New York Yankees fans could hardly hide their excitement when the team made the surprising decision to release veteran righty Marcus Stroman in the wake of last week's trade deadline. And you can't really blame them: After a mediocre 2024 season in which he didn't each make any of the team's postseason rosters, Stroman was downright awful in 2025, with a 6.23 ERA in just nine starts. Combine that with a penchant for writing checks his pitching couldn't cash, and you get a player that had long since worn out his welcome.
But however satisfying it might have been in the moment, Stroman's departure — combined with Brian Cashman's inability to land a starting pitcher prior to the deadline — left the Yankees' injury-ravaged rotation perilously thin. Whatever else you want to say about Stroman, he was available and capable of taking the ball for five innings in a big-league game; New York doesn't have a ton of those right now, and losing Stroman meant that the team would need to find someone else to serve as emergency depth.
That someone else was revealed on Monday afternoon, and ... well, let's just say it might have Yankees fans wishing Stroman would've stuck around.
SIGNED: The Yankees have signed veteran RHP Kenta Maeda to a minor league contract.
— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) August 4, 2025
Maeda posted a 7.88 ERA in 7 games with Detroit this season.#Yankees pic.twitter.com/rPePyjexSI
The Yankees are signing former Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers righty Kenta Maeda to a Minor League contract, according to multiple reports. This move doesn't have much of any bearing on New York's current big-league rotation: Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Will Warren and Cam Schlittler will remain the starting five moving forward, and it's unlikely Maeda gets called up at all unless something goes awry.
But the Yankees of all teams know how easy it is for things to go awry, especially with pitchers. It's not too far-fetched to imagine an injury or something else suddenly thrusting Maeda into the spotlight, and that should make fans awfully nervous.
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Kenta Maeda is nothing more than a last resort for Yankees
Maeda's recent numbers make Stroman look like a borderline All-Star. He gave up eight runs (seven earned) in just nine innings with Detroit this season, and posted a 5.97 ERA with the Chicago Cubs' Triple-A affiliate prior to being acquired by the Tigers. He was a very good pitcher for a number of yeras after coming over from Japan, but he's 37 years old now and has a hard time cracking 90 with his fastball; there simply isn't a lot of evidence that he's a viable big-league starter at this point in his career.
Again, the Yankees needed to add somebody. With Schlittler in the Majors, Carlos Carrasco in Atlanta and Stroman gone, New York's Triple-A rotation now consists of the likes of Erick Leal, Allan Winans and Sean Boyle. There simply aren't very many guys in the high Minors who could be expected to at least give the team a puncher's chance if they were forced to start a game tomorrow. Hopefully the current five will be able to stay healthy down the stretch, but the team had to protect itself.
The problem is that it's now August, and anyone who might be able to turn a big-league lineup over multiple times has long since been snatched up. So the Yankees are left scraping the bottom of the barrel for Maeda in hopes that he might be able to recapture some of his former magic. That's not a great position to be in, considering how perilous the Yankees rotation currently is with Fried's blister issue, Gil returning from a shoulder injury and Schlittler just getting his feet wet in the Majors.
Some, or maybe even most, of this predicament isn't the Yankees' fault; any team would be hard-pressed for pitching after losing two planned Opening Day starters to Tommy John surgery while another, Ryan Yarbrough, remains on the IL. The fact that New York's rotation remains semi-viable even despite all that should be considered a success story for Matt Blake and Co. But no one's taking pity on the Yankees, of all teams, and the reality is that they're now dangerously close to relying on a pitcher who might be even worse than Stroman in 2025.