Alexander Wilson
The New York Yankees already know they are getting Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, and a rotation built to compete. What they do not know yet is exactly what version of Carlos Rodon (or Gerrit Cole, for that matter) shows up when he is ready. Based on everything coming out of his rehab, the answer might be better than anyone expected.
Rodon underwent surgery at the end of the 2025 season to remove a bone chip from his throwing elbow. At his lowest point this offseason, he could barely button his shirt, let alone uncork the mid-90s fastball that has made him one of the more electric arms in the sport over the past five years.
That image is jarring. This is a 33-year-old left-hander who just threw 195.1 innings last season — the most of his entire career — and gutted through elbow discomfort down the stretch to stay in the rotation for his team. That kind of toughness earns trust. Now the reward might be a version of Rodon with more life in his arm than he has had in years.
What Carlos Rodon’s Rehab Is Telling Us
Here is the part that should genuinely excite Yankees fans. Rodon has been building his velocity back gradually, and something counterintuitive has emerged in the process. He is throwing harder when he backs off the effort. That discovery, strange as it sounds, is actually a sign that his mechanics are finding their rhythm again.
“I backed off and threw harder,” Rodon told the New York Post. “I was like, ‘OK, that makes no sense.’ But it made it easier to command. It’s just little ins and outs of pitching, trying to find the stroke again, knowing how much effort in this pitch and the line of this pitch. It takes a little time.”
That quote is everything. It is not a guy trying to convince reporters he feels good. It is a pitcher genuinely working through the puzzle of his own delivery, finding something real. When a pitcher backs off effort and gains velocity, it usually means tension has left the body and the arm is moving more freely. The bone chip is gone. The range of motion is coming back. The arm is doing what it is supposed to do.
The broader plan is equally encouraging. Rodon is not trying to skip from rehab velocity to game-ready in one leap. He is building deliberately. “I’m just trying to tick up a little before I get there so I can close the gap of a big discrepancy in velocity,” he told the Post. “So just slowly building to get the velocity up so when I get in a game, it’s a lot more natural than just going from 90 mph to 98 mph. We’ll see what it does.”
That is a professional approach from someone who has been around long enough to know that rushing the process is how you end up right back on the operating table.
What This Means for the Yankees
Look at Rodon’s Fangraphs pitching page and the 2025 numbers tell a story worth appreciating. A 3.09 ERA over 195.1 innings is legitimately excellent. His fastball averaged 94.1 mph, down 1.3 mph from 2024, and yet the results were some of the best of his career. He was pitching through something, and he was still dealing. During the middle portion of the season when he was fully healthy, Rodon was as good as anyone in the American League. The strikeout numbers dipped slightly and he faded down the stretch, but those are symptoms of a pitcher managing pain, not a pitcher in decline.
Now remove the pain. Add back the range of motion that a bone chip had been stealing from him. What do you get?
You potentially get Rodon at 95 or 96 mph instead of 94, with the same sharp command he has been developing in rehab, on a timeline that has him back in the rotation by May or June. The Yankees planned for this. They built a starting five capable of holding things together until Rodon and Cole are ready to layer in. But if Rodon comes back throwing freer and harder than he has in years, this rotation stops being good and starts being a real problem for the rest of the American League.
The bone chip is out. The arm is getting loose. The Yankees’ best version of Carlos Rodon might still be ahead of them.
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