Yankees 2024 Roster Report Cards: Tim Mayza

The Yankees ability to develop high-leverage relievers from other teams discarded players affords them even greater payroll flexibility to make significant roster decisions including a push to retain Juan Soto.

While perhaps not unlocked to the level of teammates Clay Holmes, Luke Weaver, Ian Hamilton, and Jake Cousins, Tim Mayza was a serviceable enough option after joining midseason as one of the few left-handed arms in the Bombers bullpen just not serviceable enough for a 2025 contract.

Grade: C 2024 Yankees Statistics: 15 games, 18 IP, 4.00 ERA (105 ERA+), 3.94 FIP, 3.93 xFIP, 6.00 K/9, 1.50 BB/9, 1.167, 0.0 fWAR 2025 Contract Status: Non-tendered on November 22nd free agent.

Mayza spent the first three months of the season pitching for the Blue Jays, the team that drafted and developed him.

An 8.03 ERA across his first 35 appearances led Toronto to designate him for assignment on June 29th, and he was granted his release six days later.

The Yankees picked him up on a minor league deal on July 10th, and after pitching to a 2.16 ERA in nine games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he was signed to a major league contract and selected to the active roster.

Mayzas Yankees career didnt get off on the best foot, as he got tagged for three runs in the 12th inning of a loss to the Guardians in his second appearance for his new team.

He steadied the ship from there, holding opponents to six earned runs across his final 16 appearances (3.24 ERA) to earn a spot on the postseason roster.

He made three scoreless appearances in the playoffs, recording two outs in each of the Yankees losses in Game 2 of the ALDS and Game 3 of the ALCS before finishing their lone win in the World Series by pitching a scoreless ninth in Game 4.

Alongside Tim Hill, Mayza was one of only two southpaw relievers in the Yankees bullpen.

He was used almost exclusively as a lefty specialist, particularly after Ron Marinaccios extreme regression robbed the relief corps of an arm that could neutralize southpaws.

Its easy to see why the Yankees were hesitant to allow Mayza to face righties he held lefties to a .273 wOBA but got crushed by righties to the tune of a .438 wOBA.

Mayza was one of the best relievers in baseball in 2023, placing in the top-ten in ERA (1.52) and groundball rate (58.2-percent).

He earned a lot of that value by throwing his sinker in the zone, the pitchs movement and interplay with the shape of his slider making it a top-eight sinker in baseball by Statcasts Run Value metric at 13 runs better than average.

But then he lost a mile per hour and a few inches of movement off both the sinker and slider in 2024, and the results turned middling-to-bad almost immediately.

A career strikeout rate of 25.7-percent plummeted over ten points to 14.4-percent while also losing almost 12 percentage points off his groundball rate from the previous four seasons.

Despite performing well enough for the Yankees in his well-defined role, the regression in the strikeout and groundball departments and his projected $4 million salary in his third and final season of arbitration eligibility meant Mayza was a no-brainer candidate to be non-tendered.

Indeed, the team declined to offer him a contract for the 2025 season, making the 32-year-old lefty a free agent.

A $4 million price tag is simply too much to for a mop-up reliever, and the Yankees have to feel confident they can replace if not improve upon his production with one of the many arms in their minor-league system, if not another teams scrap heap..

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