NEW YORK — The New York Yankees have the best record in baseball through their first nine games, but the relief corps threatening to undo that fast start has scouts talking and the front office quietly weighing moves.
A league source summed it up bluntly after Sunday’s 7-6 home loss to the Miami Marlins. “Yankees bullpen stinks,” the MLB scout told Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The words were sharp, and the box scores backed them up.
Blown leads put bullpen under spotlight
The Yankees carried a 4-3 lead into the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium on Sunday before Jake Bird surrendered three earned runs in just one-third of an inning on only 10 pitches. New York lost 7-6. Two days earlier, Camilo Doval coughed up a two-run lead in the eighth before the Yankees escaped with a 9-7 win over the Marlins.
The pattern has not gone unnoticed. New York’s bullpen now ranks 11th in the American League with a 3.23 ERA, a figure already inflated by those two costly outings. For a team that has otherwise looked dominant, the late-inning vulnerabilities stand out.
The Yankees are still 7-2 and tied with the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in baseball. But the bullpen cracks have opened a wider conversation about personnel decisions that may have created the problem in the first place.
Winquest has yet to throw a pitch that counts
The most glaring issue may not be Bird or Doval. It is a reliever who has not yet appeared in a regular-season game.
Cade Winquest made the Opening Day roster as the club’s first Rule 5 Draft selection to suit up for the Yankees since Josh Phelps in 2007. Manager Aaron Boone has not called on him in any of New York’s nine games, including several lopsided victories where low-leverage opportunities were available.
Empire Sports Media analyst Ryan Garcia put it plainly: the Yankees have “never” used Winquest in any situation. “That tells you not only do they not trust him, but they have no interest in figuring out what he can be,” Garcia wrote.
With Luis Gil expected to rejoin the rotation on April 10 against the Tampa Bay Rays, Winquest’s spot on the roster is expected to disappear. Sending him back to the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that originally held his rights, would open a 40-man roster spot and allow the Yankees to carry a reliever they actually plan to deploy.
Two names have emerged as candidates for that spot. Yovanny Cruz, a hard-throwing righty working out of Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, has posted seven strikeouts against one walk across three scoreless outings while averaging 98-100 mph. Yerry De Los Santos, optioned earlier this spring, brings multi-inning versatility and was a reliable ground-ball option for the Yankees a season ago.
Weathers’ future in the rotation already in doubt
If the Winquest situation is a short-term fix, the Ryan Weathers question is a longer one with bigger implications.
The Yankees acquired Weathers from the Miami Marlins this past offseason to give the rotation a left-handed complement. He made a serviceable debut in Seattle, allowing one earned run over 4.1 innings against the Mariners. But facing his former club at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Weathers gave up three earned runs in just 3.2 innings, departing before the end of the fourth in his home debut.
Yankees insider Bob Klapisch wrote for NJ.com that Weathers’ path to the bullpen is not a question of if, but when.
“With a 4.50 ERA, the question isn’t whether the lefthander is headed to the bullpen at some point. He is,” Klapisch wrote. “It’s can Weathers be trusted in high-leverage situations?”
The answer to that question will shape how quickly the Yankees act. Klapisch expects the organization to demote both Weathers and Gil to relief roles once Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon complete their recoveries from injury, with Will Warren emerging as the permanent No. 5 starter.
“It’s likely Luis Gil and Ryan Weathers will become long-term relievers and that (Will) Warren will be the official winner of the No. 5-slot sweepstakes,” Klapisch wrote.
Historic pitching start raises the stakes
The front-end starters have set an almost impossible standard. Through the Yankees’ first five games of the season, the pitching staff allowed just three earned runs, tying the 1943 St. Louis Cardinals for the fewest in baseball history since 1900, according to data analyst Katie Sharp.
Max Fried, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren have all exceeded early expectations. The rotation ranked first in ERA and second in WHIP leaguewide entering the weekend series against Miami. Boone now has a clear advantage waiting in the wings.
Gil, the 2024 American League Rookie of the Year, is set to step into the rotation behind Weathers when the Yankees open their series at Tampa Bay. The right-hander posted a 3.50 ERA across 29 starts during his award-winning 2024 campaign before a high-grade lat strain limited him to 11 outings in 2025. His return gives the Yankees another power arm and puts increased pressure on Weathers to prove he belongs in a starting role.
Bullpen concerns could cost the Yankees down the stretch
The Yankees travel to Oakland for a three-game series against the Athletics beginning this week before a stretch of 13 straight games from April 7-19. With the schedule tightening, the front office cannot afford to carry a reliever the coaching staff won’t use.
The Yankees have built one of the deepest rotations in the sport, and that depth may ultimately be what saves them. But a bullpen that has already blown multiple games in the first two weeks of April will require more than shuffling deck chairs. It may require the front office to make the kind of aggressive move that turns a question mark into an asset.
For now, the Yankees remain comfortably atop the American League East. The roster changes are coming. The only question is how much damage the bullpen does before they arrive.
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