5 players who were on the Yankees this year that you probably forgot about

Zach McAllister, RHP

Long before he was a Cleveland starter and well-traveled veteran, McAllister was a Yankees draft pick, selected way back in 2006 out of high school.

He worked his way through the system as a starter, but ultimately never debuted in pinstripes, finding himself shipped to Cleveland in exchange for Austin Kearns at the 2010 deadline. He was nearly flipped in a package for Cliff Lee after winning the Yankees' Minor League Pitcher of the Year honors in 2009, but that deal was scuttled through no fault of his own, as Brian Cashman refused to swap Eduardo Nuñez into the trade for an injured David Adams. Overall, cool.

McAllister made the bigs quickly for Cleveland, joining their rotation through 2014. At that point, he transitioned to the bullpen, and persisted there until they finally cut him loose midway through the 2018 season.

The right-hander then entered the "production desert" portion of his career, never making another MLB appearance again ... until the Yankees came calling in 2023, gave him his road grays, and asked him to preserve the middle innings in the second game of that secretly awesome Fenway doubleheader. He wriggled out of trouble and held down the fort as a forgotten quartet of Yankees closed the coffin on the Red Sox season.

Unfortunately, the magic ended there. McAllister became the team's innings-soaking punching bag as their whimpering season concluded, and he wrapped the campaign with a 10.13 ERA in 5.1 innings. But he got back to where he belonged, where he told himself he could still fit at the age of 35. That's the only part of the story that really matters.