6:23pm: LeMahieu experienced right foot soreness and was removed after one inning, the Yankees announced (X link via Joyce). He’ll return to New York for further evaluation tomorrow.
5:31pm: The Yankees announced that infielder DJ LeMahieu has been sent to Double-A Somerset to start a rehab assignment. LeMahieu is leading off tonight’s game and playing third base, per the X account of the Patriots.
LeMahieu, 35, was supposed to be the club’s everyday third baseman here in 2024 but a Spring Training injury scuttled those plans. The veteran fouled a ball of his foot and was initially diagnosed with a bone bruise. After the swelling didn’t go down, he went for a second MRI, which revealed a non-displaced fracture. He was set to begin a rehab assignment this past weekend but his foot still wasn’t healing enough and the rehab assignment was pushed back by a few days.
Manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, that the plan is for LeMahieu to play four games and possibly rejoin the Yanks in time for their series against the Orioles next week.
The club is surely excited to welcome LeMahieu back but they will have a bit of a tricky decision to make in terms of distributing playing time. The veteran has hit .258/.345/.375 since the start of 2021 while battling various injuries. That’s still amounts to a 106 wRC+, indicating he was six percent better than league average in that time. But the Yankees were surely hoping for more, especially since he hit .336/.386/.536 for a 146 wRC+ over 2019 and 2020, before they re-signed him to a six-year, $90MM contract.
To start this year, Oswaldo Cabrera has taken over at the hot corner and is out to a great start. He’s hitting .290/.324/.478 so far on the young season, production that leads to a wRC+ of 133. That’s a small sample of 74 plate appearances, which means it likely doesn’t carry as much weight as LeMahieu’s career numbers, but the Yanks probably want to keep riding the hot hand.
Each of Cabrera and LeMahieu are capable of playing different positions, so the club will have some flexibility. First baseman Anthony Rizzo and second baseman Gleyber Torres are both out to slow starts, so perhaps they could get some breathers when LeMahieu and Cabrera are both healthy and looking for playing time.
Elsewhere in Yankee news, Gerrit Cole threw 50 pitches from a distance of 120 feet today, per Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. It hasn’t yet been decided when he’ll move to mound work, but Boone said it could be as soon as next week, per Greg Joyce of The New York Post.
Needless to say, any progress from Cole is a good development for the Yankees. The reigning American League Cy Young made just one official appearance during Spring Training before some elbow issues popped up. Since he wasn’t recovering as expected between throwing sessions, the club shut him down and sent him for testing. He was eventually recommended for non-surgical rehab and has been on that path for the past month or so.
Cole is on the 60-day injured list and won’t be eligible to return until late May at the earliest. Even if he begins throwing off a mound soon, he’ll likely need to redo Spring Training from scratch, meaning he’ll be out beyond that timeframe anyhow. His eventual return date will naturally be determined by how his arm holds up as he continues building up in the weeks to come.
I’d be worry if Cole pitched 50 times today from second base – Long tosses!
@MLB Fanatic
MLB is moving the mound back to 120 ft.. Bigger field, more action.
I like Oswaldo but I don’t think he’s going to continue his hot streak. He’s been taking solid at bats but I just don’t believe. Maybe I’m wrong but I wish him the best of luck. He’ll likely be a bench player who’ll get more playing time after the next Yankees injuries but you never know.
They should stick with him until he proves he can’t hack it. The Yankees desperately need another young player in the everyday lineup. LeMahieu is a perfectly useful, though expensive, utility player.
DJ, just try not to use your foot, or foul anything off of it. Don’t even look at it.
“Try not to use your foot”…It’ll only be a few weeks until we hear that D.J is “hindered”, “hurting” or “playing thru” another injury as his production and playing time continues to crater and decline. DJ Lamaheiu is a cautionary tale of giving 30+(or near 30)year old players such a long term deal. He’s virtually always hurt, compromised
or hindered for the most important games of the season.
It took one inning…
I didn’t know that since 2019 when he joined the Yankees, he’s been 19% better than league average (119 wRC+). I guess it just doesn’t seem like it given that he’s always injured.
And that’s while fighting injuries, but most of that is his first two years.
“And that’s while fighting injuries”…pretty much every athlete in every professional sport plays “while fighting injuries”, it’s just that some are more successful at it, while many others are not. It’s not like DJ is the first athlete to deal with or play thru injury.
