SWOT Analysis: Yankees Starting Pitching (2026 Preview) | 1329

0:00Water usually wins. It rots wood and tears docks apart. Unless you build with trecks. Trecks marine grade decking is 100% submersible. Built to resist rod and solid and fresh water. Water has met its match. Trecks decking. Visit trecks.com-slash-docks. Turn your names. Come, bells, wethers, daisies. Hello and welcome to your 2026 New York Yankees SWAT analysis. That's right. What is the starting rotation strength? Brought to you by T-Mobile. What are their weaknesses? Where are their opportunities? And what are the threats they will be facing over the course of the season? My name is Jimmy. His name is Jake BBD's here. And we're going to break it down for you.

1:02Jake, how are you? James Davis, everyone tuning in. The good news is, and we didn't realize this going in, the infields in our rear view. And I think the upcoming parts of the team are a little more strength, which is what the S stands for in SWAT. The fourth of these episodes, the bullpen, we'll get dicey again. But the starting pitching in the outfield, they seem very fun. We're doing the starting pitching right now. Players that will be spoken about, Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Garrett Cole, Camschlet, they're Will Warren, Ryan Weathers, Luis Heel, Elmer Rodriguez, Carlos Littlegrant, hey, maybe Ryan Yarbrough, Paul Blackburn, Clark Schmidt. Clark's really getting dogged in my brain, everyone else's because Cole and Rodon are also hurt. So he's just like, if you're third on the potential injury or turn list, you're kind of just an afterthought, which is not fair, but it's what's happening. Third on the timeline, and like third of those guys career so far. So yeah, tough for Clark, a great guy, sweet.

2:02And yeah, I'll spin this towards what you mentioned about the bullpen, where he said things could get dice K again. You just said a lot of names that this will have a ripple effect into the bullpen. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, someone will go somewhere. Uh-huh. You ready? Should we start then? Yes. Because you kind of mentioned one of the big S's. Yes. Yankees starting pitching strengths depth and high end when healthy. The Yankees have three guys in their rotation who have nine figure contracts. Other teams don't have that. And they've earned those. Yes. And just get handed that willy nilly. And there's someone listening right now that, well, there's a lot of people hopefully listening that, uh, this is all new knowledge and you're starting the season, you're saying I want to learn. But there's also people that, uh, you know, Yankees fans have been watching and they're mad saying, Slutler is also high end too, because I'm counting freed Cole and, um, Rodon.

3:04And while I don't disagree with you, hold your horses. He doesn't fit in that category just yet. You ever held a horse? Yeah, I've written horses. Which holds a horse. I mean, carried or held because I can hold on when they walk them with just the, uh, yeah. I don't think I've ever done that. Well, I think I did that recently at like a pony ride count of pony. You are in charge of the, oh, pony. These are no ponies, Jim. No, that's a different team. And I, you know, you'll hear about Cam, you'll hear about Cam Slutler, uh, probably more towards opportunities. But in strengths, Max freed, finished fourth in the Saiyung last year, could have been third has the best ERA of all pitchers pitching since he's been pitching basically, um, Carlos Rodon put together an amazing year, 33 starts at 309 ERA, 195.1 innings. Him and freed both through 195.1 innings. That's weird. Yes. And then Garrett Cole, who has been, uh, the Yankees pitching captain, the Yankees.

4:08He's been there A's previous today. He won the Saiyung in 23 people forget that because a whole year was so bad outside of it. And he's supposed to be back and healthy when he returns, same with Rodon. I haven't heard much about Rodon recently, but he was supposed to be ahead of Cole. So I'm very interested on that. Now I have my own stat. There's game scores, um, famously Bill James traded pitcher, game scores, but I don't really like his that much and he gave up his whole religion of baseball at a certain point. Yeah. Mine is more simple than his because I'm for the people that are learning the sport. My game score, if you want to know, and I can, you can just, I can tweet it out if you don't understand it. But, uh, for every out recorded in the first inning, you get a point, okay? That's fair, Jake. For every out recorded after the sixth inning, because there is, there is, those outs are worth more. You save bullpen. You help the team out. It's one, uh, point three, three. So one and a third point. So you get a little extra. So if you pitch the seventh inning, that's two points instead of, you know, six points. Yes.

