Ryan Garcia
The New York Yankees flexed their developmental muscles last night when Yovanny Cruz, a Minor League signing that occurred without much fanfare, struck out three batters in his two-inning MLB debut.
He flashed a 100 MPH fastball as he didn’t allow a single runner to reach base, and while first impressions are not everything with an athlete, this certainly caught the attention of anyone watching.
Cruz has a dynamic repertoire with his bullet-spinning slider being one of the nastiest wipeout pitches in the Yankees’ present-day bullpen, and it leaves them with a difficult decision ahead of Gerrit Cole’s activation on Friday.
Optioning Yovanny Cruz would be malpractice given his tantalizing mix, and sending down one of their established MLB arms with options would decrease their limited strikeout potential.
There’s only one path to take: finally moving on from one of their veteran long-men with a designation for assignment.
READ MORE: The Yankees’ outfield just got hit with another injury
Why the Yankees Must Cut One of Their Veteran Depth Arms
The Yankees have five relievers with MiLB options remaining for the 2026 season, but none of them stand out as a legitimate candidate to be optioned.
Jake Bird, Fernando Cruz, Yovanny Cruz, Camilo Doval, and Brent Headrick are the optionable relievers, but I don’t think the Yankees should consider sending any of them down.
Doval has the worst ERA in this group (5.40), but his underlying numbers suggest this is the product of poor luck more than it is a profile that should hurt the Yankees all season.
He has a 3.06 xFIP with a 2.91 SIERA as a result of a sky-high 56.1% GB% which is paired with a 16.7% K-BB%, which is markedly above the Major League average.
You can expect positive regression for him, and the same could be said about Jake Bird who has been an underrated contributor since being recalled from Triple-A Scranton.
Jake Bird has a 1.93 ERA and 2.47 FIP since he was demoted following a brutal outing against the Los Angeles Angels where he coughed up a three-run lead in the Yankees’ eventual walk-off win.
He’s keeping the ball on the ground more often, and the team has been able to use him in high-leverage situations against good right-handed hitters.
Fernando Cruz and Brent Headrick have just straight-up been two of the team’s three best relievers by almost all measurable pieces of information we have publicly available to us, so they cannot get optioned.
Yovanny Cruz is an interesting arm who could end up being a flash in the pan who had an exciting debut, but in that outing he displayed traits that give him a real chance of being a productive MLB reliever.
The 99.8 MPH fastball is going to catch tons of attention and buzz, but to me his slider is the best pitch he has due to its excellent velocity and sharp drop.
While we cannot conclude that this is a good reliever yet, we can reasonably conclude based on his pitch data in Triple-A and what we saw in this outing that he definitely has the capacity to be good.
Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough lack that level of upside that can cause us to reasonably project strong reliever outcomes for them, with both of them either remaining stagnant from last year or getting worse.
Yarbrough is a junkballer who has some solid swing-and-miss pitches with his changeup and sweeper and an interesting pair of fastballs with his cutter and four-seamer.
Blackburn has traded some movement for velocity on his sinker while his cutter and curveball have improved their movement profiles from the 2025 season.
His xFIP has worsened from 4.17 to 4.91 while his K-BB% has plummeted to 3.4%, nearly 10% worse than it was last year with the Mets and Yankees.
The command has slipped from last year which is really hurting him, if that didn’t regress he might be more effective, but he and Yarbrough came with clear limitations to their game that the other seven active relievers do not have.
Their right tail outcomes are less shiny and likely consist of running league-average xFIP/K-BB% numbers rather than elite marks that would translate well in high-leverage.
Yovanny Cruz has the profile of a late-game bullpen weapon who can throw a 70-grade breaking ball with a firm fastball that can help him get ahead in counts or get quick outs.
Chasing upside should be the Yankees’ eternal goal with their unstable bullpen, and the more they lean on that the better their results as a unit will be.
More about:New York Yankees
