NEW YORK — The Yankees have spent the first half being defined by the names on the injury report. Max Fried’s elbow. Carlos Rodón’s elbow. Gerrit Cole’s return. Aaron Judge’s absence. Every one of them a headline, and every one of them a subtraction.
Nobody has been writing about the additions. They arrived cheap and unannounced: a waiver claim, a $2 million flier, a throw-in from a trade that got two paragraphs in February. They do not make noise the way an injured ace makes noise. They have simply been, quietly and without much credit, three of the reasons this team is 54-42.
The reliever nobody drafted into the plan
Consider the Yankees roster on Sunday in Washington. David Bednar had thrown two innings Friday and was unavailable. Fernando Cruz had pitched back-to-back days and was unavailable. Brent Headrick had thrown 50 pitches over the previous three days. Aaron Boone needed six outs to close the first half with a lead and had nobody left to get them.
He handed the ball to a pitcher who was designated for assignment by the Mets last August.
Paul Blackburn retired all six batters he faced and secured a 5-3 win over the Nationals at Nationals Park, a six-out save on the final day before the All-Star break. It was the second save of his career. The first came last season with the Mets, when he threw the final four innings of a blowout.
Boone was asked afterward how a long man had climbed this far up the pecking order. His answer was less about the save than about the eight weeks that preceded it.
“Awesome,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Paul’s quietly pitched really well for us for the last 4-6 weeks and is really establishing a nice role down there. He’s getting settled into the bullpen.”
The numbers behind it: since May 16, Blackburn has a 1.16 ERA in 20 appearances, with 26 strikeouts and six walks in 31 innings. He is not missing bats at an elite rate. He is refusing to let anyone square him up. Opposing hitters have a 28.7% hard-hit rate and a 7.9% barrel rate against him since May 1, per Baseball Savant, and he has allowed seven runs across his last 35 2/3 innings and 13 all season. The splits argue for using him more: righties have a .570 OPS against him, lefties .599.
Boone explained the Sunday decision in plainer terms, and the explanation doubles as a job description.
“Obviously, down a few guys today, I knew if we could get it to him with a couple innings left, then he goes out and is really efficient,” Boone said. “He’s been really good and throwing the ball really well.”
Blackburn re-signed with the Yankees in mid-January on a one-year, $2 million deal. The incentives say what the club expected: a $100,000 bonus at 80 innings, another $100,000 for each 10 innings after that up to 120, thresholds a reliever cannot reach. He is being used nothing like the pitcher that deal describes.
The waiver claim who leads the pen in mileage
Brent Headrick arrived in the organization on Feb. 11, 2025, claimed off waivers from the Twins. The transaction cost the Yankees nothing. He has since become the most-used arm in their bullpen.
Headrick is 5-1 with a 1.55 ERA and 53 strikeouts across 46 1/3 innings in 47 appearances. His 1.8 WAR already exceeds his career mark entering the year, after a 3.13 ERA in 17 relief appearances for the Yankees in 2025.
The 6-foot-6 left-hander sits in the 87th percentile with a 30.7% whiff rate, per Baseball Savant. Boone’s list of trusted Yankees arms beyond Bednar and Cruz is short. Headrick is on it, and that trust is measured in workload.
The throw-in with the loudest contact in the clubhouse
Max Schuemann came to the Yankees on Feb. 9 in a trade with the Athletics for right-hander Luis Burgos, three days after Oakland designated him for assignment. The Yankees optioned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on March 21 and recalled him April 28. He is a 29-year-old utility infielder with a .213 career average.
Schuemann is hitting .214/.400/.452 with a .852 OPS, two home runs and four doubles in 28 games, per Baseball Savant. The average is nearly identical to his career mark. Everything else is unrecognizable.
He has walked 11 times against 14 strikeouts in 55 plate appearances, a 20.0% walk rate. The major league average is 8.4%, and his own previous career high was 10.3%.
The contact quality is the bigger jump. Schuemann has a 17.9% barrel rate against a 7.6% league mark, a 46.4% hard-hit rate and an average launch angle of 27.4 degrees, per Baseball Savant. His barrel rate the last two seasons was 5.6% and 2.6%. His fly-ball rate has climbed to 46.4% from 23.7%. He is hitting it harder and higher, which is a different player.
The caution is the sample. Fifty-five plate appearances is nothing, and his .190 expected batting average sits under his actual mark. The monthly line warns against reading any slice of it: he hit .313 with a 1.000 OPS in May, .100 with a .550 OPS in June and .400 in seven July plate appearances.
Why three role players are a deadline argument
The Yankees are 54-42, second in the AL East, two games behind Tampa Bay at 56-38. They got there while Max Fried and Carlos Rodón sat on the injured list and Gerrit Cole worked through nine uneven starts after Tommy John surgery.
Fried threw 44 pitches across three simulated innings Saturday and could start a rehab assignment as early as Friday, when the second half opens, Boone said. Rodón has responded well to three days of playing catch and is expected to throw close to every day this week. Boone left the next step open.
“Possibly a bullpen in there at some point, we’ll see,” Boone said.
Those absences pushed Blackburn, Headrick and Schuemann into roles none was signed for. Brian Cashman has 18 days until the Aug. 3 deadline, and the case for buying is not that the Yankees roster is failing. It is that the roster is winning on the backs of three men acquired for a waiver fee, $2 million and a minor league arm.
Nothing has been reported about how the Yankees value the three internally, or whether the deadline changes their roles. What is on the record is Sunday in Washington: two starters hurt, three relievers unavailable, and the sixth option on the depth chart retiring six straight to end the first half.
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