Yankees reveal pitching prospect Ben Hess' injury was scarier than they told us

Depending on who you ask, it's a dangerous time to be a top-10 pitching prospect on the New York Yankees' farm right now. That's because at least three of those top-10 arms are either hurt or coming off injuries that have polluted/plummeted their value.

Henry Lalane hasn't been the same since shoulder surgery two offseasons ago, and he's free-falling at the moment. Brock Selvidge is out for the year (elbow surgery). And now we're hearing that Ben Hess' ongoing injury issue is worse than fans realized.

Hess went to the Injured List recently with "arm fatigue", but now it's come out that the right-hander has been dealing with forearm inflammation. The good news is, this update came alongside the announcement that Hess would be reinstated from the IL to start for Double-A Somerset on Thursday night (albeit on a 25-or-so pitch limit).

Ben Hess isn't in the same boat as Henry Lalane or Brock Selvidge for Yankees

Hess isn't experiencing a complete fall from grace like Lalane, nor is he out for the year like Selvidge. Perhaps it wasn't fair to loop Hess in with those two. Then again, Hess is another injured player the Yankees were overly mysterious about, so there are other points of comparison to make.

Why do the Yankees always feel the need to deal in such injury-related mystery? We all remember how Anthony Volpe played most of the 2025 season with a torn labrum that no one knew about, until the Yankees decided to announce it after the season had ended. Now, in real time, we're all monitoring a Max Fried nagging injury situation that just surfaced on Wednesday, despite Fried reportedly having experienced discomfort for weeks.

Maybe the Yanks' handling of Hess is actually the reverse of how they've handled Fried's elbow in 2026. While it sounds like the Yankees basically allowed Fried to pitch through the pain and be his own doctor (which he became on Wednesday, removing himself from the ballgame after three innings), the Yankees have been cautious and careful with Hess, sending him to the IL at the first sign of an issue and branding it to the public (and would-be trade suitors?) as arm fatigue. Touché.

Why were the Yankees more cautious with Ben Hess than with franchise pillar Max Fried?

If you're going to defend the Yankees here, you'll say that letting Fried diagnose himself is valid, seeing as he's a 32-year-old vet who knows his own body better than anyone else. And with their treatment of Hess, it's always better to be safe than sorry with young arms — that much is common sense.

But given how valuable Fried's long-term health is to the Yankees (both "long-term", as in, the rest of this title-worthy season, and also ... for the remaining six-plus years of his contract with the team!), it's odd that the Yankees weren't more cautious with Fried in this situation.

All in all, the Yankees keep giving their fans reasons to scratch their heads when it comes to injury management, and there's no discernible competitive advantage stemming from the ordeal.

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