Yankees Can Fix Bullpen Woes Internally, For Now

Then there's the lineup. It's hard to imagine that a group of sluggers featuring Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Ben Rice, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. will be this streaky all year. Ryan McMahon and Anthony Volpe could be a problem, and Austin Wells has disappointed, but a majority of the lineup should find its stride.

The bad

The big issue is the bullpen. It was their biggest weakness last year, and it looks like it's an issue again.

Not all of those 13 home runs were a result of the pen blowing the game. Max Fried, Ryan Weathers, and Luis Gil played their part in it, too. It's just hard to see who the Yankees can trust on a night-by-night basis outside of David Bednar, and he hasn't been perfect either.

Camilo Doval is their next best reliever on paper, but for as nasty as he's been, he has still allowed six earned runs in 7.1 innings.

Tim Hill, Brent Headrick, and Fernando Cruz have been dependable thus far, but are they the type of arms that you can count on throughout the course of a season? They aren't exactly lockdown pen pieces. Just yesterday, Cruz allowed the go-ahead run in a tough situation when he tried to clean up Fried's mess on the field.

The Yankees have more projects than answers in the bullpen. Just look at Angel Chivilli, who was bad with the Rockies and had an ugly debut in the Bronx.

It's a small sample size, but at this point in 2026, the Yankees' bullpen ERA of 4.13 ranks 17th. It's a tick below their total ERA of last year. Last year, they had a 4.37 ERA as a team, and the teams that were worse than them missed the playoffs.

Even though Devin Williams and Luke Weaver are blowing games for the Mets out in Flushing, whatever issues they had last season in the bullpen are still there. It's just that they've taken on a different form. In this case, it's a matter of having a bullpen shantily stapled together by a rocksteady closer and a slew of question marks.

Some potential answers

If the Yankees' bullpen stays like this, it's clear they'll continue to have these issues even as the rotation and lineup perform to where they should. There might be some fixes, but it'll take a midseason revamp, and even that isn't guaranteed.

For one, once Cole is back, somebody will have to leave the rotation. Gil may be better suited to the bullpen, where he can attempt to overpower hitters with his slider and fastball. His time as a starter could be coming to an end.

Then there's the Yankee minor league depth. If they feel comfortable with Carlos Lagrange being stretched out by the summer, they could call him and his overpowering 103 mph fastballs up to the big leagues. His stuff should be dominant at any level, and his introduction to the Yankees this year was blowing a triple-digit fastball by Aaron Judge when pitchers and catchers initially reported.

Yovanny Cruz could be another potential answer. He has 11 strikeouts in 7.1 innings. He showed during the spring just how nasty his stuff was.

It's still early, but it's hard to feel encouraged by the bullpen. At least not in its current form.