The irony of Tommy John surgery is that its namesake was a soft tosser. Cole and John have almost the exact same career strikeout total (2,251 for Cole, 2,245 for John) – but John faced about 20,000 hitters, and Cole has faced about 8,000.

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole went under the knife on Tuesday to repair a torn ligament in his elbow, an injury that all but guarantees he won’t throw a pitch in the 2025 season. However, there’s a twist—while the expected course of action would’ve been Tommy John surgery,