Yankees had looked to trade this winter to try and get some salary relief after signing Gerrit Cole to a $324 million deal, moved into a solid spot in the rotation when the Yankees announced James Paxton had back surgery earlier this month and was expected to miss at least the first month of the season. At that point, lefty Jordan Montogmery, making a comeback from 2018 Tommy John surgery, seemed like the frontrunner for the fifth spot.
Now, Happ and Montgomery would be the third and fourth starters behind Cole and Masahiro Tanaka.
The Yankees will look internally for a fifth starter right now, because the trade and free agent markets are nearly nonexistent before the June draft. Free agent starters still not signed include Clay Buchholz, Andrew Cashner, Jason Vargas and Matt Harvey.
“I mean we’re always constantly looking for upgrades anyway. This time of year you always look from within and give opportunities for what you have,” Cashman said. “That’s how it shakes out, especially until after the June draft regardless. So, you rely on your depth. I wouldn’t say expect any domino effect or cause and effect in terms of us being able to go to marketplace where a marketplace typically this time of year doesn’t exist.”
So the Yankees will be looking at guys already in their camp: sometimes a starter and sometimes a re
liever Jonathan Loaisiga and prospects Michael King and Deivi Garcia. They also have veteran pitchers who were also invited to camp like Chad Bettis and David Hale. Domingo German, who went 18-4 last season, is serving 63 games of an 80-game suspension under the domestic violence policy to start the season, or he would be an obvious contender.
Cashman and the Yankees now have to hope someone steps up and takes the job.
“That’s what you go through spring training for: people get the opportunities,” Cashman said. “The beginning of spring training performance isn’t something that you’re really gauging as much as health and getting a workload, built in and then with the second half the spring you start to really try to get a laser focus on who, especially in the beginning of the season is going to join your club as you move north.
“Clearly with losing Paxton and losing Sevy. We’re going to be in a situation where we’re gonna have to really rely further on what we already have,” Cashman said. “I can’t fast forward and tell you how that’s gonna play out just yet. We’re certainly hopeful that we have a lot of talented hungry personnel wanting to make a name for themselves.”
There is no denying this is a big loss for the Yankees, who extended Severino’s contract on a four-year, $40million deal last spring. The 26-year-old was 42-26 with a 3.46 ERA over parts of five seasons in the big leagues. He struck out 589 batters over 530 innings pitched.
But now, Severino has pitched just 20.1 innings in the first two years of his new contract because of injuries. He pitched just 12 regular-season innings in 2019 after dealing with right rotator cuff issues and then suffering a grade 2 strained, or partially torn, lat muscle.