Yankees going from one extreme to the other with bullpen is truly baffling

The 2025 New York Yankees had a bullpen problem. At the trade deadline, they made moves to try to address it, trading for David Bednar, Camilo Doval, and Jake Bird. Somehow, things actually got worse.

Heading into the offseason, one would have thought they'd make moves to try to solidify the unit. Instead, they borrowed Cade Winquest and are trying to fix Angel Chivilli down in Scranton (and now he's set for his 2026 debut). It's baffling how they thought this would be better.

Things weren't always this way. The Yankees used to build super bullpens. They'd make splashes for the likes of Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Zack Britton, and Adam Ottavino, just to name a few. They didn't always generate the best results, though there were moments of dominance that we rarely see today.

Relievers are volatile. More than any other position, their performance tends to fluctuate the most year-over-year. Part of it is due to small samples. Pitching 60 innings, even if that work is spread out over more games, isn't the same as pitching 160 innings. Injuries play a role too, especially in a world where back-to-back outings and triple-digit velocities become the norm.

Still, each approach has been somewhat confusing. New York has either gone all-in on spending on the bullpen or avoided high-end relievers in free agency altogether. It makes one wonder, why can't they simply find a middle ground?

The real reason behind the Yankees' bullpen struggles is infuriating

Through April 14, the Yankees' bullpen has neither been good nor bad as a whole. The unit ranks 13th in baseball with a 3.75 ERA. There are reasons to believe things will get worse, such as the unsustainably low 5.3% HR/FB ratio. There are also reasons to believe that things will get better, such as the unsustainably high .341 BABIP. Eventually, the relievers will give up fewer hits, but what they do give up will do more damage.

When you break it down, you'll find a stark dichotomy. Four of New York's relievers — Tim Hill, Brent Headrick, Ryan Yarbrough, and Fernando Cruz — have an ERA under 2.00. Hill, Headrick, and Yarbrough were all guys who were essentially picked up off the scrap heap. Cruz was a roll of the dice as the Yankees looked to ditch Jose Trevino's salary.

On the flip side, there are three relievers with an ERA over 5.00, with David Bednar, Camilo Doval, and the recently demoted Jake Bird making up that group. Shockingly, these are the three arms that were supposed to fix the bullpen last season, and they're continuing to be anchors. So far, they account for 62% of the high-leverage innings Yankees' relievers have thrown.

Back in February, Brian Cashman pushed back against the idea that the Yankees have a policy not to pay big dollars to free-agent relievers. Instead, he claimed that other priorities like Juan Soto in the 2024-2025 offseason and Cody Bellinger this winter held up their funds while relievers flew off the board.

“There’s not an organizational policy, I guess to answer your question, about ‘don’t pay relievers a certain amount of money.’ We’ve had our fair share over the course of my years here that we’ve paid a lot of money to, whether it’s the closer role or setup role or what have you. It’s just how it shook out this winter, but it’s not any policy, per se,” Cashman told Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News.

Despite his protests, what he's really saying is that, while he's not opposed to spending on high-end closers and setup men, it hasn't been a priority. That's pretty much the same thing as not valuing elite relievers, even if he says the opposite.

The numbers above prove that there is a very clear trend and a very clear strategy at work. The Yankees are pretty excellent at finding undervalued middle relievers. That's the role guys like Hill and Cruz typically fill. However, when it comes to the eighth and the ninth, they're trying to find value in high-end stuff.

That's where Bednar and Doval come in. Both righties have great stuff and were acquired with years of team control. The difference is, their stuff hasn't consistently translated to results like the MLB's top firemen. Doval entered last year coming off a 4.88 ERA clunker in 2024. Bednar has his own subpar seasons on his resume and was even demoted to Triple-A at the beginning of last year.

The answer is clear. Rolling the dice on middle relievers with intriguing traits is fine, but doing the same for the high-leverage arms is too big a gamble. This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing type of strategy. The Yankees need to spend big to secure the back-end of the pen, and can flesh out the rest with projects for Matt Blake. Going too strongly in either direction is a recipe for disaster, inefficiency, or both.

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