There are a lot of comparisons made between Will Warren and Michael King, who came up and debuted with the Yankees while sharing similar repertoires and mechanics. It doesn’t mean that Warren will become an ace-caliber pitcher like King with the Padres, but the upside for him to be a productive pitcher in the big leagues is certainly there. One of the biggest obstacles that stand in his way is the rotation depth chart, as he didn’t prove himself at all last season and Marcus Stroman likely remains their sixth starter unless he gets traded.
If the Yankees send down Warren to Triple-A, he’s not going to get more comfortable pitching on an MLB mound, and while he should have to earn this job, a bullpen role for the right-hander should be in consideration. He has the stuff to pitch in a 1-2 inning role, and having success in any capacity at the big-league level could be exactly what he needs to refine his arsenal and take the jump into the rotation.
Will Warren Could Find His Footing in the Yankees’ Bullpen
When you look back on Michael King’s career, some of the biggest reasons for his emergence as a starting pitcher can be traced to tweaks he made as a reliever. In 2021, King identified that his four-seamer was a real weapon for him, so he utilized it more in 2022 and became arguably the best reliever on the team. It’s one of the most valuable pitches in his entire repertoire, but the confidence he has in that pitch likely doesn’t exist without the success and comfort he had throwing it in 2021 and 2022.
Michael King had a 7.76 ERA and 5.14 FIP in 2020 as a 25-year-old, looking uncompetitive in the same manner that Will Warren did when he made his MLB debut this past season. It wasn’t until Clarke Schmidt’s 10th MLB start that he completed five innings of work, as through his first nine starts he boasted a 6.35 ERA. The Yankees have displayed patience with young pitchers, and they’ve been rewarded in that process as of late, but pitching those guys in relief is part of that process as well.
As for whether Will Warren has the upside as those two big-league starters, I believe he could be devastating out of the bullpen, providing a multi-inning option to bridge the gap between a starter and Devin Williams.
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Will Warren has five different pitches he can utilize at the Major League level, with his four-seam fastball immediately having lots of success due to his low release point and excellent extension. His 93-94 MPH fastball plays closer to that 94-95 MPH range because of how much extension he gets (6.7 feet), but the rest of his arsenal either completely flopped or ran into some poor luck. For example, both his changeup and cutter generated high Whiff% numbers and low exit velocities, but had high wOBA and SLG% rates because of some softly struck pitches dropping for hits.
Luck played a huge role in Warren being ineffective; his 10.32 ERA was more than twice as bad as any ERA estimator, as a .431 BABIP is just not sustainable in the slightest. With that being said, Warren didn’t do himself many favors with how he generated batted balls, seeing his usually high GB% plummet to just 36.2% when he reached the Major Leagues. Part of it was due to his high usage of four-seamers and sweepers, but his sinker wasn’t able to jam right-handed batters or get soft contact against lefties either.
These are issues that are mostly related to command, which won’t be properly ironed out spending time in Triple-A where there’s an automated ball-strike system and a heightened run environment. One adjustment I’d recommend for Will Warren to make is to take a page out of Michael King’s book and hone in on the first-base side of the plate with his sinker.
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Michael King throws his sinker mostly towards the first-base side of the plate, attacking inside on occasion to right-handed batters to make sure they can’t sit on that outside fastball. The reason it’s so effective is that his wide release point coupled with the sharp movement of his sinker makes it a pitch that can steal strikes regardless of the handedness of the hitter in the batter’s box.
It’s an adjustment he made with the San Diego Padres, not with the New York Yankees, but Matt Blake has displayed that he will apply tactics from across MLB to sharpen his pitchers. His Called Strike% had always been high with the Yankees, but transitioning into a starter’s role would put to the test how well his per-rate stats would hold up, and he trailed only Logan Webb of the Giants in Called Strike% this past season.
Will Warren could really benefit from having a pitch to get ahead in the count or freeze a hitter to finish off a tough at-bat, and not only is his sinker extremely similar to King’s it’s also a pitch that comes out of a weird release point.
His sinker usage against left-handed batters was just weird; he rarely went inside with it, with only six of his 36 sinkers landing on the inside part of the plate. Of those five pitches, he generated just two swings, with one of them being a foul ball and the other being a groundout by Nicky Lopez. Two of them were called strikes and two of them were balls, although one of those calls was on a pitch in-zone that just wasn’t called.
It’s a small sample size, but the sinker tailing away from lefties had zero effectiveness. They crushed that pitch time and time again because hitters adapt to seeing low and wide release points and assuming it will result in a pitch moving arm-side, thus resulting in predictable locations and easily trackable junk. Fixing his sinker command could have ripple effects for the rest of his arsenal, as the success of a fastball can bleed into the effectiveness of other pitches.
Will Warren is a talented pitcher, someone who could contribute in a bullpen role the way that Michael King and Clarke Schmidt first did before becoming productive starters. The Yankees have a stacked bullpen, but injuries always arise, and I doubt the 13 projected pitchers on their roster all remain healthy after Spring Training. Even if no one gets hurt, if the Yankees give Will Warren a fair shot at a spot on the roster, they could have another homegrown impact pitcher.
Even if the experiment of making him a starter again never works out, having a quality big-league reliever for cheap wouldn’t be a bad consolation prize. The Yankees have a talented pitcher in Will Warren, and if they want to ensure that he maximizes his potential, then getting him big-league innings is an absolute must, even if that means demoting him to a bullpen role for now.