Now ‘fixed,’ Jonny Farmelo hopes for healthy future
Published 10:00 am Friday, August 29, 2025
EVERETT — Jonny Farmelo felt the stabbing pain as soon as he swung the bat.
The 20-year-old Everett AquaSox outfielder thought he did something to his oblique, as he struggled to breathe. Playing as the designated hitter for Everett against the Hillsboro Hops on May 23, Farmelo exited the game and found out it wasn’t an oblique injury, but instead a stress reaction in his rib.
Less than a month after returning to game action from an ACL tear he sustained in June 2024, Farmelo would be heading back to the injured list. Only this time, he didn’t know for how long.
He was presented with a wide range of possible recovery times. It could be as little as two weeks or last as long as two months, and it depended on factors entirely out of his control. In his case, the bone recovery time wound up being on the longer end of the spectrum. After all the time spent battling back from knee surgery, Farmelo was faced with spending even more time on the shelf.
The thought of his development stalling dug at him. He felt like a burden to the Seattle Mariners organization, where he ranks as their No. 7 prospect (No. 82 MLB) after Seattle selected him 29th overall in the 2023 MLB Draft. How could he deliver on his promise and move up the ranks if he couldn’t take the field? As much recovery as he needed physically, he needed it mentally as well.
“It was tricky. I definitely felt behind,” Farmelo told The Herald. “Coming off of me missing a year, it would have been nice to get back from the knee relatively quickly in April, like I did, and kind of have almost the whole year (to get back on track). That would have been nice, so to kind of have the rib thing was tough, and has been tough.
“But I think it comes back to my faith. I really have faith in God, and if He allowed it to happen, I know it can be used for good.”
In addition to leaning on his faith, Farmelo thought about the lessons he learned during his ACL recovery. With no avenue to improve physically as his knee healed last year, Farmelo took to reading as a way to pass time and build his mental game.
Farmelo would speak to Andy McKay from time to time. McKay, the Mariners’ Vice President & Assistant GM, sent him a bunch of books, and Farmelo picked out “The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance,” by W. Timothy Gallwey, and the two started reading it together.
“He’s just always that guy that wants to get better,” McKay said. “He really wants to be great at this game. He’s had such a difficult beginning to his career in terms of his health, that I guess he’s smart enough to figure out, ‘Okay, I can’t change this right now. I’m hurt. I’m going to be hurt for a while, so how can I get better?’”
The book explores the concept of your “Two Selves.” Self 1 is the conscious mind that instructs the body and makes judgments, while Self 2 is the body moving subconsciously. Farmelo recognized he would let his Self 1 dominate, getting too mechanical and overthinking in the batter’s box. Upon his return to the field, he focused on quieting the internal noise and trusting his body — his Self 2 — to do what he had trained it for effectively.
He’s already noticed a difference. A self-described “fastball-dominant hitter,” Farmelo said he previously struggled to hit spin pitches early in counts if he was sitting on heaters. Since his return from the ACL injury earlier this season, he’s improved in that area.
“It kind of just came about,” Farmelo said. “I started swinging at good pitches early in the zone that were spinning, that were hanging, and that’s kind of when I knew, ‘Okay, I’m kind of getting better here. I’m in Self 2.”
From his High-A debut on April 29 through May 23, Farmelo slashed .288/.348/.610 with five home runs and 12 RBI in 15 games. He was rolling, but the rib injury halted him dead in his tracks.
Unlike the intense rehab of his knee injury, the recovery from the stress reaction was a matter of simply waiting for the bone to heal. Farmelo utilized virtual reality and Trajekt pitching machines that simulate real pitchers and replicates trajectories, which helped, but couldn’t replicate the feeling of playing the game.
For Farmelo, the waiting was the hardest part of the past two years. Given his competitive nature and desire to achieve greatness, the inability to train as much as he wants to — his swings and sprints capped while he built strength back up — pained him.
“I want to be the best player to ever play the game,” Farmelo said. “I want to be the best player in the organization, and in the minor leagues, in the Northwest League, whatever. So when you’re sidelined with a knee injury or a rib injury for a year, it’s like you can’t go and outwork people.”
Injuries can be isolating. AquaSox manager Zach Vincej never sustained injuries as long-term as Farmelo’s during his playing career, but he understands the physical and mental toll. So he made an effort to check in with Farmelo several times while he was away.
“Just keeping him motivated, keeping him confident,” Vincej said. “Sometimes when you’re going through an injury like that, it could be a lonely place sometimes, you know? You’re in (the Arizona Complex), it’s hot. You want to go and play. So my whole goal is just to check in, just show him that I care.”
Between members of the organization such as Vincej and McKay checking in on him, the trainers helping him through rehab every day and his faith and family baselining all of it, Farmelo had plenty of support to lean on.
Even with the support, Farmelo feared that he wouldn’t return as fast as he was before. That all the missed at bats would affect his development. Rather than let the fear consume him, he used it as fuel.
“I don’t think (that fear is) a bad thing,” Farmelo said. “I think those are the things that push you through the rehab, and those are things that are going to motivate you to do what you got to do to get back from it.”
The biggest priority, of course, is staying healthy. Even though his two injuries were a result of bad luck as opposed to lack of conditioning, Farmelo takes relentless care of his body. He calls himself “a high-maintenance guy” in the training room, which was the case even before his injuries.
Soft tissue work, needles, hot tubs and cold tubs. You name it, Farmelo has probably tried it, if not fully incorporated it into his routine.
“He takes care of himself as well as anybody in our organization,” McKay said. “And when you sustain those kind of injuries, you know, there are no lessons learned. ‘Oh, I should have done this, or I should have done that.’ No, that’s part of it. And unfortunately for him, they’ve all piled on top of each other.”
Since returning to the diamond on Aug. 9, things have not gone smoothly. Farmelo played three games over four days before taking a week off due to soreness in his rib, according to Mariners general manager Justin Hollander. Since then, he’s rotated in and out of the lineup, taking scheduled rest days as part of his return plan.
“I think, for him, it’s just getting reps again,” Vincej said. “Getting ABs, and putting spikes on and roaming the outfield, and running the bases. Like I think for him, that’s the biggest thing. Obviously, he’s so young and he is such a raw talent that, you know, there’s a lot of qualities that he does really well on the baseball field.
“It’s just, how can we put together a few weeks at a time of getting those ABs, so we have something to go off of, and something to improve on.”
In eight total games this month, Farmelo is batting just .129 with a 0.496 OPS. He’s struck out 11 times against five walks and is riding a three-game hitting drought through Aug. 28, but the numbers aren’t a concern right now.
With the Northwest League Championship Series starting up on Sept. 9, Farmelo is motivated to produce and try to help the AquaSox win, but he’s keeping the bigger picture in mind.
Since returning from the rib injury, his knee feels as good as it’s ever felt. That said, he’s still in “rehab-mode,” and plans to return home to his native Northern Virginia this offseason to train at R&D Baseball, where he spent countless hours throughout high school.
After dealing with months of frustration, fear and uncertainty over the past couple seasons, Farmelo finally sees a light at the end of the tunnel. It took a while, but he’s come to terms with the time he’s lost and is focusing solely on what he’ll gain this winter.
“These things, they have sucked, but it’s nothing that’s going to affect the rest of my career,” Farmelo said. “I got fixed, and it’s going to be good. Next year, I’m going to roll into camp feeling 100 percent. It’s just going to be a little blip on the radar. …
“What’s cool is coming into camp next year, I think I’m going to feel really good, and that’s when I’m going to really be back to like (the) true Jonny Farmelo. Play with my hair on fire.”
