BOSTON — For the second straight year, elbow surgery is forcing a Yankees outfield prospect to end his season early.
Last year, it was Jasson Domínguez. Now it’s Everson Pereira, who underwent Tommy John surgery a couple of weeks ago, according to Aaron Boone
“Unfortunate, but similar to Jasson, this is something that we fully expect him to come back from,” the manager said before the Yankees’ series-opener at Fenway Park on Friday.
SNY’s Andy Martino reported that Pereira needed surgery earlier in the day on Friday. On Thursday, the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders transferred Pereira to the full-season injured list. The club’s fifth-best prospect initially went on the seven-day injured list on May 30.
A Yankees spokesperson said that Pereira played through the injury for a couple of weeks, thinking it was something minor, before discovering a tear. Pereira is expected to be at some stage of ramping up baseball activities next spring after undergoing an internal brace procedure for his ulnar collateral ligament. The newish method comes with a shorter recovery time than traditional Tommy John surgery.
Domínguez underwent the same procedure last September and completed a rehab assignment earlier this week. The Yankees decided to keep him at Triple-A.
Pereira struggled during a brief big league audition last year, hitting .151 over 27 games. Boone said that 23-year-old looked “a bit overwhelmed” and had trouble adjusting to the big leagues.
“Even in the first part of spring training, I still felt like he was a little wide-eyed and unsure,” Boone continued. “I got really excited about the second half of spring training that he had with us. I felt like he really started to develop a really good process. Got to a good place mentally, in my view. And then before he got hurt, [he] was starting to play really well. Some of the things that he’d been constantly working on started to show some fruit in the games. Even though he’s had success in Triple-A last year and certainly the start of this year, he was genuinely getting a little bit better before the injury.”
Indeed, Pereira looked good before going down, hitting .265/.346/.512 with 10 home runs and 27 RBI over 40 minor league games.
A potential trade chip before the injury, Pereira could still be moved. Domínguez and Spencer Jones, another outfielder, rate higher in the Yankees system.
Whatever happens, Boone expects Pereira to be good as new when he returns to action.
“This isn’t something that’s going to hurt his career too much because he should come back full strength,” the manager said.
VERDUGO AND SOTO SWAP
With the Yankees in Boston, Boone put Alex Verdugo in right field and moved Juan Soto to left field for the first time this year. Verdugo primarily played right field in 2023, his last season with the Red Sox, so he knows his way around the Pesky Pole and that oddly shaped part of Fenway Park.
“This was going to be the one place that I was going to flip them this year,” Boone said. “Obviously, this is a very unique right field, like our left field is very unique [at Yankee Stadium]. Right field here is about as unique as it gets in baseball. And with Dugie’s experience playing right field here, it was something that we had talked about doing in spring. And then when I brought it to the guys over the last couple of days, they were both on board with, ‘Yeah, let’s flip it for the weekend.’”
When reminded that the Green Monster also presents an unusual challenge for Soto in left, Boone noted that there’s less ground for the slower outfielder to cover.
‘WE’LL SEE’ ABOUT COLE
With Gerrit Cole (elbow inflammation) scheduled to start at Triple-A on Friday night, Boone said “we’ll see” when asked if the ace would require any additional minor league outings.
“Let’s get through it, and then we’ll sit down and see where we’re at,” the skipper said before Cole took the mound in Rochester.