5:09Uh, then I'm going to take away earned runs, you're going to minus those from the innings, from the out you've recorded, you minus earned runs. And then I'm going to minus half for an unearned run, because I still think pitchers got to help the fielders out as much as fielders got to help pitchers out. You would think Max Fried was the best in the stat on the Yankees, on the Yankees. And he was, but then I like to look at percentage of games where you got at least 10 points. Cause if you get, don't get 10 points, it's a dud start. Like I labeled it as a dud, dud start, you, you didn't give your team a chance to win. You actually like forced them to save your ass or you sabotaged the game in a way. If you don't get that far, it's like four innings, four and runs type starts, uh, Carlos Rodan was unbelievable at not having a dud start last year. His game log, if he didn't go crazy, if he didn't give you seven innings pitch, zero

6:09earned runs that much, that's okay. He had a 3% dud per cent. And so he had one start where he did not give the team a chance to win. Carlos Rodan season is overshadowed by Max Fried's deservedly so, but in some ways, he was really the horse that helped save the bullpen at times, because Max Fried went through that rough stretch after a real star game when he had blisters and was relying on the sinker too much. And Rodan was just a kind of a stable force throughout helping the team like chug along. So I feel like his season isn't being reflected on as good as it was. Yeah, uh, six in the side young and he took the ball every day. And like we said, I, you know, the innings are the exact same. The ERA is a notch off, which is in a way, nothing, but in a way, something like I think if you go through the game logs a little bit, it does feel a little different than what Fried did last year. And especially early on in the season when Fried was the bonafide stopper, like he established himself, um, in that classic traditional ace role, uh, first year as a Yankee too.

7:15Yeah, Max Fried got average 16 points, uh, six points and Rodan 15. Now Clark Schmidt, only 14 starts, but you forget he was on his way. So I feel bad he's not being mentioned to you because it would be his fourth year as a starting pitch or he's, but the injuries are there and we'll see, but the, the point remains, the high end is unbelieveable. I made this point in the offseason while if we do in fact get Max Fried, Rodan and call all healthy and all performing to not, I don't need it to be the best year of their career, but on par with who they are, that's maybe the best one, two, three punch we've had since the early 2000s, late 90s, yeah. And it's like we're going to talk about in opportunities, um, and as we saw last post season, every year, you see young people, you just have to give yourself the most opportunities, like I think that's a phrase you're going to hear a lot when it comes to pitching going

8:15forward that, you know, and someone can have a great C Carlos Rodan as post season, his last start, he got rocked and then he got surgery. So like, who's going to be there by the end, uh, and the Yankees have three guys potentially that can be special along with young guys who, again, they don't have the resume that these guys, unlike the infield episode where the opportunities was kind of a weakness for the starting pitching, the depth is the opportunity. So we'll get to a lot of those guys in the O section, we have to get with the cruise through W first, but the, the strength is, is the opportunities, which we'll get to, but then yeah, high end and yes, you heal, Schlittler, Erk, Lagunae, like could be joining one of those guys, we didn't talk about, we have had last year and he, yeah, and we didn't talk about heal the year before that and he won't work you there. So like, yes, there's even the high end potential is very, very high, but that brings us to W today's episode is sponsored by MLB, this show, it's almost here and the world baseball

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10:24And some of these other pitchers were not exactly sure what we're going to get, whether you call coming back from injury, you second year of will Warren that we've seen other second years of pitchers go wrong, that yeah, it, it should feel a little open and ended it first and that can be scary. It is. I mean, again, hopefully the opportunity has become a strength there, but yeah, weaknesses would be that and also, I think the weaknesses is a big threat. I don't know, the weaknesses are threat of injury and then I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, last year, we would have said Strowman and Cookie Karrowska, like one of those guys could like ruin five starts for us and we're stuck and we're not going to make them move fast enough. I don't even see that happening here. I, I do. Who, who do you think has the most leash to cause the most damage? Heal, weather's because they got a lot of starters.

11:25Uh, well, I guess so maybe part of this is building off injury again because we're, as we record this, it's March 6th that we're already in some injury world that with this step, um, I would also, I'd throw Yarborough and Blackburn in the mix, just I like those guys. I liked what Yarborough did. I liked how Blackburn looked early on in spring, but if those guys find themselves with an opportunity in the rotation, they have majorly contracts that you just wonder how the Yankees could juggle that Blackburn's the answer to my question and I think I, I was, uh, I was just, I was just a mental block for me because I didn't, I wanted to avoid it. But yeah, they have guys with majorly contracts who have starting pitching experience that they've brought back that they would prioritize over the wow of ER or Le Grande. And if they're like injured enough that they need them to start like, they're starting. I think so. Yeah.

