Ryan Garcia
When the New York Yankees promoted Yovanny Cruz from Triple-A, I had hoped that his solid first taste of MLB action would cause the team to keep him on the roster.
Instead he was optioned back to Scranton, keeping their Opening Day bullpen structure intact with the only difference being Cade Winquest, who never appeared for the team.
Since being demoted Cruz has been remarkable in Triple-A and the Yankees’ bullpen has recorded a 5.33 ERA with a 4.67 xFIP; it seems like the organization has made a mistake here.
To further emphasize that they have self-evaluated and believe their bullpen needs support, Carlos Lagrange has moved from the rotation to the bullpen in Triple-A.
Maintaining the current bullpen structure that has yielded harmful results for the team’s win totals at the cost of figuring out if Yovanny Cruz is a good reliever or not is not a worthwhile transaction.
READ MORE: Should the Yankees make a serious pursuit of Ryan Jeffers?
Yovanny Cruz’s Demotion Was an Avoidable Mistake By the Yankees
The Yankees have backed themselves into a corner because of this awful bullpen construction, but this dates back to Opening Day and a baffling decision that still confuses me.
Cade Winquest, their Rule 5 Draft Pick, made the roster and was not used a single time in the two weeks he spent with the team, wasting a roster spot that could have gone to other interesting relievers.
It hinted at a pattern that has followed them all season, an overemphasis on hoarding as many arms as humanly possible and avoiding having to cut someone when possible.
This is a modern-day roster philosophy that has some merit, but the Yankees have not followed this consistently and seem to actually be pretty bad at this.
New York nearly optioned Will Warren to Triple-A last season to retain Carlos Carrasco, a decision that was interrupted by injuries to Clarke Schmidt and Marcus Stroman in the first month of the season.
Carrasco was cut after May 4th while the development of Warren has blossomed into a no. 2 caliber starter, this could have been a catastrophic decision that would have delayed that development and hurt the 2025 & 2026 win totals.
As mentioned earlier, they burned the 13th spot on the pitching side of their roster on Cade Winquest who they clearly had a poor evaluation of based on Aaron Boone’s usage of him for literally no reason.
This has taxed their bullpen to unsustainable lengths, Brent Headrick has already appeared in 29 of the Yankees’ first 60 games and while he’s been excellent, they’ll have to dial down their usage of him to avoid injury.
He struggled to hold velocity in outings last season and had multiple injuries, wearing him out to this extent is not something they can do if they want him to be around for the postseason.
Older arms like Tim Hill and Fernando Cruz have appeared in 28 games and could be burned out before the team even reaches the summer trade deadline, with both carrying varying degrees of injury risk as well.
Ryan Yarbrough has been used just five times in 32 games since the calendar flipped to May, if he isn’t saving these arms from being overspent, why exactly is he here?
The answer is simple: much like when they tried to option Will Warren or rostered a pitcher they didn’t use for two weeks before cutting him, the Yankees are too afraid of cutting an arm.
It doesn’t mean they should specifically cut Ryan Yarbrough, I believe there’s an argument to make that he could do Paul Blackburn’s job better, but I also don’t think the difference matters as much and would leave that to the Yankees.
What is clear as day is that the Yankees are going to run out of uses for Headrick, Hill, and Cruz if they don’t make some changes now, and Yovanny Cruz is exactly the kind of flier they should be taking right now.
He has a 100 MPH fastball with an elite slider, matching the team’s direct needs for velocity and raw stuff as they’re outside of the top 10 in bullpen fastball velocity, Stuff+, and strikeout rate.
Yovanny Cruz is in the 100th Percentile in Swinging Strike%, the 91st Percentile in Chase%, and the 72nd Percentile in Ball% (which means he throws a lot of strikes).
This is an excellent profile that projects well for a bullpen role, and we saw some of that in his brief stint with the Yankees where he struck out three of the nine Blue Jays he faced.
If the Yankees do not cut one of their long men for Yovanny Cruz when he’s eligible to return to the Major Leagues, since teams have to wait 15 days to recall a pitcher after they’re optioned, they will suffer long-term effects.
Brent Headrick and his 27% K% could be rendered ineffective or overworked for the postseason and the team could lose some games that they have leads in (much like their Friday night loss to Tampa).
Maybe someone in the Yankees’ organization can properly explain and answer my questions about their internal processes and this confounding obsession with hanging onto bad veteran pitchers instead of cutting them.
My email is [email protected] and my Twitter DMs (@ryangarciaesm) are open as well; tell me why I’m wrong about this. I’m all ears.
More about:New York Yankees
