The New York Yankees have become incredible at developing pitching at both the Minor League and Major League levels, with Sam Briend and Matt Blake overlooking an excellent operation.
Every year there are pitchers who claw their way onto the roster and never look back, and this season Yerry De Los Santos is aiming to become one of those pitches. Reporters down in Tampa have raved about the right-hander in his early live BP sessions, but why is a 27-year-old reliever with a 4.14 career ERA generating this much buzz?
The refinement of his secondaries paired with his already-nasty sinker have created a reliever capable of getting both right-handed and left-handed batters out, and they’re indicators of a growing trend in the Yankees’ organization.
Yerry De Los Santos’ New Splitter Could Revitalize His Career
Last season Yerry De Los Santos completely fell apart during Spring Training, appearing in five games with five runs allowed and no redeeming data underneath to feel good about. The Yankees let him go to Triple-A, and he would spend the entire season in Scranton, with most fans not even knowing who he was. While the team had gone all-in pursuing a title, De Los Santos was doing important work putting himself in a position to contribute to the team down the road.
That chance wasn’t going to come in 2024 though, as a rough first half put his future not just with the Yankees but in the professional world in jeopardy. Left-handed hitters bewildered Yerry De Los Santos across his 48 MLB appearances, with the right-hander posting a -1.1% K-BB% and 5.34 FIP against them in 93 matchups, as he didn’t have a single pitch that could put them away and often resorted to just giving them a free base.
Lefties continued to pester him in Scranton; during the first half of the season De Los Santos had a .453 wOBA and .394 xwOBA allowed against them, as he lacked a single weapon that could overpower them. The Yankees weren’t unaware of those struggles, they tried to add a splitter to the mix and while it was generating whiffs, they had a .607 wOBA against the pitch.
It seemed that the new pitch wasn’t a dud, as they would make some tweaks to it in the second half that would elevate it from a below-average offering to one of the nastiest pitches in the organization.
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The new splitter we saw in the second half had more depth, resulting in fewer offspeed pitchers in the heart of the zone that hitters could do damage against. Yerry De Los Santos deployed that pitch almost exclusively against left-handed pitchers after the All-Star Break, with it making up ~40% of his pitch diet against opposite-handed hitters. They posted a .216 wOBA and 44.1% K% over that timespan, a far cry from the numbers they had against him in the first half.
Right-handed hitters have never been able to do much against his sinker-slider combination, and if he’s now able to get lefties out reliably, the Yankees could have a real bullpen weapon on their hands. Yerry De Los Santos seems to platoon his pitches based on the matchup, leaning heavily on that sinker to right-handed hitters but dialing that back when he faces lefties to try and establish his secondary pitches.
An underrated pitch in all of this is his slider, which generates tons of vertical drop and as a result in a high whiff pitch, gluing together his repertoire and giving him a rather diverse mix for a reliever. It’s common for relievers to utilize two pitches with the occasional third pitch that they stay away from in pressure situations, but Yerry De Los Santos has truly honed three distinct pitches that he can throw in any situation.
He’s a living and breathing example of the direction the Yankees are potentially headed, as an organization once known for sinkers and sliders has found a new toy they can develop.
Are the Yankees Pushing For an Offspeed Revolution?
Four of the eight projected relievers in the Yankees’ bullpen feature a prominent offspeed pitch, with their two big additions being two of the best in that regard. Devin Williams’ Airbender is the best changeup in baseball while Fernando Cruz possesses a splitter that consistently grades out as one of the best in baseball. At the 2024 deadline the Yankees also made sure to add Mark Leiter Jr. who showed up in the postseason, and who can forget the signing of Luke Weaver?
Three of their five starters last season added prominent changeups as well, with Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon, and Luis Gil using that pitch to make massive strides from the preceding season. The Yankees haven’t just been able to target pitchers with that kind of offering, they’ve had a high success rate with honing what most consider to be one of the most difficult pitches in the game to master.
If the trend continues, there are a plethora of young pitchers in the organization who could break through and have huge impacts on the roster. We’re seeing that push on the Minor League side already begin; Will Warren developed a changeup that profiles well in Stuff+ models and Bryce Cunningham was drafted in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of Vanderbilt, with his changeup being arguably the best at the collegiate level last season.
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The weird thing is that these are mostly right-handed pitchers, as while you would expect a lefty to have something that can work against opposite-handed batters, righties tend not to have to worry about it as often. Most hitters are right-handed, so why develop a pitch that most teams don’t call in right-on-right scenarios? Well, the Yankees have decided that it is a pitch that you can go to in those situations.
Last season the Yankees were second in both Usage% (10.2%) and Run Value (+8) of right-handed changeups against right-handed batters, and that’s a pitch that they’ll continue to push in 2025. They identified that right-handed hitters don’t actually perform very well against right-handed changeups, as from 2022-2024, left-handed batters actually had the better xwOBA and Whiff Rate in those scenarios.
It could be tied to usage rate; right-handed batters don’t see right-handed changeups much and as a result, aren’t prepared to handle the pitch, but the Yankees are trying to push that as far as it can go.