12:25I think you're right. I, I don't know how long that could last because they, they, they did get better last year pulling plugs and they do have these guys in waiting, uh, especially if like Rodriguez is off of a flyer start in the World Baseball Classic. And then Blackburn's struggling. And I mean, as we talked about how pitchers can be, you know, we're talking where Luis Hill is now compared to where he's been the past two years. Like the, it's part of the reason we're a little more nervous about Schlitler season. But I guess between Le Grande who has just a different world of potential because no, you know, not many guys can throw as hard as he can on the planet. I would say I guess calling myself out on the weaknesses, I think ER as a pitching prospect as a guy who has a ton of pitches as a guy who profiles as a starting pitcher because of what he does. I think if there was only one of those buttons to press, I'd be a little more worried.

13:27But like what you said, and as we record this, we could be a good ER opportunity away from him, like banging on the door of the rotation. So maybe that's a positive spin. Yes. Um, at the end, Biebs, I have some just, just over under questions for Jake about the staff as a unit that I'll, I'll go to at the end. That'll be called SWAT exclamation. SWA-U-U, oh, oh, oh, opportunities. Elmer Rodriguez, Cruz, formerly, will he get a chance? La Grande, I mean, Paul Blackburn's getting an opportunity. Weathers is getting a big opportunity to prove himself on a bigger stage and a, in a bigger role. So kind of everyone that hasn't gotten a contract has an opportunity to pitch themselves into a rotation mainstay. The depth is pretty well. I mean, even Ryan Yarbrough signed back with the Yankees because he might get another opportunity to make 10 starts in a season

14:29and be a mainstay in the rotation. So the depth is incredible. Yeah, I think I think this is actually a pretty cool section because I I would wonder if we swatted in past years, I don't think it would feel like this. The arrival of camp slitler felt a lot different than anything we felt in a long time. His height, his throw with ease, his ability, the potential, the demeanor. In the postseason, like we he checked every box instantly that camp slitler, I think, you know, has the opportunity to blow the doors off this season. Ryan Weathers, you know, the different things we've heard about him from around the league. Like it's more of a health risk than kind of a talent risk plus going to the Yankees pitching organization with Matt Blake and everything else. Ryan Weathers has some real opportunity there. And then I feel bad for young Will Warren because like Will Warren has some stuff. He's he had a very nice

15:31rookie pitching season that just gets overshadowed by everything else we've talked about. Yeah. And some of his underlying metrics will warn are way better than how it felt because some of his stuff was proving like there was like the best four seam fastball and baseball for a stretch. But he had some games speaking of like duds like he had offhand I know of three where it wasn't even a losing effort. It was the games over after the second inning. I was Toronto Dodgers and was it the Red Sox? I don't know, but it was all division opponents. So we were like, wow, is this a bad sign? Like what does this mean? It was like the three games we went into being like, all right, opportunity for Will Warren to stamp himself and those three games are the ones that were like the biggest duds. But much like Clark Schmidt in his second year, whatever he was, he went the distance. Yeah, stayed in the rotation. There's value to that. He was tied for second in the majors

16:32and starts tied for first in the American league. Like that's pretty good. He tied with heel for strikeouts, heels year before. 171 strikeouts, second most by Yankee's rookie. So that's good. Who's the most severino maybe or probably like Gidry was just the third Yankee's rookie to make at least 33 starts in the season. So Will Warren's 22 starts allowing tour and runs or fewer where the second most by Yankee's rookie ever. So his good was good. But I don't think he went out of innings. So I think I don't know what I want for Warren. Yeah, specifically. Do I want more innings? And I don't care about your a as much. That was like for Clark at one point. I was like, dude, Clark, you've got to get past the fifth. Yeah, he did that at times. It's finding the consistency. And he's like a David Cone broadcast dream where I think David Cone might see some of himself in young Will Warren, maybe not demeanor wise, but you know, the pitching arm talent isn't that far off is his rookie year is impressive by a lot of notes. It's just where is the ceiling. And

17:33we get distracted by everybody else's ceilings when Will Warren on the Mike King on the Clark Schmidt path. It feels like there's a way to get better. So yeah, it's kind of I feel like in previous years, our opportunity section would be Will Warren. And we're more excited about Camp Schletler, Elmer Rodriguez, Ryan Weathers. You have me nervous now. Like how much run are they going to give Blackburn, RB if they need to start? I think they're still going to I think they'll go to the I think they have so many good arms. I think Warren's going to get a full shot. They love Warren. He deserves it. Weathers is very interesting to me. They really like what they have in him. Ryan David Weathers. I like what you can do with burns. You know, right. Weathers the storm. Right. You can do that. Weathers enough. Yeah. Here I come. I'm interested in Weathers. Yeah, that's been an afterthought. A lot of afterthoughts for me. Wow. And in high school, Weathers went 10 to know with a 0.09 ERA. Hey, this is mostly for us, but if you get a second, look at

