Fernando Cruz has immediately impressed in camp, as the Yankees‘ new bullpen weapon aims to have a strong season in the Bronx. Austin Wells had caught some live sessions from the right-hander, and in those sessions, he was blown away by the nastiness of his signature splitter.
“The splitter is disgusting, I was just happy to catch the ball when he threw it” – Austin Wells (via The NY Daily News)
A premium offspeed pitch, Fernando Cruz is hoping to put behind him a tough season where he posted a 4.86 ERA across 66.2 innings pitched. The underlying metrics suggest he ran into some poor luck, and the Yankees seem to believe that Cruz is capable of pitching at a very high level.
Self-proclaimed as a diehard Yankees fan in the aforementioned article by the brilliant Gary Phillips, Fernando Cruz’s splitter will be the key to his success in 2025.
Why the Yankees are Raving About Fernando Cruz
Trading a Platinum Glove winning catcher for a reliever entering his age-35 season with a career 4.52 ERA sounds like a disaster, but the Yankees are confident in what they can turn Fernando Cruz into. The right-hander has been among the least fortunate in baseball, sporting the second-largest differential between ERA and FIP (1.46) since debuting in 2022, and a huge reason for that discrepancy is the home ballpark he pitched at.
The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati is a pitcher’s nightmare, and Cruz’s numbers there versus on the road are dramatically different. When pitching at Great American Ballpark, Fernando Cruz posted a 5.26 ERA and 1.31 HR/9, but when he pitched away from there he posted a 3.75 ERA and 0.63 HR/9, and the Yankees might be able to unlock even more in his pitch repertoire with some key adjustments.
Cruz has a four-seamer and cutter that grade out as firmly below-average pitches, and hitters launched nine homers off of them with a combined .428 wOBA. Improving either pitch could change his arsenal and give him a firm pitch he can attack hitters with, setting up his wicked splitter. Even making one of these pitches league-average would be a dramatic improvement, as his splitter is so good that he can throw it pretty aggressively and still get outs.
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With such a dynamic pitch, Fernando Cruz can throw his splitter in any situation and against any hitter and still get swings and misses. He has only allowed one home run on his splitter across his MLB career, and the unpredictable movement of that pitch makes it a nightmare for hitters to face. It’s such a dominant pitch that he’s been able to strike out over 30% of batters faced despite never having a pitch he could reliably throw other than his splitter.
The only pitch outside of his splitter with a positive Run Value is his slider, a pitch he didn’t throw once in 2024, and perhaps the Yankees decide to bring that back into his repertoire. We could also see the sinker come back as it has never gotten much usage but could keep hitters honest and make his other three fastball variants a bit harder to hit. Pitchers have counteracted having a bad fastball by throwing multiple variants of one, and Cruz could be a fun candidate for that.
Whether it’s adding to his arsenal or improving an already-existing pitch, the Yankees believe big things are ahead for the right-hander in 2025, and that nasty splitter is a huge reason why. Luckily for Austin Wells, he won’t have to worry about trying to square it up this season.