Yankees are ‘Closing In’ on First Move of the Offseason | New York Yankees News & Rumors

Yankees are ‘Closing In’ on First Move of the Offseason | New York Yankees News & Rumors

The Yankees are signing their first MLB contract and are closing in on a deal with left-handed pitcher Ryan Yarro. That is according to Robert Murray of FanSighted. The left-hander served as both a starting and relief pitcher for the Yankees across 19 appearances. He pitched 64 innings with a 4.36 RA. We’re going to break down what this moves means, what’s next, the role he’ll likely fit on the roster, all of that and more right here on Fireside Yankees. If you enjoyed today’s video, make sure you like, subscribe, and turn on that notification bell to get notifications on our next uploads. We’ve got reaction videos such as this one to all transactions going on for the Yankees throughout the 2025 to 2026 offseason. And without further ado, let’s get into today’s video. Now, Yarro again put up a 4.36 ERA, a 5.04 04 f a 4.30 expected fip across 19 appearances. Eight of them came as a starting pitcher. He had 64 innings logged. He missed some time with an injury in 2025, but went on the mound. He was fairly effective as a starting pitcher. He was not as great as a reliever and a lot of that came from pretty poor appearances down the stretch for the Yankees. After being activated from the injured list, Ryan Yarro allowed seven earned runs in eight and two/3 innings pitched. If you look at his stuff overall, it was down just a tick. Nothing crazy, but wasn’t as good. It wasn’t as refined as he was in the first half of the year before his injury. He was one of the better, more versatile pitchers on this staff. He had a 3.90 erra across uh 55 and a third innings pitched. And that’s where the Yankees find value here. There’s a really good change up that Yarro has. The Yankees have helped them develop that change up more. He threw his change up 20.6% of the time compared to 15.5% of the time in 2024. He features a sinker, a cutter, a sweeper, and a fourseam fast pole. He used all five of those pitches at least 13% of the time in 2025. And again, when we look at the Yankees and where they’re at as a pitching staff, this group needs depth. Their rotation is decimated by injuries right now. They desperately, desperately need some rotation depth. And I don’t think this is going to prevent them from adding a higherend starting pitcher in the offseason. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But the role that Yarro would serve right now if the team were to open the season and start on November 17th, 2025, he would be their number five starter, replacing Allen Winn, who was their projected number five starter based on how their 40man roster was configured. And he’s a better pitcher than Allen Winn. He’s a more reliable pitcher. He’s a more steady, sturdy arm, someone who can prevent damage, contact, and at least log innings throughout the year as both a starter and a reliever. I think it improves their overall depth, improves their overall roster, and that’s all that the offseason’s about. It’s about finding ways to make your team and your roster better. And in the case of Yarro, we don’t have a reported number on the contract yet. Very similar to the Josh Naylor situation where we didn’t have anything on that money, and we still don’t have any uh updated information on that money. But with that being said, I do believe that Ryan Yarro is an effective and overall a solid depth piece to have. I think one other way the Yankees can improve their rotations by adding a middle to top of the rotation kind of guy. Uh, and I also think they also need some reliever support, but in the case of Yarro, he provides depth throughout the 2026 season. You need to get through 162 games. It’s not just about what your playoff roster is going to look like. It’s about having enough arms to get to the postseason. And Yarro again is going to help in that regard. They don’t have any prospects who I’d look at and say, “Oh, this guy is definitely ready to compete for a big league spot right now.” Elma Rodriguez Cruz, who’s probably their top prospect on the verge of debuting on the pitching side. He only had one regular season start and one postseason start at the AAA level. He was not very effective. So, I I doubt the Yankees are going to use him as a big league starter. But, in the case of some other additions they can make to further bolster this staff, I have no reason to believe they’re still not aggressively going to pursue Tatsuya, that is a top Japanese free agent of this upcoming free agent class. And I from what I’ve been hearing, the Yankees are very interested in the right-hander. His price is going to be the determining factor, of course, but the Yankees are expected to make a pretty significant and pretty uh notable offer to the right-hander. I’m under the presumption that they’re going to continue to operate with a pursuit of Amay in mind. Cody Ballinger, someone they’ve been linked to heavily to bring him back and I could see a reunion there. Uh but at the end of the day with the rotation, I expect them to make another addition. I don’t think this is the only addition they’re making to the rotation. They can say they want to have spots that they can keep open to bring guys back, but at the end of the day, when you import Rodon and Cole onto the roster in the first half of the year and potentially import Schmidt in the second half of the year, you’re going to be importing them to fill holes of guys who are hurt. And I guarantee you that the Yankees are going to have injuries throughout the 2026 season. Whether that’s to Freed, to Schlitler, to Warren, to Heal, to if you sign Emi, to Yarro himself, uh to Cole and Rodon potentially having setbacks. the guys not being as effective. All of these variables come into mind. And the Yankees, if you look at the 2025 season, they rolled it into it with Max Freed, Garrett Cole, Luis Heel, uh Will Warren, Clark Schmidt, and they still needed a ton of starters to get through the year. If you look at the Yankees and their depth chart, they need to make sure that they’re loaded on the starting pitching side with arms that can at least make starts for them. Uh in 2025, they had 11 pitchers make starts for them. I’m going to exclude Ian Hamilton because that was an opener, but they had 10 guys make at least one start. They had nine guys make at least six starts. So, think about that number before you start sitting down and saying, “Well, they’re not going to have enough room for these guys X, Y, and Z.” They’re going to have room. They’re going to have room. They’re going to have lots of room for starting pitching. And so, I do think they’re still going to make one more addition to that rotation. But if you enjoyed today’s video, if you enjoy what we do here at Fireside Yankees, make sure you like and subscribe. Turn on that notification bell and make sure you guys do that so you can get notifications on our next uploads. It also helps support the page. We appreciate your continued support and we’ll see you guys in the next one. Peace out, everybody. [Music] [Applause] Perfect. Perfect.

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