The Yankees’ splendid regular-season record over the past few years was built largely on the backs of relief pitchers.
In 2022, the team had a top-five bullpen by Wins Above Replacement, ERA, opponents’ batting average, Win Probability Added and Fielding Independent Pitching, a statistic based on outcomes that do not rely on a pitcher’s defense. They were spectacular throughout the duration of the season and picked each other up when the unit was not at full strength. When one reliever went down with injury, struggled with command, or was just generally bad at getting hitters out, another person sprouted up to handle big moments whenever the bullpen phone rang.
When Clay Holmes went down with injury in August, fellow righties Jonathan Loaisiga and Lou Trivino combined to throw 12 innings and allow just one earned run, keeping the ball in the yard the entire time. As Loaisiga made a mess of things for the whole first half of the year, running a 7.85 ERA and trying to work through his problems in the unforgiving setting of actual games, Holmes was simply the best reliever in the world. His 1.31 ERA and truly absurd 82.7% groundball rate didn’t hold up after the All-Star break, but they were among the many statistical categories that were blessed by the baseball gods during the first half.
Wandy Peralta had four different stretches where he made at least six outings without an earned run. Ron Marinaccio went from complete afterthought — a known entity only to those with an encyclopedic knowledge of the farm system — to one of the best rookie relievers in the game. From the beginning of May to trade deadline day (interrupted by a stint on the injured list and trips to the minor leagues) Marinaccio had a 0.00 ERA across 19 innings. Before Michael King’s season-ending injury, the Yankees also had the most valuable bullpen arm in the American League. When he was lost for the year on July 22, King had the highest WAR of any AL relief pitcher. Holmes was second.
Breeding a five-, six- or even seven-headed monster in the bullpen has been a clear and effective strategy for the Yankees for several years now. Their runs to the 2017 and 2019 American League Championship Series would not have been possible without their bushel of bullpen bros. Both deep postseason marches came after the bullpen had the highest regular-season WAR of any team in the league. Constructing an unbeatable bullpen is an obvious way to elevate a team from fringe contender to legitimate World Series threat, but if it were that easy, every team would have one. The Yankees — who, since 2017, have extracted a staggering 6.0 more WAR from their bullpen than any other team in the majors — have done so through many different avenues.
During this gilded age of late-inning wizardry, there’s been a smattering of homegrown players (whether it’s someone with jump-off-the-page measurables like Dellin Betances or an average Joe like Marinaccio whose skills are less apparent), but the main route has been identifying flounders in other team’s systems who need a change of scenery. Loaisiga, King, Holmes, Peralta and all-time reclamation project Lucas Luetge were all at varying stages of their careers — some having been released while still in the minors, others toiling away anonymously in the National League — when the Yankees came to the rescue. The main thing that the eclectic bunch has in common is that their pitches really started to sing when they arrived in New York. The Yankees’ coaching staff deserves their flowers, but so too do the spreadsheet jockeys that identified these potential gems and were proven right.
Even when they’ve taken bigger swings on the reliever market, the Yankees have seen their alchemy work as well. Zack Britton and Adam Ottavino were given fairly large contracts by reliever standards and were both great Yankees during their limited appearances, Britton up until he got hurt and Ottavino before being traded. Chad Green and David Robertson (following the deal with the White Sox to get him back) were savvy additions on the trade market. And while the Aroldis Chapman era ended in catastrophic fashion, and the Yankees were wise to wash his stench off late last year, he too had some very good moments.
There are a few rotten eggs in the carton (Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson won’t be getting a monument in center field anytime soon), but the Yankees have provided more than enough reasons to trust their bullpen operations. Their relievers’ performances have often flown in the face in preseason projections and the conventional wisdom that says they are the likeliest position group to fluctuate from year to year.
Looking at the 2023 collection, the Yankees should still be in great shape. Of the 11 dudes who completed 20 relief innings for them last season, eight are set to return. The Chapman subtraction will be a net positive, Miguel Castro was certainly expendable and while the Luetge trade was puzzling, he never seemed to enter manager Aaron Boone’s inner circle, often going days and days without entering a game. As with any athlete on the planet, health will be a major determining factor in the Yankee relievers’ fortunes, but they have the power to keep shortening games and wringing the life from other teams in the wee hours, especially when King’s elbow is fully healed.
The main reason for optimism stems from the fact that nobody can square these guys up. The 2022 Yankee bullpen had the best ground ball rate in Major League Baseball. Holmes, Loaisiga, Peralta, Trivino and Marinaccio still have grounder machines attached to their shoulders and possess the type of pitch arsenals that are designed to limit hard contact. According to FanGraphs, the Yankees were also the best in the league at that. The bullpen’s 24.8% hard contact rate edged out the Astros to earn top of the class honors. The relievers were also tied with Seattle’s for lowest average exit velocity, proving the eye test’s idea that no one ever makes quality contact against the Yankees once their starter has been lifted.
If there is any sliver of concern, it’d come from the fact that the Yankees’ bullpen was closer to the middle of the pack in strikeout rate. But they were still top eight in swinging strike percentage and top three in called strike + whiff percentage, meaning their ability to generate strikes is still very much alive, they just had some minor issues putting hitters away. With such superb numbers in basically every other area, plus a plethora of returnees who are very familiar with the Yankees’ system at this point, expect 2023 to be another year of shutdown relievers expertly kissing the outside corner and throwing lightning bolts more often than they don’t.
