Just before the end of spring training 2025, the Yankees made a small move to address their swath of pitching injuries. The Blue Jays had informed lefty Ryan Yarbrough that he wouldn’t be making the team, so he exercised his opt-out, New York got in contact, and they quickly came to terms on a deal for the upcoming campaign.
With Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, and Marcus Stroman all missing significant time, it was a vital move for the first half of the season. Yarbrough pitched out of the bullpen
for the first month before stretching out to move into the rotation for May and June. Aside from one blowup at the hands of the Red Sox, the 33-year-old acquitted himself nicely in eight starts, highlighted by six innings of one-run ball on Sunday Night Baseball against the defending-and-eventual World Series champion Dodgers on June 1st.
Yarbrough was felled by an injury of his own in mid-June, as a bad oblique put him on the shelf until September, when the team was healthier and he wasn’t needed much. The Yankees liked what Yarbrough brought to the table though, and according to FanSided reporter Robert Murray, he will be back in 2026. The team is on the verge of re-signing him to a big-league deal:
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal confirmed the report.
Not every offseason needs to begin with a splash, and the return of Yarbrough is just your meat-and-potatoes sensible depth move. Cole’s Tommy John rehab will not be done by Opening Day and the team also already revealed that Carlos Rodón should miss the beginning of 2026 as well after a procedure to clean up loose bodies and a bone spur in his elbow.
So rather than locking themselves into a scramble to settle for a Carlos Carrasco type to fill out the roster, the Yankees have at least ensured that Yarbrough will be around for either a back-end rotation spot or long relief. Welcome back, Yarbs.
