For every move there is a corresponding one, and for the first time in this 2026 season, the Yankees will have to mess around with their 26-man roster, completing a move that had been on the cards ever since the start of the season. Luis Gil will join the starting rotation, marking the end of the four-man rotation. The presence of multiple off-days and the lack of a particularly encouraging spring training from Gil led the Yankees to this decision that paid off about as well as it could have, with the pitching staff as a whole starting the year in outstanding form.
To add Gil, the Yankees will need a corresponding move, removing one of their bullpen arms, raising the question of who that reliever will be. Although the answer seems pretty obvious in Cade Winquest to the point that it’d be surprising if he wasn’t the odd man out, that selection in and of itself opens up the door for an interesting conversation — how the Yankees have utilized their first Rule 5 pick in over a decade.
After eleven games, Winquest is the only Yankee pitcher on the active roster not to have appeared in a game yet, hence the high likelihood that he’ll return to his former team. However, the lack of appearances from Winquest is a byproduct of two things, neither of which has a lot to do with him necessarily: number one, the outstanding work by the starting rotation that often limits the number of innings the bullpen is asked to cover; and number two, the production from the relievers themselves. In order for Winquest to move up the leverage ladder, opening the year on the low end of the totem pole, someone must come down, and the candidates were few and far between.
From the outside looking in, perhaps one of the easiest candidates to create an opening, Brent Headrick, who came into this season looking to prove that the success he had in a short sample in 2025 was sustainable, has been outstanding, yet to allow a run in seven appearances, the most in baseball. The worst-performing reliever early on is Camilo Doval, who’ll earn a lot more rope as he tries to settle in, coming into this season slated to be one of the primary setup men behind Bednar. Fernando Cruz is a strikeout machine, Tim Hill is your lefty specialist, and both Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn are able to provide a bit more length as needed. Jake Bird’s numbers might not look great, but they’re all a product of one terrible outing against the Marlins; he’s otherwise been excellent.
As much as the argument might be that the Yankees could’ve made better use of this final roster spot over Winquest, there haven’t been many opportunities in which this team has missed an extra reliever. For all we know, the Yankees may still like Winquest enough after getting him in the building, but there haven’t been that many opportunities to get him in there — perhaps even in certain emergency scenarios. He’ll be on the chopping block out of necessity, but the decision to take a shot on him wasn’t a costly one and had its merits.
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