'It kills you': Aaron Judge, Yankees talk about what it's like to be on the injured list

In a lengthy interview in May 2025, as Giancarlo Stanton discussed another of the many lengthy stays he’s had on the injured list during the last decade of an otherwise distinguished career, the DH let out a sigh.

“I cannot stand this,” Stanton told Newsday quietly, placing special emphasis on the “cannot” part. “It’s the absolute worst.”

Stanton, who experienced it again this season because of calf injuries in both legs that have sidelined him since April 24, is far from alone when it comes to the feeling of devastation that accompany an extended stay on the IL.

“It kills you,” Aaron Judge recently told Newsday. “Man, I was born to play to play this game, and when you don’t get a chance to do that and it gets taken away from you, it kills you. You’re not getting a chance to do what you love and do what you were made to do.”

Judge spoke those words on Sept. 10, two days after returning from the IL  and nine days before he went back on it. That happened  Saturday because of a right calf strain, the severity of which is not yet clear.

But the overarching theme holds: Players, regardless of the money they make, know they have a condensed window in which to ply their craft as big-leaguers. Any time missed because of the IL is torturous.

“Time’s ticking on your career,” lefthander Carlos Rodon said. “Forget how much we make, it’s in the back of my head, too. When I’m not pitching, I’m getting paid a lot of money and I’m just sitting here trying to make it back to the field. It’s embarrassing that you can’t go out there and perform.”

Rodon started this season on the IL because of surgery last October to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and  shave down a bone spur. His season debut was delayed until May 10.

He then was placed on the IL in late June because of left elbow inflammation and did not return until Aug. 18.

“A good way to put it is gutting,” said Rodon, who had two IL stints in 2023, his first season with the Yankees, and had most of his 2019 season with the White Sox wiped out because of Tommy John surgery performed in May of that year. “It can kind of consume you because as a player, you just want to be on the field, and every day you’re doing mundane, monotonous little things just to get back to some sort of baseball activity, depending on how bad the injury is. It’s just you’d rather be playing. That’s the most simple way to put it.”

Righthander Gerrit Cole was among the most durable pitchers of this generation before missing significant time in 2024 because of elbow inflammation. The 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner then saw his entire 2025 season erased because of Tommy John surgery performed in March (he made his 2026 debut on May 22).

“So monotonous,” Cole said of rehabbing, using a word pitchers and position players alike liberally use in describing the days that, at least in the beginning stages, rarely involve baseball activities of any kind.

“You’re trying to expedite the process as quickly as possible, so it can be agonizing when you’re trying to . . . when you’re putting like six hours in a day to get this thing better and it feels like it’s going so slow,” Cole said. “After Tommy John, to feel like you can contribute absolutely nothing, that sucks. It sucks. That just sucks because I don’t really want to even entertain the thought of baseball because it makes me sad. When you’re banged up, whatever sport it may be, I think it’s hard to kind of feel like a part of it, and maybe you’re even mad at it to a certain extent.”

Cody Bellinger, who was out for a month earlier this season with a left hamstring strain and who, though relatively healthy in his 10-year career, has had IL stints that have cost him chunks of time, said that time off the field can make a player feel “almost worthless.”

“You don’t feel like you’re doing anything,” said Bellinger, who missed 26 games in 2023 because of a left knee contusion and 46 games in 2021 with a fractured left fibula. “You come in for treatment and go home. You’re used to leaving [the ballpark] tired. You know what you should be doing this time of year [playing games], and you’re not.”

Cole nodded when Bellinger’s “tired” comment was relayed.

“It doesn’t always feel like hard work,” Cole said. “You come in, you get your treatment and you can’t do much else and, like, you did everything you should that day, but you don’t feel like you did much. You’re used to leaving [the ballpark] feeling, like [Bellinger said], tired. It’s a weird feeling.”

Judge, who said the rehab process can resemble “Groundhog Day” in its repetitiveness, said, as the other players did, the “worst” part of time sidelined is the feeling of not contributing.

“You want to be in the grind with your guys,” he said. “Even the bad stretches we go through, or the late nights getting into hotels on the road, the tough moments everyone goes through, as tough as they are, you’d rather be in the trenches battling and having those scars with your teammates. When you don’t, you feel like you’re missing out —- on the little moments, the memories, little things like that.

"We [players on the injured list] can talk in the meetings, give our experiences, give what we think or feel about things, but it’s not the same as being out there. It’s just not the same.”