Paul Goldschmidt drives in four as Yankees hold off Blue Jays in Dunedin

Spring training box scores lie to you. They always have. But sometimes, buried inside an 8–7 February win like Tuesday’s over the Toronto Blue Jays at TD Ballpark, there’s a truth worth arguing over.

This one was about stuff. Real stuff. The kind that forces the New York Yankees to start having uncomfortable rotation and bullpen conversations earlier than expected.

Will Warren’s fastball just changed the discussion

Will Warren didn’t dominate in the clean, box-score sense. Four hits, one run, not even three full innings. Fine. Forget the line.

The fastball was the story, and not in a vague “looked lively” way announcers toss around in March. It missed bats. Loudly. A 43 percent whiff rate on the heater, as @ChrisCoop_ suggests, isn’t just good for a spring outing — that’s frontline-level swing-and-miss territory if it holds and, of course, if better command is developed.

Last year, Warren’s main swing-and-miss weapons were the sweeper and changeup. A fastball that actually beats hitters elevates his ceiling. Now you’re talking about a guy who can potentially keep his rotation spot when the injured stars such as Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt return.

And the no walks mattered, even though he still caught too much of the zone on occasion.

The bullpen battle is getting messy — in a good way

Spring bullpens are usually a parade of anonymous arms and radar-gun dreams. This one’s different.

Jake Bird carved through his inning-plus like he had somewhere better to be, and he’s quietly building the kind of spring that forces decision-makers to pause.

Brent Headrick followed the same script with a clean frame and two strikeouts, and then Kervin Castro kept piling on zeros like he’s trying to make the front office uncomfortable. Two more scoreless innings, more weak contact, more reasons to keep his name on the whiteboard.

That’s the real takeaway. The Yankees don’t just have bullpen options — they’ve got a numbers problem brewing. Injuries will sort some of it out, sure, they always do. But performances like Tuesday’s start turning fringe names into real candidates.

Goldschmidt has big day at the plate

If anyone thought Paul Goldschmidt showed up in camp for a polite late-career lap, Tuesday wrecked that idea.

A double. A homer. Four RBIs. And a spring OPS sitting at 1.333 that screams locked-in rather than lucky. Veterans of his caliber don’t treat February at-bats like exhibitions when they’ve got something left to prove, and Goldschmidt’s swing right now looks short, violent, and on time.

That matters more than people want to admit. The Yankees lineup can get homer-happy and streaky, and adding a professional hitter who punishes mistakes instead of selling out for them changes the rhythm of the offense. It lengthens the lineup in a way numbers don’t fully capture.

Even the bench chipped in, with Jace Avina launching one as a pinch-hitter, the kind of spring moment that doesn’t decide jobs but absolutely buys extra looks.

Next stop: Tampa

The Yankees head back to George Steinbrenner Field now, and the tone subtly shifts once you’re back on your own complex.

They’ll see the Washington Nationals on Wednesday, with Ryan Weathers scheduled to start, and that’s where these spring storylines start stretching past novelty and into evaluation territory.

Because yeah, it’s February. Nobody’s hanging banners over a Dunedin win.

But fastballs that suddenly miss more bats, bullpens that suddenly look crowded with potential backend options, and veterans suddenly hitting like October isn’t that far away?

Those aren’t fake signals. Those are the ones that stick.