The Yankees are currently going through quite the injury crisis on their pitching staff. In the last few days, key arms such as Fernando Cruz and Ryan Weathers have gone down, not to mention Max Fried and Kervin Castro in early August.
Fried is on the verge of returning, and Clarke Schmidt is getting closer, too. However, the team needed short-term solutions and added right-hander Justin Topa this week. The 35-year-old veteran has had a rough showing in 2026 so far, with an 8.05 ERA in 19 innings
with the Minnesota Twins.
Despite registering a horrible 11/12 BB/K ratio and allowing 1.89 homers per nine innings in the very small sample in the majors this year, Topa has the potential to be a solid depth reliever for the Yankees, especially in light of their recent injuries.
A few things to consider: Topa has a 4.27 career ERA, but a much better 3.58 FIP. He is a groundball machine, producing an elite 57.4 percent ground-ball rate so far this year.
Topa last pitched in the majors in May. He joined the Yankees’ organization in mid-August after stints with the Toronto Blue Jays and the Kansas City Royals, and logged five innings in Scranton, allowing a single run and striking out two.
Topa’s role with the Yankees will likely be minor, but he does have the potential to turn into a useful piece. In fact, he has done it before. He was, in fact, more than just a decent reliever in both 2023 and 2025. Three years ago, he put up a 2.61 ERA with the Seattle Mariners in 69 innings, with a 1.14 WHIP and 61 punchouts. Then, last year, Topa had a 3.90 ERA in 60 innings with the Twins.
Topa is a sinker-cutter guy with nice height (6’4”) but sub-optimal extension (5th percentile), but that’s fairly common in sinkerballers so it shouldn’t be anything alarming. He also throws a sweeper, which could unlock his potential as we will explain in a bit, and a changeup.
It sounds straightforward, but part of the reason behind his struggles in the majors this year simply has to do with the sinker not yielding positive results. The pitch has a .445 wOBA against and has shown diminished velo this year, averaging 93.4 mph after checking in at 94.2 mph last year and 95 mph in his best season, 2023. If the Yankees can get that number back up on a consistent basis, the outcomes will improve.
Topa’s control is usually much better than what he showed in Minnesota this year. He walked 12 percent of batters in the limited sample at our disposal at the MLB level in 2026, but his career mark is 7.1 percent (a 2.8 BB/9) . If he can improve the velocity of the sinker and get some swings and misses with his sweeper, he has some upside.
The sweeper is crucial to his success. The pitch had a 33-percent whiff rate last year, but in 2026, the number has dramatically dropped to 5.9 percent. He is throwing it slower, at 81.6 mph compared to 82.9 mph on average in 2025, so the drop in velo could have affected the pitch’s shape. Hitters now sit on it with ease.
The pitch behaved like this in 2025:
Luckily for Topa, the Yankees’ internal pitching development staff is elite and knows what it’s doing when dealing with breaking balls. Hopefully, they can straighten up the pitch so Topa can return to his best form.
Whether he is an up-and-down guy or quietly earns a spot in the bullpen, the addition of Topa could help solve a short-term need and has the potential to be a bit more than that. It’s disappointing to lose Cruz, but the Yankees will at least have the next month of play to take a long look at the unlikely arms who could step up and take part of his workload.
