DUNEDIN, Fla. — The Yankees need their young arms to step up in a big way this season. With Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt all slated to begin the year on the injured list, New York’s pitching depth is already being tested before a single regular-season game has been played.
That reality places enormous weight on the shoulders of Will Warren, who made 33 starts for the Yankees in 2025 and logged a career-high 162.1 regular-season innings. The 26-year-old right-hander showed flashes of being a reliable mid-rotation starter, but his 4.44 ERA also told the story of a pitcher still ironing out rough edges.
Now, as spring training gets underway in Florida, Warren has arrived with a plan. And it starts with something deceptively simple.
Schmidt’s path offers a blueprint for Warren
Clarke Schmidt knows what it feels like to be in Warren’s position. Two years ago, Schmidt was the young Yankees pitcher trying to build on a full season’s worth of work. He had posted a 4.64 ERA across 32 starts in 2023, dealing with inconsistency and taking his lumps against left-handed hitters.
Then something clicked. Schmidt arrived at camp the following spring armed with more information, more experience and more confidence. The result was a breakout: a 2.85 ERA across 16 starts in the first half of 2024 before a strained lat shut him down.
“You don’t really feel like you belong in this league until you’re a couple years in, until you start to feel like you’ve done some type of thing, whether it’s posting or having success,” Schmidt said. “So I think that definitely plays a factor.”
Schmidt sees a familiar profile when he watches Warren work this spring.
“I see those similarities with Will, where he’s trying to get better with lefties and cut down on some of the walks,” Schmidt said. “Then you start to clean up the details and iron out all that stuff and then your game just leaps.”
The Yankees would gladly take a similar trajectory from Warren this season, minus the injury.
A shift across the rubber changes Warren’s attack angle
In his first spring start on Tuesday, Will Warren looked different on the mound during the Yankees’ 8-7 win over the Blue Jays at TD Ballpark. The right-hander pitched from the third-base side of the rubber, a departure from the first-base side positioning he had used since being drafted in 2021.
The change is the product of collaborative work with the Yankees pitching staff this offseason. Warren previously threw from the third-base side during his college days at Southeastern Louisiana University, so the adjustment is less about learning something new and more about returning to what once felt natural.
“I think it’s a healthy attack angle,” Warren said. “It’s a little sharper. Righties, it kind of feels like I’m coming at them. Lefties might feel like the ball is just way out there, especially like a backdoor sweeper, backdoor curveball, and then just making it super sharp going into them.”
Asked whether shifting across the mound truly makes a measurable difference, Warren offered a candid response.
“Yes and no,” he said. “I mean, it doesn’t feel like it’s that big, but you move all the way across, it’s 17 inches or something like that. It’ll mess your lines up a little bit. So I’m just making sure those are sharp, that way I can get ahead and have success.”
The early results were encouraging. Warren tossed 2.2 innings, giving up one earned run on four hits with zero walks and four strikeouts on 49 pitches. Toronto’s only run off him came on a first-inning single by left-handed hitter Jesus Sanchez.
Solving the lefty problem is the next step for the Yankees starter
Left-handed hitters gave Warren the most trouble in 2025. Portside swingers posted a .786 OPS against him, compared to a .680 OPS from right-handed batters. Lefties hit .266 off him while righties were held to a .232 clip. For the Yankees to get a significant leap from Warren this year, that gap needs to shrink.
Warren knows it. He plans to attack lefties with his full repertoire rather than relying on a limited pitch mix.
“The main thing is getting ahead in the count,” Warren said. He described his approach as “throwing the kitchen sink at them,” meaning he wants to use every pitch in his arsenal to keep left-handed batters guessing.
On Tuesday, Warren got a small taste of that challenge. The Blue Jays had three left-handed hitters in their lineup, and each of them collected a hit against Warren in their first at-bat. But he adjusted. He came back to retire lefty-hitting Daulton Varsho and Sanchez back-to-back to close out his outing, catching Sanchez looking at a front-hip sinker.
Boone wants Warren to stay emotionally steady on the mound
Warren’s 2025 season was defined by extremes. He held opponents to three earned runs or fewer in 24 of his 33 starts. But he also endured several ugly outings, including disastrous first innings against the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Red Sox that inflated his numbers.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone believes the key to eliminating those blowup innings lies in emotional control.
“Just not letting things snowball, when you get a little emotional out there and you want to go harder and you want to go faster — no. You got to execute better,” Boone said. “So learning how to do it, how to be, what’s that fine line of having an edge to you and a fire to you but especially as a starting pitcher, also being emotionally really steady to handle all the things that come your way in the course of the game. He’s done a good job of that, but that’s the trick for a lot of these guys.”
Warren himself seems to understand where the growth needs to happen. After logging 167 innings including the playoffs last season, well past the 132.1 innings he threw in 2024, he says his arm feels strong. He took only about an extra week off from throwing this offseason before getting back to work.
“I think it’s comfort level, honestly,” Warren said. “I know that my stuff plays, based on 33 starts and 170ish innings. It’s not trying to do too much. Be Will Warren. Will Warren’s good enough to get people out.”
The Yankees need Warren healthy and ready from day one
With three rotation arms starting the year on the shelf, Warren’s importance to the Yankees cannot be overstated. The club is heading into one of baseball’s toughest divisions, and a strong start from their young pitchers could make the difference between keeping pace in the AL East and falling into an early hole.
The rubber adjustment, the renewed focus on left-handed hitters and the mental maturity that comes with a full big-league season are all pieces of Warren’s plan to take the next step. Whether those changes translate into better results will play out over the coming months.
For now, the Yankees are encouraged by what they saw in Dunedin. Warren looked sharper, sounded more confident and carried himself like a pitcher who knows what he needs to fix.
Spring training is only getting started, but for a team already dealing with pitching injuries, every encouraging sign matters. And Warren’s willingness to evolve could be one of the most important storylines of the Yankees’ 2026 season.
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