Alexander Wilson
Nobody is talking about Will Warren. That is exactly how a pitcher like him tends to sneak up on you.
While the New York Yankees wait on Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon to return from injury, the rotation conversation has centered on Luis Gil’s command issues and Cam Schlittler’s upside. Warren has been quietly doing something extremely valuable: throwing strikes, accumulating innings, and giving a shaky rotation some much-needed stability.
Through 16.1 innings this spring, the 26-year-old right-hander owned a 1.65 ERA with a 6.61 strikeout rate and — the number that really matters — just 1.1 walks per nine innings. You do not have to be a stat obsessive to appreciate what that means. A starter who does not walk people gives his defense a chance to work, keeps pitch counts manageable, and avoids the damage spirals that turn one bad inning into a blowout. Warren does not blow hitters away. He does not need to.
Against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday, he went four innings, allowed three hits, one earned run, and struck out four. Clean, efficient, professional. The Bombers needed exactly that.
What Makes Warren Tick
The first thing that jumps out about Warren is his pitch mix. Most pitchers live and die with two or three offerings. Warren throws five — four-seamer, sweeper, sinker, curveball, and a changeup he flashes occasionally — and he deploys them with purpose depending on the handedness of the hitter and the count.
His full pitching profile shows a starter who understands how to sequence, not just how to throw. Against Tuesday’s Rays lineup, he threw 68 total pitches, with the four-seamer accounting for 54.4% of his usage at 93.8 mph. It is not a swing-and-miss fastball by itself — he generated a 20% whiff rate on it — but it sets up everything else. When hitters are sitting on a mid-90s four-seamer with riding life, the pitches that come after it play up significantly.
The sweeper is his best weapon and the data backs that up clearly. He threw it 22.1% of the time Tuesday at 84.3 mph, generating a 40% whiff rate and a run value of +5.8 per 100 pitches — the best of any pitch in his arsenal by a wide margin. The roughly nine miles per hour of separation between the sweeper and the four-seamer, combined with sharp horizontal break of nearly 20 inches, makes it a nightmare to track for hitters who are geared up for his fastball. That is the pitch that keeps lineups honest.
His curveball may be the most underappreciated piece. It only appeared six times against the Rays, but it carries a proStuff+ grade of 107 — the highest individual pitch grade in his entire arsenal. ProStuff+ measures pitch quality against a league average of 100, so 107 means it is a legitimately above-average offering. Warren uses it mostly as a chase pitch in two-strike counts, and at 80.9 mph with nearly 12 inches of downward break, it creates the kind of vertical separation from his sinker and four-seamer that hitters simply cannot make mechanical adjustments for mid-at-bat.
The sinker at 93.6 mph rounds out the picture, generating ground balls and keeping the ball out of the air. For a pitcher who is not going to punch out nine or ten batters per game, weak contact on the ground is the next best thing. His overall proStuff+ of 102 and 25.8% total whiff rate against the Rays reflect a pitcher who is above average in stuff quality without needing to be elite.
Why This Matters for the Yankees
The Yanks’ rotation situation is essentially a relay race right now. Fried is the anchor. Schlittler and Warren need to hold things together through April and into May. Gil needs to find his command. By June, Cole and Rodon should be filtering in, at which point this rotation looks significantly different than the one running out there on Opening Day.
Warren’s role in that relay matters more than people are giving him credit for. He does not need to be an ace. He needs to give the team five or six innings with a lead intact or a game close enough to win. Tuesday’s outing was a textbook example of that.
The Yankees built their rotation expecting volatility in the middle spots. Warren might surprisingly end up being steady— and if he is, that quiet 1.65 spring ERA could turn into one of the more important stories of the first half of the season.
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