It’s easy to look at the Yankees bullpen numbers and wonder why anyone is sounding the alarm. On the surface, the group has been productive enough, sitting second in the league in ERA. For most teams, that would buy a lot of peace of mind.
But the deeper numbers tell a different story, and they point to a unit that is being carried by a very small group. David Bednar, Brent Headrick, and, surprisingly, Paul Blackburn have been doing the heavy lifting.
Headrick has been one of the most effective relievers in the league this season, even with his August 25 meltdown against the Astros hanging over the ledger. Outside of those three, though, the picture gets ugly fast.
Yankees’ active bullpen w/o Blackburn Headrick and Bednar:
4.48 xFIP | 9.2% K-BB% | 4.98 FIP
- Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) August 26, 2026
That snapshot says a lot. Once you strip out Blackburn, Headrick, and Bednar, the active bullpen has a 4.98 FIP, a 4.48 xFIP, and a 9.2% K-BB rate. In other words, the relief corps only looks sturdy because those three arms are propping up the whole operation.
The slide hasn’t stopped there, either. Tim Hill has become a real issue, with a 4.55 ERA and 6.01 FIP since June 1.
Fernando Cruz lasted a bit longer before his own numbers went south; since July 1, he has posted a 4.12 ERA and 6.08 FIP. The back end of the bullpen has not held up the way the Yankees need it to.
Headrick’s workload is another concern. He leads the league with 68 appearances, and the question has been hanging over him all year: when does the wall finally show up?
Saturday night brought another stumble, one fueled by Willson Contreras, and it only sharpened the worry. Bednar has also been leaned on hard, throwing 57 1/3 innings, while Blackburn has reached 71 frames, though some of that total came in mop-up work earlier in the season.
That kind of usage would be easier to stomach if the rest of the bullpen were dependable. It isn’t. And that’s what makes any injury or drop-off from that top trio such a dangerous development for New York.
The Yankees’ depth has also taken a hit. Moving Yovanny Cruz thinned the group, and injuries to Angel Chivilli and Kervin Castro have further drained the options. Even Camilo Doval, who was part of the conversation earlier, has changed the picture elsewhere; the Pirates apparently fixed him by tweaking his pitch mix and getting him to throw his slider more, and now he has a 1.50 ERA since the trade.
So if the Yankees are forced to keep climbing down the bullpen ladder, the damage compounds. The relievers ahead of the line would be asked to do more, and the fallback choices would be weaker than the ones the club once had.
That’s why the current comfort level feels fragile. The top trio has kept the whole thing afloat, but the deadline did not bring the kind of reinforcements that might have steadied the unit. If the wrong injury or regression hits, the Yankees could find out in October just how thin that cushion really is.
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