Yankees' early answers to Carlos Rodón surgery certainly don't sound great

Carlos Rodón’s struggles for the New York Yankees in the 2025 postseason were sort of explained in the days following New York’s ALDS elimination, as the club announced Rodón had been battling an elbow injury that required surgery. Rodón has already, in fact, gone under the knife this offseason to remove loose bodies near his elbow and shave down a bone spur.

Suddenly, Rodón’s 9.72 ERA in 8 1/3 postseason innings (two starts) this October makes a bit more sense, but it still doesn’t change the sad fact that the 2025 postseason was supposed to become Rodón’s stage upon which to cement his repaired legacy in pinstripes … until it very much wasn’t.

Adding confusion to injury, Yankees GM Brian Cashman hasn’t been anything close to lucid in his recent remarks on Rodón’s elbow and how it impacts New York’s offseason outlook.

Brian Cashman leaves Yankees fans perplexed with Carlos Rodón remarks

Rodón was totally set up to be an ace-like stalwart for the Yankees this October. He had a mostly excellent season, going 18-9 with a 3.09 ERA (33 starts) and completely turning around his reputation in the Bronx. 

Injuries happen, and Rodón’s playoff struggles shouldn’t take too much away from his overall performance in 2025, especially if his pair of subpar outings in the playoffs were executed with a bum elbow. 

But just as Rodón will be expected to work his way back to full strength and return to form in 2026 for the Yankees, Cashman’s job as GM is to fully accept the new fate that has befallen New York’s pitching staff and approach the offseason accordingly. Surely, Rodón’s injury, which will reportedly cause him to miss the start of the 2026 season, has altered Cashman’s strategy for winter roster moves.

But you wouldn’t know that if you asked him. Come to think of it, Cashman was recently asked about how Rodón’s injury will impact New York’s offseason approach, and the GM’s answer didn’t exactly comfort Yankees fans.

“I’ll be honest: I don’t know,” Cashman said, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “Certainly, the last two years have been really good for us with Carlos. He’s done a great job. Unfortunately, with surgery to get some cleanup on that, it’ll have you start the season late. So he’ll start the season on the IL. He’ll be ready either sometime in April or early May, at the latest, as long as there’s no other issues that pop up in between.”

“I don’t know what (Rodón’s injury) means to where we put our remaining resources in and how we reinforce,” Cashman continued, per Hoch. “Do we have enough from within? Do we go outside to augment?”

You should probably work on answering those questions, Brian.

If this were the year 2000, Cashman’s honesty about not knowing what to do would probably be lauded and branded as humility. When you’re winning titles, your GM is seen as a genius, even if he’s outwardly admitting that he’s not.

That’s not the current situation for the Yanks (and hasn’t been since 2009). Cashman doesn’t need to have all of the answers, but he should re-capture some desperation to find them, or at least make it sound like he’s looking.