Ryan Garcia
With just two days until the Yankees open up in San Francisco against the Giants, they have a limited amount of time to make a decision about their roster.
The position player group is entirely set; the Yankees have know which 13 players they will take into camp and their rotation plans are set as well.
Where questions remain is with their bullpen, which is arguably their most uneasy unit going into the 2026 season compared to the lineup or rotation.
A dominant closer in David Bednar headlines this group, but there are about three spots up for grabs right now and I’d argue there should be a fourth as well.
With that in mind, how would I assemble the bullpen for the beginning of the 2026 season based on what we know about their Spring Training and an eye on future results; not what I think the Yankees will do!
Making Some Tough Cuts To Maximize Upside in the Yankees’ Bullpen
The first massive change from what I would expect the Yankees to do is having Paul Blackburn off the roster and including Osvaldo Bido instead.
I do not see any value in having Blackburn on the roster given that the rotation somehow stayed healthy throughout Spring Training, but that gets even worse when evaluating his pitch quality.
Blackburn’s Stuff+ has dropped by two points from last season without any meaningful improvements to his mix to convince me that the underwhelming fifth starter will become a good reliever.
Osvaldo Bido has dropped his release point and is moving his sinker, changeup, and slider more which have resulted in an eight-point increase in Stuff+ (105 in Spring Training), this really isn’t a difficult choice at all to me.
Maybe I’m surprised with Blackburn’s effectiveness in 2026, but he does not look good at all and I think we’re just looking at JT Brubaker 2.0 when Bido could actually be somewhat interesting due to his mid-90s heat.
You might wonder why I wouldn’t just send Cade Winquest back to the Cardinals instead given how poor his results and process have been in Spring Training, but I do like his mix still.
The velocity has crept up and his 108 Stuff+ in Spring Training oozes with upside if the command and sequencing are on-point during the regular season.
If he stinks you can send him back, but flashing steady 95-96 MPH sinkers and four-seamers with a good breaking ball intruiges me far more than Paul Blackburn.
This isn’t exactly a vote of confidence in Winquest, who has disappointed me with his lack of splitter usage or a leap in velocity from his days as a starter, but rather me picking the guys who have the best pitch mixes in this group.
My non-negotiables for bubble guys who need to make this roster are Brent Headrick and Jake Bird, who have shown that they have excellent stuff that could result in a breakout during the 2026 season.
Headrick struck out over 30% of batters faced in his brief stints with the Yankees last season, excluding him from the postseason bullpen was a massive mistake and I’m hoping they don’t repeat it.
The bullpen has too much uncertainty to play around and leave one of your eight-best bullpen weapons off the roster, and the power lefty has been at work to improve his biggest issues.
Lefties tagged him for an SLG% above .600, so he’s added a sinker to the mix with good lateral movement and solid velocity to keep them off the four-seamer.
As for Bird, his new cutter gives him another look to keep opposite-handed hitters at bay, and he’s also generating more lateral movement on his sinker-sweeper combination.
In 2025 he had an above-average K-BB% and xFIP, indicators that he could be a good reliever if he’s able to maintain his pitch quality in 2026, but by adding to his arsenal he has given me greater confidence in his ability to be effective.
The final pitcher I want to note here is Luis Gil, who could be a piggyback for the rotation since Cam Schlittler is only going to be able to go about 75 pitches in San Francisco.
My issue with including him on the roster out of relief is that it would limit his ability to build up pitches, and I’d much rather him fine-tune the release point and sinker in Scranton for a start or two.
It’s not as if there’s a massive need for a piggyback with both Ryan Yarbrough and Osvaldo Bido on the roster who can provide long relief, and there ways to get Gil back on this roster if the need for innings is desperate.
Given that the Yankees will have three offdays in-between their first nine games of the season, the odds of their bullpen being completely spent aren’t that high, whereas the need for Gil to pitch deep into a game when he’s up will be high.
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