One of the things that Matt Blake has done extremely well in his time with the New York Yankees is find reliever depth off the scrap heap. This season they’ve struggled to consistently do that, but they haven’t had a choice but to try and get innings out of relievers who didn’t have much of a track record entering the season. Clay Holmes and Tommy Kahnle were expected to be high-leverage relievers, and Luke Weaver’s breakout has been well-documented this season, but they have three arms currently stabilizing their shaky bullpen in a time of dire need.
Jake Cousins, Tim Hill, and Michael Tonkin were all under-the-radar pickups, with both Hill and Tonkin being acquired after their original team designated them for assignment. Despite that, the Yankees have gotten some big-time production from that trio, and they’re a huge part of their recent bullpen surge.
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Michael Tonkin has been a revelation for the Bronx Bombers, working out of some big jams and posting a whopping 1.53 ERA across 35.1 innings pitched with the Yankees. His combination of sinkers, four-seamers, and sliders have been deadly in relief, and Aaron Boone has been able to deploy him in various situations. A multi-inning weapon who can get both left-handed and right-handed batters out, Tonkin provides much-needed value in middle-relief innings, and the change for him was simple.
After both the Mets and Twins DFA’d Tonkin, the right-hander began throwing more sliders with the Yankees and finding a lot of success as a result. It’s his best swing-and-miss pitch, and by using it aggressively batters are chasing more and generating less damage contact. He’s not the only waiver claim who they’ve excelled with either, as Tim Hill has immediately come in and been a massive weapon for the Yankees. With their lack of quality left-handed relievers, what Hill has done for the Yankees has completely changed the way you look at their bullpen depth chart.
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When the Yankees traded for both Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez, the idea was that both of them would be able to provide some much-needed innings from the left-handed side in high leverage. With the departure of trusted southpaw Wandy Peralta, they figured they had their replacements, but both of them have been disappointing. Tim Hill was cut by the Chicago White Sox, the worst team in baseball, and since then has become a stud out of the Yankees’ bullpen. He has a 2.03 ERA with a groundball rate of around 70% since being claimed, providing some massive innings.
The 34-year-old veteran beat Stage 3 Colon Cancer back when he was breaking into the league, and he’s showing that resilience and toughness on the mound in New York. He’s an incredible baseball story who has become one of the Yankees’ best relievers, and it would be hard not to argue that Tim Hill is their best left-handed reliever. His sinker is impossible to barrel up, with his funky arm slot creating some weird looks that limit damage contact effectively.
Jake Cousins has emerged as of late, posting a 1.54 ERA and 34.7% strikeout rate, doing especially well since coming back up in late June. His run has been shorter than Hill’s and Tonkin’s, but he’s starting to emerge as a weapon with a wicked slider that picks up a ton of strikeouts alongside soft contact. When you combine the numbers for all three of these relievers, you end up with a trio that has been incredibly impressive for the Bronx Bombers.
This is the kind of production you expect from your highly-paid relievers, and yet the Yankees are getting this production from a trio making under $2 million combined in 2024. Over a larger sample size, these numbers should even out, but as the deadline approaches and some pitchers like Scott Effross and Ian Hamilton get back to the team, they’ll need some superhuman efforts from under-the-radar names. The bullpen has started to find themselves as of late, and while the Yankees are going to make additions to that group, some of these arms could stick for the season.