Last August was a disaster for Jake Bird, who arrived to the Yankees and instantly contributed to two gut-wrenching losses on the road.
First it was Kyle Stowers who tagged him for a grand slam, bringing the Marlins within one of the Yankees before eventually pulling off the walk-off win in the 10th inning.
After a scoreless frame later in that Miami series, he got smacked around the yard by the Rangers as Josh Jung clubbed a three-run rocket to left field to end that contest in heartbreaking fashion as well.
He was swiftly demoted to Scranton, but instead of packing his bags and shutting it down for the year, he immediately went to work adding a new pitch that could change his mix.
With a bevy of adjustments on display in his first outing in Sarasota, there are some real material changes that could help Bird become a force in this bullpen.
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Why the Yankees Could Get a Big Year out of Jake Bird in 2026
There were a lot of variables that hurt Jake Bird upon arriving to the Bronx, and the biggest issue might have been fatigue as the Rockies burned him out over the course of that first half.
He had already logged 53.1 innings when the Yankees got their hands on him , the eighth-most innings pitched for any reliever in baseball at that point in time.
Adjusting to not pitching in Coors also meant his pitches were moving differently than how they would at Colorado, but I don’t believe all of his problems could be solved by just spending a full offseason with the team.
One of the core issues with Bird’s mix is that while his sinker and breaking balls move a ton, the lack of a reliable bridge pitch left him vulnerable to damage against lefties who aren’t deceived much by horizontal movement.
Jake Bird’s cutter and four-seamer from last season were not effective and as a result, he didn’t throw either pitch very much, but the Yankees would reintroduce him to the idea of throwing something with little horizontal movement.
The addition of a cutter that we saw this past Friday against the Orioles could be a game-changer, a firm pitch with interesting traits that completes his mix in a way that could lead to a breakout in 2026.
Having a cutter that sits right around the zero-line on a pitch plot makes it a great pitch to bridge between the massive gap in horizontal movement between his sinker and breaking balls.
Furthermore, he gets a good amount of ride on this cutter which should allow it to excelt at the top of the strike zone, adding a level of verticality that Bird has not had in his profile up to this point.
It gives hitters another look to be worried about and I believe it’s the exact pitch he needed to compliment the three nasty pitches already at his disposal.
Jake Bird can go sinker-sweeper to righties and cutter-curveball to lefties, the kind of diversity in his mix that should result in a strong season out of the bullpen assuming he doesn’t have poor health or collapsing command in 2026.
Some of the other changes we saw included a different sinker shape, as Bird was throwing this pitch with far more arm-side movement in exchange for less depth.
There’s obvious upside with Jake Bird; he had a ridiclous 117 Stuff+ last season (18th among qualified RPs) with a 3.58 xFIP, I think you could reasonably argue that he could have been an above-average reliever in 2026 without any changes.
When you layer on a new pitch that addresses the limitations of his arsenal directly, my ears perk up and I suddenly believe a big breakout is on the way.
Health is a big hurdle in all of this, but in just one outing there was a lot of good to takeaway from it, and the Yankees could be looking at him as one of their best relievers by season’s end.
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