18:40Travis high school stats. Trevor Trevor was so good. Oh, yeah. I can give up one home run and those were the only ones he gave up who hit it was like a major. Does he know who hit it up? Yeah, I forget who it was. It was a guy who like made the meds briefly. Yeah. All right. We're on weaknesses right now. Opportunity we just wrapped up. I think it's all right. Well, just real quick. Heal has an opportunity to make me not nervous because I'm currently for how like you I shouldn't be not I shouldn't be as lukewarm as him as I am. I think I should have more excitement, but I really don't. His end of spring in April are going to dictate pretty much how everyone feels about Luizio. And hey, as we recorded this his last spring training outing, he upped his VLO a little bit. And I guess for me, it's the mental checklist of does it make sense? And if you do Luizio's last year, okay, he came back in August. He missed spring. He had a

19:46significant injury like does the recipe not make sense? So I don't know what that means for this year, but I think the recipe could be different if he gets piled up at spring training. And if he could get a little momentum going like, Luis, Luis, he'll start. He used to be like the most fun day of 2024. Yeah. I also think that that was a little bit like where we're at. And Schiller, like you said, most exciting we've had where it's like, Oh, this is like way more fun. Not as first to couple first, but once you put it together as well, they're different, you know, they were different desserts. My worry about heel is he's effectively wild. And that leads to a lot of walks. I worry that if he's not effectively wild, he's not effective. So in my brain, he's in this like weird pusher pull of like, if you're more consistent in the zone, you might just get hit more. And the obnoxious thing we we're so into advanced stats is pitching where like what you just said, I don't think baseball can measure yet. No, they're trying. Luis Hills. If we went back and this

20:48was talking Yanks 1995, Luis Hills 11 starts with a three three two. We say that was better than his rookie of the year. So let's let's see. Okay. Fair enough. Hey threats to this Yankees rotation, like any pitching or any position unit really, it's the health. But I guess it initially starts with the rehab of these the main cogs we started with. Colin wrote on who we started this excited about and a lot of teams don't have the opportunity to have those guys on their rosters. They're currently rehabbing. So if something goes wrong there, it could really affect the season coming off of what we just mentioned about Luis Hill last year. And then the 2025 workloads. Again, this could be glass half full glass half empty depending how you spin it. But we had freed Rodon Warren Schlittler all pitched their career high innings in 2025. So again, you could spin that as that can be a great thing to build on for the young guys. You could factor that in as do you have in front of

21:52you or in your memory brains, the biggest jumps like Cam Schlittler was a big jump. If I recall correctly, because I remember when Nestor did it, we were worried. But then Nestor was like, I always pitch in winter ball. So if you look at my total innings, like it really wasn't that crazy and that made us last crazy about the jump. Like I'm worried about Cam for sure. Because his jump, I believe, was significant and his Vila was way up. Then miners. So I don't know if you know, that could have more on the arm. He's throwing harder as the adrenaline's allowed turned into a different. He became different. He went from throwing 90, 90 poo to 98. But for Will Warren, in my brain, it's more gradual of an increase. So then I wouldn't be as worried. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, let's see. Doing quick math in 2024, it looks like Schlittler threw a buck 20. Last year, if you combine the minor, if you combine the minor leagues, it looks

22:59like it's closer to 160. So I don't know. I guess for myself, for young pitchers, nobody knows. Like there's not an organization that has it figured out. I think it's person by person, body type by body type. But like you said, with Cam Schlittler, like Will Warren didn't have an insane change. Cam Schlittler had something different happened, which again, it's something to monitor. And the Yankees clearly are early on. And he had a little side thing. So that has us nervous. But yeah, I don't think there is a perfect recipe out there that I would say on this list, the thing I'm most threatened by threats would be Max Fried, like Max Fried was a dog last year, and we needed it. Like, I think if we relive some of the Max Fried moments, it's actually more like gut wrenching that by the time we saw when he got to the postseason, he didn't have a lot of sauce left either. I think the bludgers were a bad matchup, but not a bad matchup to the level that Max Fried showed. So I would be interested. What Max Fried did last year is hard

