TAMPA, Fla. — Spring training is supposed to be the time when optimism runs wild. Players report to camp. Fans dream about October. Coaches talk about progress. But for the Yankees, one familiar cloud has followed the franchise into 2026. The Yankees bullpen remains an open question, and with Opening Day less than three weeks away, answers are proving hard to come by.
Last year, the Yankees watched their relief corps collapse under pressure during the first half. Brian Cashman responded with a flurry of trade deadline deals, hauling in David Bednar, Camilo Doval, and Jake Bird to try to stop the bleeding. It worked, at least partially. But those fixes came at the cost of both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, who departed for the Mets in free agency this winter. The question now is whether what remains is enough.
A revamped unit with familiar risks
The Yankees did not pursue a major reliever signing this offseason. Instead, the Yankees chose to run it back with the pieces already in the building. They re-signed Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn, and Ryan Yarbrough. They selected Cade Winquest from the Cardinals in the Rule 5 Draft. They traded for hard-throwing right-hander Angel Chivilli from the Rockies. But none of those moves carried the weight of a proven late-inning arm walking through the door.
That strategy places enormous pressure on the core of Bednar, Doval, and Fernando Cruz to carry the Yankees late-inning workload from the seventh inning on. Bednar is the safest bet. The 31-year-old closer posted a 2.30 ERA with 86 strikeouts across 62.2 innings in 2025. His four-seam fastball averaged 97.1 mph, and his curveball generated a 43.1% whiff rate. He enters a contract year with every reason to perform. The Yankees are banking on that motivation keeping him locked in over 162 games.
Doval is the wild card. His slider remains one of the most devastating pitches in the game, with a 41.1% whiff rate and a .190 batting average against. But his 12.6% walk rate in 2025 ranked in just the 3rd percentile among all pitchers. That kind of volatility can turn any late-inning lead into a nail-biter. He did finish 2025 on a strong note, posting five scoreless innings in his final six regular season outings before a 2.70 ERA in the ALDS against Toronto. The Yankees are hoping that version of Doval is the one who shows up full-time.
Cruz, Bird, and the middle-innings puzzle
Fernando Cruz has quietly become one of the more dependable arms in the Yankees bullpen. The 35-year-old right-hander posted a 3.56 ERA and a 3.18 FIP in 48 innings last season. He struck out 36% of the batters he faced, placing fifth among all pitchers with at least 40 innings in strikeout rate. His splitter is a weapon. But he missed time in 2025 with shoulder and hamstring injuries, and his command slipped down the stretch after an oblique issue. A healthy full season from Cruz would be a major boost for the Yankees relief corps.
Then there is Bird. He arrived at the 2025 deadline and immediately floundered. In three appearances with the Yankees, he put up a 27.00 ERA and was demoted to Triple-A. But the Yankees coaching staff never gave up on him. Pitching coach Matt Blake told The Athletic that the Yankees still believe in his ability.
“He is a guy we can rely upon this year,” Blake said. “We just got to see it. It was an exciting acquisition for us, and it just didn’t pan out in the short term. But we have a long-range vision for him. He should have a successful time with us.”
Bird went to work in the offseason, adding a new cutter to his arsenal. Early spring results have been encouraging. He has thrown 2.1 scoreless innings with no walks and three strikeouts. The new pitch sits near the zero-line on a horizontal movement chart and gives hitters a different look to pair with his sinker and sweeper. If it plays the way the Yankees hope, Bird could emerge as a legitimate middle-innings weapon.
The WBC wrinkle adds another layer of worry
As if the Yankees bullpen picture were not complicated enough, the World Baseball Classic is pulling three of the Yankees top relievers away from camp at a critical time. Bednar is pitching for Team USA. Doval is representing the Dominican Republic. Cruz is with Puerto Rico. All three will be throwing meaningful innings in high-pressure situations weeks before Opening Day on March 25.
The risk is obvious. Edwin Diaz tore his patellar tendon celebrating a WBC win in 2023 and missed the entire season. Any injury to Bednar, Doval, or Cruz during the tournament could be catastrophic for a Yankees relief corps that already lacks proven depth. The upside is that younger arms like Brent Headrick, Chivilli, and Winquest are getting extended spring reps in their absence. But that is cold comfort if one of the big three goes down.
Roster spots remain up for grabs
The back end of the Yankees bullpen is a genuine competition. Bednar, Doval, Cruz, and Hill appear locked in. Yarbrough and Blackburn, both on guaranteed deals, are expected to fill swingman roles. That leaves roughly two spots open, and the candidates are plentiful.
Bird is the frontrunner for one of them based on organizational faith and his retooled pitch mix. Headrick, a left-hander with swing-and-miss stuff who posted a 3.13 ERA in 23 innings with the Yankees last year, is pushing hard for the other. Winquest, the Rule 5 pick, has struggled this spring, and his roster spot is no longer a certainty. Chivilli, who touches 100 mph, was roughed up for six runs on five hits in just 0.2 innings of one spring outing. He appears headed for Triple-A.
The internal competition is healthy, but it also underscores how thin the margin for error is. If two or three of these fringe arms falter during the season, the Yankees will be right back where they were last July: scrambling for bullpen help at the deadline.
FanGraphs sees reason for hope
Not everyone is sounding the alarm. FanGraphs currently projects the Yankees bullpen as the eighth-best in baseball. The reasoning is straightforward. Getting a full season of Bednar at closer is a significant upgrade over the inconsistency of Williams and Weaver. Doval and Bird can hardly perform worse than their initial stints in the Bronx. Cruz is a year removed from emerging as a legitimate find. And the Yankees have the benefit of Matt Blake, widely regarded as one of the top pitching coaches in baseball, working with every arm in camp.
There is also reinforcement on the horizon for the Yankees bullpen. Once Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt return from injuries and reclaim their rotation spots, arms like Ryan Weathers and Will Warren could shift to the bullpen. Top prospects Carlos Lagrange and Elmer Rodriguez are also candidates to contribute at some point this season. Blake himself acknowledged that moving Lagrange to relief is a possibility down the road.
The Yankees are not without options. But right now, the Yankees bullpen remains a patchwork of bounce-back candidates, reclamation projects, and unproven arms. That might be enough. It might not. And for a team chasing its first World Series title since 2009, “might” is a word that keeps people up at night in the Bronx.
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