TAMPA, Fla. — The Yankees have a ticking clock on their hands with right-hander Cade Winquest. And the young fireballer knows it.
Winquest, plucked from the St. Louis Cardinals in the Rule 5 Draft last December, must spend the entire 2026 season on the big-league roster. If he can’t stick, the Yankees lose him. That’s the deal. No trips to the minors. No safety net of Triple-A.
It was the club’s first Rule 5 selection since 2011, and it came with serious risk. Winquest has never thrown a pitch above Double-A. The gap between Springfield, Missouri, and Yankee Stadium is vast.
So the Yankees decided they had to move fast. And what happened next may change the entire equation for a bullpen that badly needs arms.
A Friday afternoon Zoom call changed everything
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Two weeks after the December draft, Winquest was on a virtual call with the Yankees’ pitching brain trust. Big-league pitching coach Matt Blake and assistants Desi Druschel and Preston Claiborne were on the other end.
Their assignment was simple but bold: teach the hard-throwing righty a brand-new pitch. A two-seam sinker.
The Yankees’ staff had studied video of Winquest from his time in the Cardinals’ system. They believed a sinking fastball would pair perfectly with his best weapons, a four-seam fastball that has touched 100 mph and a sharp-breaking curveball.
“It was a Friday afternoon Zoom call,” Winquest told NJ.com before Thursday’s spring training workout. “All those guys were showing me the two-seam sinker grip. They basically just told me where to line up my hand on the ball. They told me to just throw it like I’m throwing a normal fastball and let the drift work.”
By the following Monday, Winquest had spin-access balls in his mailbox, shipped from the Yankees. These are specially painted baseballs with circles on the surface that allow pitchers to track the cleanliness of their spin in real time.
“Basically, you want to see those circles nice and clear,” Winquest explained. “This lets you see how the grip is affecting the ball.”
Instant movement that stunned the pitcher himself
What happened next surprised even Winquest. On his very first attempts at throwing two-seamers, the ball dropped with heavy sink. The new pitch had bite almost immediately.
“I picked it up very quickly,” he said. “It shocked me how much movement I was getting.”
Earlier this week, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound hurler put the sinker to a real test. He threw it in live batting practice to big-league hitters Oswaldo Cabrera and J.C. Escarra.
“They were good,” Winquest said of the results.
This new weapon could be the key that unlocks his roster spot. The sinker addresses a glaring weakness in his profile. According to his minor league splits, right-handed batters hit .288 with a .765 OPS against Winquest last season. Left-handed hitters, by contrast, managed just a .205 average and .541 OPS. A sinking fastball is exactly the kind of pitch that helps right-handers retire same-side hitters more effectively.
Why the Yankees targeted Winquest in the first place
This gamble was not made on a whim. The Yankees have had their eye on Winquest since the 2022 MLB Draft. They wanted him then, but the Cardinals grabbed the University of Texas at Arlington product a few picks before New York’s eighth-round slot.
“Cade’s been somebody we’ve been following since the draft,” Yankees assistant general manager Michael Fishman told NJ.com at the Winter Meetings. “He’s got big velocity, and he’s somebody we really felt has characteristics that our pitching staff, our pitching is good at working with.”
In 2025, Winquest split time between High-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield. He posted a 3.99 ERA across 106 innings with 110 strikeouts. His walk rate dropped as he climbed levels. His ERA improved from 4.52 at High-A to 3.19 at Double-A.
The raw tools were always there. His four-seam fastball sits 94-96 mph and can touch higher. His curveball generates swings and misses with sharp two-plane break. He also throws a cutter, sweeper and changeup, giving him a five-pitch mix that most Rule 5 picks simply do not possess.
The bullpen battle intensifies in the Bronx
The Yankees enter 2026 without two arms that anchored their late-inning mix last season. Luke Weaver and Devin Williams both left in free agency and signed with the crosstown Mets. The departures stung, particularly Weaver’s, after his dominant postseason run in 2024.
David Bednar and Camilo Doval, both acquired at the 2025 trade deadline, anchor the back end of the bullpen entering this spring. Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn are expected to fill key middle-relief roles. But open spots remain, and the competition is fierce.
Winquest is battling Angel Chivilli, Osvaldo Bido, Jake Bird, Yerry De Los Santos, Kervin Castro and Brent Headrick for the final bullpen slots. Several of those arms have minor league options. Winquest does not. He either makes the club or goes back to St. Louis.
The Yankees finished 2025 with the 29th-fastest average four-seam velocity from their bullpen. A power arm like Winquest directly addresses that shortfall. If the sinker continues to develop, it could give the Yankees something they have been missing for a while: a hard-throwing reliever with multiple pitch shapes who can neutralize right-handed lineups.
Winquest, who turns 26 on April 30, knows the stakes. The door is open, and he plans to walk through it.
“The door’s open for me,” the right-hander said. “They picked me for a reason.”
Spring training will tell the full story. But at this early stage, the surprise sinker could be the pitch that keeps Cade Winquest in pinstripes all season long.
