Brent Headrick’s Surprising Reliever Surge | MLB News

0:00It's September 14th. This is MLB News today, AI-powered stories shaping the season. Remember back in January when we were talking about the Yankees bullpen and who might step up? We looked at a few guys internally, like Jake Bird, Cade Winquest, Yeri De La Santos, El Marrad Rigaez and Chase Hampton. Fast forward to now, and only De La Santos and Rodriguez are still with the team. Winquest got sent back to St. Louis without even playing a game. Bird got traded to the Nationals and Hampton was just designated for Simon and also ended up with the Nationals. The initial plan was to fill out the middle innings behind the main guys. De La Santos has bounced between the miners and majors, pitching a decent amount with a low earned run average. Rodriguez has been used as a starter sometimes, but his ERA isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. The only one from that original list, who's actually stuck in the bullpen all year and has had a surprising season, is Brent Hedrick. Hedrick was kind of a long shot. The twins drafted him, but he wasn't great with them.

1:04The Yankees picked him up off waivers in February of last year, and he showed some flashes of potential with a good strikeout rate and low walk rate. In a small sample. People thought maybe he couldn't keep it up, especially with how often hitters were making solid contact. But Hedrick has completely flipped the script. He's pitched a ton of innings for a reliever, way more than before, and his earned run average is incredibly low. He's striking out a lot of guys and keeping his walks down, basically maintaining the strengths he showed last year, but on a much bigger scale. He's even gotten better at limiting hard hits and has adjusted his pitch mix, throwing more sliders and splitters, which are now his most effective. Weapons. It's pretty wild because contract-wise, he's still in a pre-arbitration year. This means, even though he's been one of the best relievers in the league, he's likely making less than a million dollars. The Yankees don't usually give out extensions to relievers, so they'll probably just see if he can do it again next year. He's definitely earned himself a case for a big raise down the line though.