The Yankees, after waiting until the 11th hour—metaphorically at least—to bolster the bullpen, have added another arm in the wake of the David Bednar deal. For the second time this month
, they’ve come to terms with the typically trade-averse Rockies, New York has acquired right-handed reliever Jake Bird, with prospects Roc Riggio and Ben Shields heading to Colorado in the exchange.Riggio, the Yankees’ 2023 fourth-rounder out of Oklahoma State, recently ascended to No. 22 on Baseball America’s midseason
ranking of Yankee prospects. He’s spent the majority of 2025 at Double-A, where his .542 SLG immediately catches the eye.
Shields, for his part, is an undrafted left-handed pitcher. The Yankees signed him out of George Mason University last year. He too has made it as far as Double-A this season, and for the year, he’s started nine games and pitched to a 3.03 ERA across four levels.
As for Jake Bird, the newest Yankee? His ERA doesn’t jump off the page in a good way. But as someone who’s watched a lot of Rockies baseball the past several years, that probably doesn’t mean too much. He’s adept at missing bats, having fanned 62 hitters in 53.1 innings, good for the 77th percentile in baseball in K-rate. He also boasts above-average metrics in Chase (62nd) and Whiff rate (71st).
Bird primarily relies on a sweeper-sinker mix, throwing the two pitches a combined 74 percent of the time. And the sweeper is good. Bird’s breaking ball run value sits in the 88th percentile of all of baseball.
We’ll see when Bird joins the club and first dons his pinstripes. But welcome to the Bronx, Jake Bird.
More from pinstripealley.com:
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- On the ranging impact of the Ryan McMahon trade
- Yankees acquire Amed Rosario from Nationals
- Aaron Judge heading to the IL with a flexor strain
- Yankees 2025 draft tracker: 18 of 19 draftees sign
- Pinstripe Alley’s Top 100 Yankees
- 2000 Yankees Diary: The 25th Anniversary of MLB’s Last Three-peat
