Paul Blackburn signing has Yankees fans on verge of offseason riot

Welcome to the New York Yankees 2025 offseason, where the theme is getting the band back together, and the club has seemingly forgotten that they are allowed to sign free agents who spent last season with other teams.

The Yankees kicked off the winter by wisely picking up Tim Hill's option, and since then have gone down the list to bring back every minor free-agent and fringe roster piece that made an appearance for the team in 2025.

Ryan Yarbrough? Check. Amed Rosario? Check. And now you can add Paul Blackburn to the list.

Oh yeah, and don't forget about them getting tricked into paying Trent Grisham $22 million for the 2026 season when he accepted the qualifying offer!

Some of those players have value. Yarbrough was legitimately good when he stepped into an injury-ravaged rotation and put up a 3.83 ERA as a starter last season. Rosario didn't really get the chance to show what he could do following his acquisition at the trade deadline, but his career .800 OPS against lefties shows he can bring some balance to a left-handed heavy lineup.

Paul Blackburn? Why was he necessary after already bringing back a swingman type like Yarbrough into the fold?

The Paul Blackburn signing rightfully has Yankees fans on edge

The Yankees are acting like a capped-out NBA team that isn't allowed to sign players for any more than the league minimum. Seriously, every contract (with the exception of Grisham) handed out has been for $2.5 million or less. What was that about not having a strict budget to adhere to, Mr. Cashman?

And while you can want for more, you can't deny that pieces like Rosario and Yarbrough are valuable. Blackburn, however, is not.

After a dreadful showing with the Mets last season in which he posted a 6.85 ERA in 23 2/3 innings, Blackburn was given his walking papers and moved crosstown to the Bronx. Here he chucked another 15 1/3 innings, exclusively in relief mop-up duty, and recorded a 5.28 ERA that only looks semi-decent because he was so putrid in Queens.

This is a 32-year-old spot starter with a 4.97 ERA. Why is that a necessity to have?

The answer might be the real concern. The Yankees need to add to their rotation. They'll be without Carlos Rodón for the first few weeks of the season as he recovers from elbow surgery. They'll be without Gerrit Cole for a little while longer than that, and they don't know what they can truly expect out of the ailing ace. They probably won't have Clarke Schmidt at all in 2026.

That means, at the very least, there will be some vacancies in the rotation over the first couple of months of 2026. That led to some hope of a reunion with Michael King. There have also been some rumblings that they're in on Japanese phenom Tatsuya Imai. The club has been connected to Freddy Peralta on the trade market.

However, given the way the offseason has gone, it looks like the Yankees have already found their options to "bolster" the rotation, and that is Yarbrough and now Blackburn, at least until Rodón and Cole come back. Then Blackburn would shift to the bullpen ... if the plan isn't to use him there the whole time anyway. He profiles as a "last guy in the 'pen" type, which you can find on the fringes of the 40-man roster and definitely don't need to spend $2 million on.

There's a non-zero chance that the rotation is Max Fried, Luis Gil, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, and Yarbrough/Blackburn to open 2026, which should terrify every Yankees fan.

If that truly is the case, get ready for a long and disappointing 2026. And get your pitchforks out, because it's unfathomable that a franchise whose old motto was championship or bust could in any way try to spin this as a reasonable solution.