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The New York Yankees made only modest additions to their bullpen last winter, signing veteran Ryan Yarbrough to a small deal and acquiring Angel Chivilli from the Rockies. With David Bednar returning as closer after arriving at the 2025 trade deadline, the club lost Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Jonathan Loaisiga, among others. New York also inked former starter Paul Blackburn to a modest $2MM pact—a move that may have been the best $2MM the club spent all season.
The 32-year-old Blackburn had spent most of his career as a back-end starter with the Athletics, a mediocre innings eater and little more. He was dealt to the Mets at the 2024 trade deadline, and after a dozen unremarkable appearances, he was cut in August of last season. The Yankees picked him up as a long reliever to close out the year, and despite underwhelming results, they brought him back on a major league deal. That decision paid off handsomely.
Blackburn delivered 85 innings of 1.59 ERA ball as a key member of manager Aaron Boone's bullpen, leading the league in ERA among pitchers who threw at least 80 innings. The rest of the top five is a star-studded list: Shohei Ohtani, Cam Schlittler, Jacob Misiorowski, and Chris Sale. Blackburn also picked up 11 holds and a save.
Key Analysis
Blackburn benefited from the typical velocity bump that comes with a move to the bullpen, with all three of his fastballs—four-seamer, sinker, and cutter—gaining 1-2 mph this year. He leads with the sinker, which had a different shape in 2026: three fewer inches of vertical break and a bit more horizontal movement. The biggest pitch-mix change was increased changeup usage, jumping from under 10% in 2025 to 21.4% this season, his highest rate since the shortened 2020 campaign. The changeup held opponents to a meager .090 batting average and .154 slugging percentage, and its 12 Run Value made it one of the more effective offspeed pitches in the game, trailing only Walbert Urena, Cristopher Sanchez, and Bradgley Rodriguez by that metric.
Unlike many dominant late-inning options, Blackburn didn't miss many bats. His 20.5% strikeout rate was only slightly above his career mark. Instead, he thrived on groundballs and soft contact, generating grounders at a hefty 54.9% clip and ranking in the 86th percentile in average exit velocity. Both his changeup and curveball produced average exit velocities below 84 mph. The approach is interesting—his arsenal is similar to Nick Martinez's elite sinker/changeup combo supported by a cutter and curveball, but Martinez hardly gets any groundballs, instead allowing soft contact in the air.
Detractors can point to a 3.68 xERA, a 3.92 xFIP, and a 5.85 SIERA—one of the largest gaps between that stat and an ERA you'll see. A .230 BABIP and an 88.9% left-on-base rate are unsustainable. But the home run suppression seems real, and the sample size was larger than most relievers. There's at least enough here to not completely dismiss this as one magical season. Blackburn certainly earned himself another big-league deal in 2027.
Originally reported by yardbarker.