Everything is connected in roster construction, such as the establishment of Austin Wells as a full-time starter in 2024, which resulted in the Yankees feeling comfortable enough to deal their veteran
catcher, José Trevino, for some bullpen help. This is how New York ended up acquiring Fernando Cruz and his deadly splitter from the Cincinnati Reds during the previous offseason.
While this rightfully didn’t qualify under the pile of potentially season-defining moves, it does represent the sort of minor savvy acquisition that, in the end, helps add up to make a good organization really good. Despite missing basically two months with a left oblique strain, Cruz managed to pitch 51.2 generally productive innings, with the total counting the postseason.
Grade: B
2025 Statistics: 48 IP, 3.56 ERA (115 ERA+), 3.18 FIP, 16 holds, 36.0 K%, 12.8 BB%, 0.8 fWAR
2026 Contract Status: Entering first year of arbitration (MLBTR projected salary: $1.3M)
Unlike other recent bullpen additions who showed an unforeseen improvement once working with the Yankees coaching staff, such as Luke Weaver (to name one), Cruz’s upside was a little more on the nose. A great number of Yankee fans probably expected this type of quality season from him, and that boiled down to one simple fact. While run prevention wasn’t where it needed to be in Cincinnati, Cruz has been striking out batters at a ridiculous rate ever since his belated call to The Show at age-32 in 2022.
That splitter was a whiff machine, generating a swing-and-miss over half the time before he came over. The problem for Cruz was that everything else was getting crushed—fastballs, cutters, you name it. And surely you can’t solely rely on your splitter, can you?
The Yankees looked at Cruz’s numbers, and one of the first things they had him do was—quite simply—throw his splitter more often, much more often.
Anybody who’s followed baseball more closely in this recent era is aware of the trend of using your most effective pitches at a higher clip, even if it means a less conventional approach. There is always a balance to aspire to, but the days of everyone looking to build off their fastball, even if it isn’t a particularly good one, are over, particularly for relievers.
By using his splitter more often, Cruz was able to minimize the damage against his fastball, encouraging fewer swings in the zone, all while keeping his whiff rate terribly high. A drastic decrease in line-drive rate (going from 30.1 percent in 2024 to 24.8 percent in 2025) helps explain why the hard contact wasn’t as punished on the 34-year-old’s heater as it had been in previous campaigns, but it was still progress.
While the numbers show a solid but not necessarily an outstanding reliever—one capable of getting a strikeout when the situation calls upon it—Cruz’s season was more of an up-and-down campaign, undeniably affected by that injury. The right-handed reliever either presented himself as a shutdown option or got clobbered by any team that was on the schedule. In his first 16.2 innings of the campaign, Cruz held opponents to a 1.62 ERA through March, but then he ended the year with a 6.75 ERA in September, struggling heavily in his return. Walks in particular plagued the end of Cruz’s campaign, with his 10 in September by far the most he had in any month.
Someone more positive could point to Cruz’s limited success in the postseason as a sign of resiliency, and with a healthy season, he could produce even better numbers. After finishing off the year in an ugly fashion, Cruz was one of the few names who stepped up in the Yankee pen to cover 3.2 innings, getting charged with just one run to his name in the playoffs — albeit with shaky command and a couple inherited runners scoring as well.
For a team that needs to invest money elsewhere, the Yankees got a good deal with a controllable Cruz through many years, particularly due to the lack of a place for Trevino at the time of his departure. Age might not be on his side in his mid-thirties, but barring another trade, he’s one of the few confirmed names you can pencil in for a role in the 2026 bullpen.