24:05to replicate by any baseball player that this year could feel different. Let's just have him be awesome. Or he's just whitey Ford reborn. Yeah, is whitey whitey's. All right, Pete. Lakes, he died at lake success. You allowed to call something that? I think you're allowed to call something that. It's man-made lake. Like this was a success. Born in a story. Nice. Do you think there's any, we've said a lot of names and we're spending that as a good thing. Could it be a weird thing at any point? Is it like, weather has three bad starts? And we're like, I don't know. Well, that's kind of the question I was asking you is they will get to the bullpen episode, but some of these guys are going to be sent to the bullpen. Right. If there's other options, it might even be like part of a plant to limit innings at some points. Like, hey, we're going to actually skip you for two weeks, but we'll use you on

25:05three days out of the pen. Yeah, I have no idea if that's real. I doubt like right now that set in stone on paper and their plans, but it's something that could happen. I wouldn't doubt it. If we're all healthy. Um, so my brain is kind of like when I was asking you is who wouldn't do that? Right. I don't think we'll warn. I think he's going to get the shot more over weather's and heal. Because I don't think his stuff plays in the bullpen as well where like, he'll might be better and weather's just as new if he like really struggles. And he's got options and he got years like you'd rather just like, yeah, the only thing I'd thrown will warn again, we're almost rude to him. Like his fastball Velo is the same as heals last year and he's like peaking in spring training, but he pitches to he is fastball is not a here's my fastball hit it fastball. His fastball is I just use the sinker. I just use the cutter. Here's another slow pitch and bam, he pitches backwards with the fastball sneak attacks at the end where like, heal and slow there have a here's my fastball. I dare you to hit it. Yeah, I see what you're saying,

26:10but I could, you know, also I obviously this comparison doesn't need to be made at all, but like, you know, if we watch Luke Weaver be a starting pitcher before he moved to the pen. So I don't know, we'll want to have that in him. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Blackburn is now my biggest worry. And I'm rooting for him, but I don't want him to be like, well, we're going to give it to Blackburn again. If he, if he, if they have an injury, he finds way in the rotation and then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, really? Hey, and I can, I, I, I weaved and I'll weave again. Like Blackburn could be a delightful bullpen piece this year. So maybe it's yes, I'm fine with that. Yeah, it's the, it's stuck in the rotation. They don't pull him out. The many paths of spring training that are laid out in front of us. Swat. Oh, the Yankees recorded 11 shutouts in 2025. Zero complete games the entire season will we see a complete game pitched, not a complete game shutout necessarily, but at least one pitcher go the distance, all nine innings for the Yankees and 20, 20,

27:15six. I'd love to see actual odds on it. I, I would say yes. One. Yeah. Will warrant. That's crazy. That's the crazy part. Sneaky, sneaky. Okay. The team's most strikeouts in a nine and a game last season was 15. They did it three different times. Oh, is a team as a team. Will they get more than that this year? I would think so. Yeah. You got more surprise by that number. Yeah. More Schlitler have like a 12 strikeout game. You got to remember the whole pen couldn't strike out shit last year. It was a pitch to contact bullpen. So, in the year before. So I think with the bullpen being more a Velo strikeout guys, I think we should get higher than that number. We should beat 15. I'm in. They got 16 in a 10 in the game. All right. The fewest hits allowed in the game was one hit and they did it three times. Will we get a Yankees no hitter combined or solo? I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no. Remember her mom? Perfect. Game pitched by her mom. Fried had 22 team wins. The team won 22 games

28:24in Max Fried starts. Second most in the American League type for third most and major league baseball. Crazy. Will we see one pitcher have dominant win numbers? No, it's not why people are here right now. I was saying no, like that's that's very impressive. Very impressive. And also it would only be freed or will warn because no one else is going pull to pull. Yeah. Schlitler. Currently don't have that happening. But you know, he saw some pitch, right? I but I think he's assigned to. I think they announced he's going to set a dead don't and I don't think it happened yet. So they keep doing. And then he still needs to get healthy by opening today just as we're recording. It's today. And this comes out today. All right. So I'm interested to see how many pitches. So comment how he did twice. Well, thank you guys for tuning in. I know there were some people disappointed. The PPPs aren't back. But ultimately the time sacrifice to

29:27views ratio on those. This is much more better efficient spirited way to tackle previewing the season. We thank you though. We thank you for wanting more out of us. And comment your favorite lake and what lakes can be named or can't be named Lake Marie fake lake. John Prime reference done it twice now. Goodbye. Alvita's in. And letters. Yeah, I got to watch him more, Evan. Lauren. I don't know what I'm thinking about him. He'll. Yarby. The World Baseball Classic is back. Take on real-life World Baseball Classic teams from all over the world with your diamond dynasty squad in the online mode. Step up to the plate and brand new World Baseball Classic ball parks. Create your legacy from the first pitch to the final

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