TAMPA, Fla. — The sound carried across the bullpen like a thunderclap. Pop after pop, fastball after fastball slamming into the mitt of catcher Austin Wells. A small army of Yankees coaches, front-office personnel and even legendary guest instructor Ron Guidry stood watching from behind the mound, and for a few minutes on a Friday morning at Steinbrenner Field, everyone forgot they were watching a man less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery.
Gerrit Cole is 35. He has a surgically reconstructed elbow, a new beard and a delivery tweak nobody saw coming. But when the former AL Cy Young winner completed his first bullpen session of spring training, the early reviews from camp were emphatic.
The Yankees needed a dose of good news for a pitching staff already dealing with injuries, and their ace delivered. With his fastball sitting comfortably in the mid-90s and touching 96 mph, Cole fired roughly 30 pitches across two simulated innings. He mixed in his full arsenal and commanded every offering.
A new rhythm, a familiar result
The most noticeable change was not the velocity. It was the windup.
Cole debuted a revamped delivery Friday, raising both hands high above his head before rocking and firing. It replaced the more compact motion he used throughout his career, where his hands stayed near his belt or chest. Cole said the adjustment came naturally during summer throwing sessions on the back fields while rehabbing in California.
“It just felt good,” Cole said. “I’ve had little idiosyncrasies that have changed over the years from still hands to a drop or hands off the body, close to the body. I think I generally just like the rhythm of it.”
Cole confirmed the new-look windup is not an experiment. He plans to carry it into the regular season.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who watched every pitch from behind the mound alongside pitching coaches Matt Blake and Desi Druschel and bench coach Brad Ausmus, loved what he saw. He compared Cole to a high diver whose entry into the water barely makes a ripple.
“When I think of Gerrit and his greatness, a lot of it ties to his delivery. Everything looks like it’s coming out free and easy, command,” Boone said. “That diver that dives off the high board and just goes in the water and makes no splash — that’s Gerrit on the mound. He’s just really efficient.”
Wells and Boone see a Cy Young arm
Austin Wells, who caught every pitch Friday, did not mince words when asked about the session. The 23-year-old backstop said he spotted Cole’s name on the schedule the day before and made sure he was behind the plate for it.
“He looked like a Cy Young pitcher,” Wells said. “He looked smooth and in control. Looked confident in his ability.”
Guidry, the Hall of Fame-caliber Yankees left-hander serving as a guest instructor this spring, kept it simple.
“Was nice and easy,” Guidry said.
Boone himself summed it up with four words: “He looked like Gerrit Cole.”
Cole, a six-time All-Star who owns a 3.18 career ERA and 2,251 career strikeouts, has not pitched in a game since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series against the Dodgers. He missed the entire 2025 season after Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed Tommy John surgery on March 11 of that year. The Yankees went 94-68 without him but were bounced by the Blue Jays in the AL Division Series.
The rebuilt elbow already feels different
Cole acknowledged that over 2,000 regular-season and postseason innings took a toll on the original hardware in his right arm. The replacement ligament, he said, already stands apart.
“It feels really good. It feels different than it has been in quite some time,” Cole said.
When pressed on whether that could translate to throwing harder once he returns, Cole smiled and pumped the brakes: “We’ll see.”
He is paying careful attention to the velocity targets his medical team has laid out, loading the new tissue strategically rather than letting it rip too early.
“I’m just doing exactly what I’ve been told. When I’m told to push, I push. When I’m told not to, I don’t. I really haven’t deviated hardly at all from our targets,” Cole said.
The 14-to-18-month recovery window his doctors and the Yankees mapped out remains unchanged. That puts his earliest possible return around late May, with June the more likely target. Cole had already thrown multiple bullpen sessions in New York and California over the offseason without any setbacks before arriving in Tampa.
Why the Yankees cannot afford to rush him
gerritcole45@InstagramJASON SZENES/ NY POST
As encouraging as Friday’s session was, the Yankees are not about to push the timetable. Their pitching staff is already navigating a gauntlet of injuries. Carlos Rodon is recovering from offseason elbow surgery and is expected back in late April or May. Clarke Schmidt remains on the mend from his own Tommy John procedure and may not return until the second half.
The Opening Day rotation is projected to be Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, Ryan Weathers and Luis Gil. Fried anchors the group after posting a 2.86 ERA in 195.1 innings last season, a year that earned him a fourth-place finish in AL Cy Young voting.
Boone made it clear the club will be patient with its $324 million ace.
“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,” Boone said. “So we won’t rush that with him, even if it continues to go incredibly well.”
Cole is expected to face live hitters in the next couple of weeks. If that goes well, Grapefruit League game action before the end of camp remains a possibility.
Cole’s mindset: stay in the moment
Cole called his rehab “long and tedious” but said the process has reaffirmed his core values. He is not setting stat goals or performance benchmarks for his return.
“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.”
Still, the competitor inside him cannot wait to get back in the game. Cole’s last competitive pitch came during a rough fifth inning in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. Before that, he limited the Dodgers to a 0.71 ERA across two Fall Classic starts. He wants that feeling back.
“I just miss playing,” he said. “I miss that outlet of working hard and feeling exhausted every five days.”
Boone, for his part, is not putting a cap on what a healthy Cole can do for this Yankees club.
“I’m not going to put any ceiling on what Gerrit could do once he’s back and in the rotation,” Boone said, pointing to the high success rate of Tommy John surgery. “He’s so good at his craft.”
If Cole returns at full strength, the Yankees’ rotation transforms from solid to potentially dominant. A front four of Cole, Fried, Rodon and Schlittler would give the Bronx Bombers one of the most feared pitching groups in the American League as they chase their first World Series title since 2009.
Friday was just the first step. But it was a step that left everyone at Steinbrenner Field nodding.
