It’s hard to question the Toronto Blue Jays’ front office after the team came within two outs of winning the World Series in 2025, but even the best executives make their fair share of mistakes. Near the end of the 2025 Spring Training season, Ross Atkins and the Blue Jays made one of those mistakes. Following a lights-out second-half performance with the Jays in 2024, most expected southpaw Ryan Yarbrough to break camp with the team in 2025.
However, after signing a a minor league contract, Yarbrough wasn’t added to the Opening Day roster, thus giving him a chance to opt out of his deal. He did so, and turned around to settle into a swingman role with the New York Yankees. Now, he’s heading back to New York on a one-year deal as a key member of their pitching staff for 2026.
Ryan Yarbrough mistake won’t haunt Blue Jays, but helping Yankees is an unfortunate consequence
Yarbrough only faced the Blue Jays once in 2025, pitching 5.1 innings of relief in a Sept. 5 game that Toronto won 7-1. He was good in that outing, surrendering just one run on three hits, but his impact against his former team was minimal across the scope of the season.
Nevertheless, he’s the exact kind of valuable pitching depth every contender needs. Though his surface stats were nothing to write home about (4.36 ERA, 5.04 FIP), the 33-year-old southpaw was a versatile arm for the Yankees, making eight starts while handling 11 long-relief outings. His ability to pitch out of both the bullpen and rotation would have been valuable for a Blue Jays team that was missing José Berrios in October and had no reliable lefty in the bullpen after Eric Lauer.
Alas, Yarbrough will keep his excellent contact-management profile in the Bronx. Some will question the efficacy of a mid-30s reliever who throws one of the slowest fastballs in the sport (his average fastball velocity in 2025 was 87.5 mph), but the Yankees pitcher continued to generate elite exit velocities(86.1 mph, 97th percentile) and hard-hit rates (34.0%, 92nd percentile) in 2025.
Toronto was never all that likely to link back up with Yarbrough after the unceremonious end to his tenure with Canada’s team, but the Blue Jays do need to aggressively pursue pitchers of his ilk. The rotation needs help in the worst way to help offset the impending departures of Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt, and finding a quality left-handed reliever who could potentially replace Seranthony Dominguez in the back of the bullpen would be a big win.
