Back in January, MLBTR looked at the Yankees’ bullpen and a list of six internal candidates to round out the middle and low-leverage innings behind top relievers David Bednar and Fernando Cruz. Among the candidates we mentioned were Jake Bird, Cade Winquest, Yerry De los Santos, Elmer Rodriguez, and Chase Hampton. Of that quintet, De los Santos and Rodriguez are the only ones still in the organization.
Winquest, originally a Rule 5 pick out of the Cardinals’ system, was returned to St. Louis in the middle of April without appearing in a game for New York. Bird had an ERA near 6.00 for the Yankees this year before going to the Nationals in the Luis Garcia Jr. trade. The most recent casualty was Hampton, whom the Yankees designated for assignment last week. He was claimed off waivers by the Nationals and optioned to their Double-A affiliate in Harrisburg.
De los Santos has been shuffled up and down from the minors while only pitching 20 big league innings, albeit with a 1.35 ERA. Rodriguez has been utilized as a spot starter, though he’s delivered just a 5.40 ERA in 26 2/3 innings. The only reliever in our original writeup to stick in the bullpen throughout the year was the sixth guy, Brent Headrick, and what a season it’s been for him.
Headrick was as close to a wild card as you can get for a reliever. The Twins drafted him in the ninth round in 2019, and he was pretty underwhelming with them from 2023-24, posting a 5.97 ERA in under 30 innings over those two seasons. The Yankees claimed him off waivers from Minnesota in February 2025, and at last Headrick showed a little bit of promise. In 17 appearances for his new club, the lefty had a 3.13 ERA. Headrick’s 32.6% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate were both strong marks, but he also allowed four home runs in that small sample, and a relatively low .260 average on balls in play against him suggested he wouldn’t be able to keep it up going forward.
Instead, the 28-year-old Headrick has decisively rejected the label of depth reliever by posting career-best numbers in his highest volume of innings. He entered play today with 73 1/3 innings and a 1.96 ERA on the season. Both the innings total and the run prevention rank in the top 10% of relievers in the Majors, and he improved on both metrics by tossing a scoreless inning of relief behind Cam Schlittler today. Meanwhile, Headrick is striking out close to 30% of opposing hitters and walking just 7.9%, so he’s maintained the strengths he showed in limited action last year.
Sometimes, pitchers can improve on the surface while they actually benefit from good luck on batted balls. That’s not the case with Headrick. Last year’s .260 BABIP has increased to .324 in 2026, considerably above the .289 league-wide BABIP. Yet even with worse batted ball luck, Headrick ranks among the game’s elite at run prevention.
A more noticeable change has been Headrick’s newfound ability to limit hard contact. Last year, hitters had an average exit velocity of 89.4 mph along with a hard-hit rate of 40.9%. Headrick was worse than average in both areas, with an average exit velo of 91.1 mph and a 42.6% hard-hit rate. He’s reined in both of those figures in 2026. Hitters now average 88.0 mph in balls in play off Headrick, and only 37.0% of batted balls against him are hard hit.
The improvements with managing contact quality show up in Headrick’s individual pitches as well. He’s actually decreased his four-seam fastball usage by around 15% in favor of more sliders and splitters, plus the occasional sinker. The result has has been a 7% drop in hard-hit rate off the four-seamer, which now has a +8 Run Value and rates as Headrick’s most valuable pitch despite below-average velocity. Meanwhile, he’s added 2.4 mph of velocity to the slider, and opponents’ slugging percentage against the pitch has fallen from .500 in 2025 to just .310 in 2026. The splitter has also become an effective put-away option, as Headrick has a 47.1% strikeout rate on that pitch while allowing only a .265 slugging percentage.
In the end, Headrick has dominated by deploying his pitch mix more effectively and limiting hard contact across the board. With that kind of approach, there’s ample reason to believe he can keep it up in 2027, if not quite to his current level of dominance. Headrick’s 86.2% strand rate is far higher than the league average of 72.3%. Furthermore, as dominant as his ERA is, the lefty’s 3.00 expected ERA and 2.93 SIERA put his true performance about a full run higher. Of course, if the only drawback is that Headrick should merely be “very good” rather than elite, then there are worse problems for the Yankees to have.
All this leaves Headrick in a fascinating position as far as his contract goes. Because he spent most of 2024 on the minor league injured list and was shuffled back and forth last year, he entered 2026 with less than one year of service time. He’ll end this season with close to two years of service, so 2027 will be another pre-arbitration year. If he were eligible for arbitration, he would have a good argument for a nice raise over his near-minimum salary of $792.7K. Instead, he may still end up making less than $1MM despite being one of this year’s most dominant relievers.
There’s also the matter of reliever volatility. It’s rare for even the best relievers to maintain such a high level of performance over multiple seasons. From that lens, the Yankees have little incentive to look at a multi-year contract for Headrick. They rarely give out extensions anyway, particularly for relievers. In fact, according to our Contract Tracker, the last time they did so for a reliever was when they added one year and $18MM onto Aroldis Chapman’s deal in November 2019.
Despite his dominance, there’s virtually no chance Headrick gets an extension at this stage in his career. For now, the Yankees will challenge him to dominate again in 2027, with his pre-arb status being a useful hedge in case he declines. For his part, Headrick has taken real steps forward in 2026 and should remain effective in 2027, perhaps building a case for nice arbitration raises in 2028 and beyond.
Photo courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Imagn Images
Hence then, the article about a look at brent headrick s breakout campaign was published today ( ) and is available on MLBtraderumors ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( A Look At Brent Headrick’s Breakout Campaign )
Also on site :
- 2002 Movie Musical, Starring Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Has an 87% Rotten Tomatoes Score and Won Best Picture
- 1984 Johnny Depp Movie, With a 94% Rotten Tomatoes Score, Ranked Among ‘Best Horror Movies of All Time’
- Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Son Archie Has Adorable Accent In the Duchess’s First Video Since U.K. Return