Analyzing Where Clarke Schmidt May Fit into Yankees' Bullpen Trust Tree

It wasn't all bad news from a discouraging and frustrating 13-inning defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon, even if it really, really stung for a number of reasons.

The ray of sunshine in what was a rough day for the Yankees' divisional hopes was the return of someone they view as crucial to their chances at a deep playoff run. After a 440-day absence due to Tommy John surgery, Clarke Schmidt made his Yankees return, tossing two-thirds of an inning in the seventh before being removed due to pitch count.

It wasn't the cleanest outing, as he wasn't able to get through a full inning after throwing 24 pitches to four batters, but for someone on a big league mound for the first time in 14 months, you had to like what you saw, striking out a pair and only surrendering a pair of soft-hit singles.

The runway is rather short for the remainder of the season with just 10 games left, but Schmidt will likely see his way into four or so games down the stretch. That gives him a total of five outings to truly figure out where he can fit into a wide-open bullpen trust tree.

Clarke Schmidt's bullpen experience

Converting a full-time starter to the bullpen is not always as easy as it seems, but it's a transition the Yankees will have to make three times as we head into the postseason, with Ryan Weathers' likely return and Will Warren's place in the rotation. That said, Schmidt has a bit of an advantage.

Before becoming a full-time starter at the major-league level in 2023, Schmidt was used almost exclusively as a reliever in his brief big-league stints, most notably in 2022, when he posted a 3.12 ERA in 57.2 innings as part of a makeshift bullpen that got very good results. He didn't get himself high up the totem pole, but he pitched some important innings for the club.

His playoff experience as a reliever was unfortunately one to forget. He was saddled with a pair of losses, first in Game 3 of the ALDS after a squeaker by Oscar Gonzalez got through the infield for a walk-off single, and the second in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Houston Astros, where he allowed home runs to Yuli Gurriel and Chas McCormick in the sixth inning of what would be the start of a sweep.

He was supposed to be in the bullpen the following season, but a mountain of injuries forced him to step up in the rotation, starting what became a nightmarish 2023 season. Since then, Schmidt has made 63 appearances through his season-ending elbow surgery in 2025, all but one as a starter.

That's not in the cards for 2026, so what can he do to be useful for the Yankees in the playoffs?

Where Schmidt could fit into unstable bullpen

Schmidt adds a multi-inning righty option to a bullpen that has a lot of moving parts. He leaned hard on a cutter-slider combo on Wednesday, but also featured his sinker, four-seamer, and curveball. His velocity looked as firm as ever, something that could be enhanced but didn't need to hold back for 100 pitches.

The bullpen's premier multi-inning righty is Paul Blackburn, who relies on a ton of spin and movement in his profile, making him more volatile in games with shoddy command. He, along with closer David Bednar and lefty Brent Headrick, makes up the team's three highest-leverage arms, but it's wide open beneath them, particularly after Fernando Cruz's elbow injury.

John Schreiber has been effective as a righty specialist in a small sample, so he feels like the leader in the clubhouse as the team's sixth-inning arm, but he might not be playable in certain matchups due to his struggles against lefties. Tim Hill's overall struggles, even if he remains sharp against lefties, will also give pause. Michael Fulmer and Luis Gil haven't pitched enough to earn trust in leverage.

There are two ways that Schmidt can be deployed. One of which is as the team's right-handed bridge reliever, as sort of a "platoon" with Ryan Yarbrough (or Weathers, when he returns). Lineups with more right-handed hitters will fare significantly better against Weathers or Yarbrough if the team needs them to come into a big spot to provide some length to the back-end guys, so having a guy with the opposite hand who can fill that role is valuable.

But that role could be reserved for Warren, who's more stretched out than Schmidt and isn't at risk of being removed due to a long inning. I doubt Schmidt would be permitted to throw much more than 30 pitches in a game. That could lead the 30-year-old to be more in the Schreiber role as the sixth-inning guy, possibly pitching in higher leverage if needed due to overuse.

There are a lot of questions about Schmidt as we come down the stretch, but the important thing is that he's back and he's healthy. The more bullpen depth, the merrier.

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