Reliever Fernando Cruz has looked like a star in the making and the steal of the offseason for the New York Yankees so far this season, but now that breakout has hit a snag: After not pitching all week, the team placed Cruz on the IL on Thursday with a shoulder injury.
The Yankees have, so far at least, gone out of their way to downplay any concerns. Cruz has already resumed playing catch, and manager Aaron Boone told reporters on Wednesday night that imaging didn't reveal any structural damage. A cortisone shot and some rest, and he'll hopefully be right as rain.
Of course, if you thought any of that was going to talk Yankees fans off the ledge, we have a bridge to sell you.
And that's not just because Yankees fans are ... well, Yankees fans, or because any shoulder discomfort always carries with it the looming specter of something more serious. The first two months of 2025 have proven just how important Cruz is to this team, not just in the present but looking ahead to October — and if the Yankees want to erase the memory of last year's World Series loss, they'll probably need a healthy Cruz to do it.
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.
Fernando Cruz injury should have Yankees on high alert
It's hard to overstate just how dominant Cruz has been in pinstripes. Acquired from the Cincinnati Reds over the winter, the Yankees gave him the Tommy Kahnle treatment upon his arrival in the Bronx — only instead of a changeup, Cruz has a splitter that ranks among the very best pitches in baseball. Like New York did with Kahnle, it's had Cruz throw his best offering even more in 2025, and the results have been impressive: a 2.66 ERA to go with whiff and K rates put him in the top one or two percent leaguewide.
With Cruz in the fold, it wasn't hard to envision a formula that would allow Aaron Boone to shorten games come playoff time, with a quartet of power righties in Cruz, Luke Weaver, a revitalized Devin Williams and Mark Leiter Jr. leading the way plus Tim Hill neutralizing left-handed hitters. Now, though, one leg of that table is at least at some risk of being kicked out from under them; and if Cruz's discomfort does turn out to be more than just discomfort, it could have a drastic impact on this team's ability to compete for a championship.
We know that bullpens are often how games are won in October, and that's certainly true for the Yankees, especially given all the question marks they have in their starting rotation behind Max Fried and Carlos Rodon. Will Warren and Clarke Schmidt are unproven on the biggest stage, and there's still no telling when Luis Gil might get back from his own shoulder ailment — or what he'll look like when he does. New York figures to be counting on its stellar relief corps (top 10 in baseball in bullpen ERA so far) to fill in much of that gap, picking up the slack if Warren or Schmidt or whoever else is unable to work deep into a playoff game.
It only takes one injury to undo all of that, though. Cruz's injury is a blow not just because of how good he's been, but because of the impact it could have on the rest of the 'pen, putting more stress on guys like Weaver and Williams before October even rolls around. Hopefully this is just a minor bump in the road, but if not, New York could be feeling it for months to come.