Yerry De Los Santos was an under-the-radar acqusition for the Yankees after 2023, and he wouldn’t throw a single pitch for the Major League club in 2024.
He spent the entire season in Scranton with their Triple-A affiliate, but his brand-new split-changeup would become a weapon that would put him on the radar coming into 2025.
There was a lot of speculation that he would make the team out of camp, and while he failed to make the initial 26-man roster, he would finally make his Yankees’ debut in a double-header on April 27th.
After an injury in June put his season on pause, Yerry De Los Santos has returned to the bullpen and been brilliant, as some key tweaks have made him a truly intruiging weapon for this team.
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How Yerry Has Become So Scary For the Yankees’ Bullpen
With the Pirates, Yerry De Los Santos was a sinker-slider pitcher with shaky command, leaving him completely vulnerable against left-handed hitters.
His sinker has good movement and velocity, staying off barrels and being especially tough on right-handed batters due to the funky arm-slot he throws from.
The problem pitch in his repertoire has become his slider, which allowed a .401 wOBA and .427 xwOBA on the season due to a fairly average shape that didn’t have outlier velocity.
Using this pitch 21.3% of the time before his IL stint, De Los Santos has an abysmal 1.1% K-BB% and 4.81 SIERA, indicators that his sub-2.00 ERA was a mirage.
While on the shelf, the Yankees would work with the right-hander to better utilize his repertoire and become a more reliable bullpen weapon.
Yerry De Los Santos has begun leaning on his split-change even more, a pitch that batters have been befuddled by to the tune of a .313 SLG% and 31.6% Whiff%.
The elite vertical drop he gets on that pitch allows it to be devastating against lefties and righties as well, and it works off of both of his fastballs.
He’s crafty enough to change which fastball he relies on more depending on who he’s facing, as the sinker is his primary heater to righties and the four-seamer has become his primary fastball to lefties.
With two distinct fastball shapes and a nasty split-change, Yerry De Los Santos has the tools he needs in order to miss bats and induce soft contact.
The underlying metrics are much better with this tweak to his repertoire, his Expected ERA is below 1.40 since returning from the injured list with a 25% K-BB%.
While those numbers won’t be the median outcome, he’s rounding out his season numbers well and is looking like a strong piece for this bullpen.
Aaron Boone has increased the leverage of situation that Yerry De Los Santos is available for as well, trusting him in close games to get some big outs.
One weird quirk about De Los Santos is how much length he can provide in a reliever role, pitching three innings on four different occassions in 2025 alone.
A versatile weapon with some nasty stuff, that Yerry is becoming quite scary, and the Yankees will have club control of him for another four seasons following 2025.
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