OMG. I’m gonna try to get his autograph
Need directions to the hospital?
Do you guys think there’s something wrong with Judge? Like he’s playing hurt and guttting it out because he wants to show up for the fans ?? The toe thing is supposed to be an ongoing concern for the rest of his life, but I hope it doesn’t mean his performance is curtailed to this extent. Gotta be something else going on. Maybe he’s getting no pitches to hit because they have nobody behind him. Flip flop Soto and Judge.
I’m watching the game now and he hit a double in his first AB. I think his timing is off. The pitches he normally crushes are just getting fouled off.
I agree with you YBC. I don’t believe the toe is or has been an issue for him so far this season. His timing has been off so far this year,he’s coming off the ball just slightly and as a result he’s been fouling off pitches that he usually deposits into the bleachers. He’ll get back on track sooner or later (I hope). Although I also think the oblique injury he was dealing with at the end of ST is either still slightly bothering. That or he still doesn’t trust it(the oblique)enough yet to really let it rip when he’s at the plate. Hence the reason he’s been coming off the ball so much lately and fouling pitches off or popping them up. But once he starts driving the ball to right field/back up the middle is when we’ll know he’s starting to come around. That’s when he’s at his best when he’s driving the ball to the right center field gap ..
Definitely not a toe problem as he’s been pretty nimble in CF and running the bases well. Off-topic: The umps have been atrocious with Soto’s at-bats and expanding his strikezone.
Yea you’re right, the umps have been dog $h!+. I don’t think a lot of people understand how much of an impact the home plate ump can have on a player’s AB with their Balls and Strike calls. Judge has always gotten screwed with the low and away called strike due to his height. But Soto has been getting shafted a lot lately as well. Imo, he has the best ABs on a game-to-game basis. He has such a good feel for the strike zone, which allows him to work the count in just about every single AB he has. That’s why B/S calls are so important, bc count leverage is a big deal especially with a guy as talented as Soto.
Unfortunately DJ is done
“DJ is done”…I have to agree. If you cannot depend on a player to be there for important games, he’s not of much use in my opinion.
Unfortunately, I think you’re right there RickEO. I think there’s something seriously wrong with DJ’s right foot at this point. I believe it’s the same foot that caused him to miss some time last season as well. And at this point I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in the coming days they announce DJ will be having season ending surgery on his right foot. And if that does end up being the case, I’d be very surprised if DJ plays another game for the NYY.
Feet protector will solve the problem
Terrific. Out in the first inning.
When does the announcement come down that DJ expects to be “good as new” in 2025 after undergoing season-ending foot surgery?
Well, he will probably not get foot surgery until….January or so, if history proves true. Just enough time to miss half the season (at least) in ‘25.
Yankees will be surprised by this news when it arrives, after expecting a full recovery during the offseason.
It was a non-displaced fracture so the foot has probably healed to a point where surgery is off the table and won’t help. He’s just old and creaky for an athlete.
Will this guy ever be healthy again? DFA?
No to DFA.
If they are weighting the career of DJL heavier, they should notice the downward trend. Play the young player who’s out performing him. This is MLB and there is always the “what have you done for me lately?” application. DJL needs to earn his playing time.
He’ll get his playing time. Torres and Rizzo has played in every game this season and should get a day off.
Starting his rehab assignment off on the right foot.
MLB is now considering canceling August because by then so many players will be injured that you won’t recognize most of the names of the players. Take the month off, get a handful of players healthy and get back to it for September and the postseason.
It’s time to have surgery on that foot/toe once and for all.
Done
So, DJ’s injury has gone from being just a “bone bruise” to a non-displaced fracture, and now, tomorrow’s headline: LeMahieu removed from last night’s game because of broken right toe. Yankees’ doctors are bad at their job it seems.
If he has to have it amputated it wouldn’t surprise me.
That great Yankee medical staff: Drs Howard, Fine and Howard.
shows how much you know
yankees medical chief doctor rosenrosen is tops in his field
This is where I liked, as a kid, having no clue when my favorite player was coming back. It was like “he’s out the picture until he isn’t” and I was busy being critical as hell of his replacements in the mean time.
The dude is 35yrs. Perhaps some load management going forward or that contract won’t age well.
He has to get back on the field first.
It must be part of DJ’s yearly contract———- that he has to be in the IL more than he’s on the playing field each season.