ANAHEIM, Calif. — The math on the Yankees’ bullpen stopped adding up weeks ago. Two of the arms manager Aaron Boone trusts most have been used like they are the only two he owns.
Brent Headrick walked into Monday with 70 appearances, second-most of any pitcher in the majors. Paul Blackburn, in his first full season working out of relief, had already climbed to 53. Behind closer David Bednar, that has essentially been the bridge, night after night, in a pennant race that leaves no room to rest anyone.
The reason for the strain is a run of misfortune that has quietly gutted the group. Fernando Cruz, one of the Yankees’ most valuable high-leverage weapons, tore a ligament in his elbow, an injury that points toward Tommy John surgery and almost certainly ends his season. Angel Chivilli went down. So did Ryan Weathers, who had been ticketed for a bullpen role. Brian Cashman came out of the trade deadline unable to land a single reliever.
So the front office has spent the past week throwing bodies at the problem and seeing what sticks. Michael Fulmer was signed. Justin Topa was signed and then cut loose. Luis Gil, a starter for most of his career, was recalled to audition in relief. Each move carried the same logic. Low cost, low risk, potential reward, and a September to sort out who can be trusted when October arrives.
A waiver claim built entirely around one specific weapon
The latest name in that churn is John Schreiber. The Yankees claimed the veteran right-hander off waivers from the Kansas City Royals on Monday, taking on the roughly $600,000 remaining on his contract and little else in the way of obligation. He is a free agent at season’s end, which makes this the definition of a rental with no strings attached.
What makes Schreiber more than a warm body is the shape of his season. The 32-year-old posted a 3.65 ERA across 55 outings for the Royals, respectable on its face. Dig one layer down and the appeal sharpens into a single, specialized purpose. Against right-handed hitters, Schreiber has been close to unhittable, holding them to a .143 average and a .414 OPS. That is the profile of a reliever built to erase a specific kind of threat in a specific kind of spot.
The catch is just as stark. Left-handed hitters have battered him, hitting .326 with a 1.024 OPS. Schreiber drops down into a true sidearm slot, and the angle that makes him so deceptive to righties leaves him exposed to lefties. This is not a clean addition to the back of a bullpen. It is a matchup tool, and the Yankees are betting they know exactly when to deploy it.
Boone points to the angle and the history
Boone did not oversell the claim as anything grander than what it is. Asked what drew the Yankees to a reliever a last-place team had just discarded, the manager pointed straight at those right-on-right splits and the unusual look Schreiber brings.
“We think he has a lot to offer, especially in some of these righty lanes,” Boone said. “We’re pretty familiar with him, having faced him a lot over the years with Boston and Kansas City, Kansas City’s playoff run [in 2024]. So familiar with him and kind of that unique angle. He’s still really handling right-handed hitters at a high level. Feel like he can certainly come in and help us.”
The familiarity Boone mentioned is not casual. Schreiber appeared in all four games of the 2024 AL Division Series against the Yankees while pitching for the Royals, and he did not allow a run in that series. New York has seen the deception up close, from the wrong side of it, which is part of why the front office believes it can find the right spots for him now.
Boone has also welcomed back Gil, whose relief cameo carries its own significance for a staff searching for reinforcements. The right-hander missed more than three months with a shoulder injury before rebuilding at Triple-A.
“He’s earned the right to be back here,” Boone said of Gil. “He seems healthy, he seems strong, the fastball seems like it’s in a good place, the profile’s been good. So encouraged with how he’s been looking, how he’s been bouncing back.”
What Yankees are really buying and what not
Schreiber joins a Yankees bullpen that still owns the best ERA in the majors at 3.04, per NJ.com, a number that speaks to how well the group has performed even as its personnel keeps changing. His arrival makes him the sixth Yankees reliever to reach at least 50 appearances this season, joining Blackburn, Bednar, Headrick, Cruz and Chivilli. That count alone explains the need. Boone cannot keep sending the same two or three arms out every night and expect them to hold up into October.
The scouting file is honest about the limits. Schreiber is not a strikeout artist, with just 36 punchouts in 49 1/3 innings, and his fastball is ordinary, averaging 93.8 mph. His command has wobbled, too. His 10.8 percent walk rate is the second-highest of his career. What he offers instead is a deep five-pitch mix, a four-seamer and sweeper he leans on most, plus a sinker, cutter and changeup, giving the Yankees’ pitching staff plenty of raw material to shape.
The warning sign hiding under surface numbers
Here is the part of the story that reframes the gamble, and it comes straight from the advanced data that Kansas City almost certainly weighed before letting him go. Schreiber’s tidy ERA is propped up by good fortune more than dominance. His Fielding Independent Pitching sits at 4.87 and his SIERA at 4.54, both well above his actual run prevention, per figures cited by Bolavip. That gap is driven by an unusually low .248 batting average on balls in play, the kind of number that tends to climb back toward the mean.
The strikeout trend adds to the unease. Schreiber’s strikeout rate has fallen to 17.7 percent, a career low, meaning he is missing fewer bats than at any point in his eight seasons. A reliever succeeding on soft contact and a friendly BABIP is a reliever walking a tightrope. That, as much as the salary dump, may explain why a rebuilding Royals club decided he was expendable in the first place. The Yankees are wagering that their coaches can stabilize what the metrics say is slipping.
It is worth remembering the résumé underneath the noise. Schreiber has posted a sub-4.00 ERA in every season since his first two, and his 2022 with the Red Sox, a 2.22 ERA across 74 outings, shows the ceiling when everything clicks. He has pitched for the Tigers, Red Sox and Royals across eight years, and at this point on the calendar, he may be as strong an outside option as the Yankees could realistically find.
A roster crunch that resolves Tuesday in Anaheim
The timing is not an accident. Major League rosters expand from 26 to 28 players on Tuesday, allowing clubs to carry a 14th pitcher, and the Yankees plan to activate Schreiber then as they open their series against the Angels in Anaheim. The extra roster spot is what makes a specialist like him practical to carry at all.
He will not be the only reinforcement arriving. The Yankees also plan to activate third baseman Ryan McMahon from the injured list Tuesday. McMahon has been out since Aug. 20 with a left thumb sprain, played a rehab game with Double-A Somerset on Saturday and traveled west with the club. Clarke Schmidt, meanwhile, remains on a rehab assignment with hopes of joining the bullpen later in September, and the Yankees still hold out hope that Weathers can factor in down the stretch.
For now, the Yankees sit 4 1/2 games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, chasing a division title while trying to assemble a bullpen that can survive October. Schreiber is not the answer to that puzzle. He is one more piece the Yankees will test in live innings over the next month, a low-cost bet on a specific skill, with the results still entirely unwritten.
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