How Josh Hader could transform Yankees pitching staff without them adding a frontline starter

NEW YORK — Acquiring a marquee starter such as Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery isn’t the only way the Yankees can meaningfully improve their pitching staff this offseason.

They could also employ a less traditional approach and build around their bullpen, adding a high-leverage arm or two in an attempt to shorten games and minimize the importance of their starters going deep into outings.

Enter Josh Hader.

Hader, a three-time NL Reliever of the Year, is fresh off another dominant season. The soon-to-be-former Padres closer’s strikeout rate of 36.8% ranked within the top 1% of MLB pitchers, as did his expected batting average against of .157.

His 1.28 ERA represented the second-best mark of his career, trailing only the 1.23 ERA he recorded in 2021 as a member of the Brewers.

Many consider the hard-throwing left-hander, 29, to be baseball’s top reliever. Adding him to the backend of a Yankees bullpen that posted an MLB-best 3.34 ERA last season would give them a considerable late-game advantage over any other team.

Of course, signing Hader comes with complications.

Hader, a five-time All-Star, reportedly wants to eclipse the five-year, $102 million contract the Mets gave to then-28-year-old Edwin Diaz, which remains the biggest deal ever for a closer. Fangraphs’ metrics, which use a player’s advanced statistics to calculate his value, suggest Hader was worth $20.9 million in 2018 and $20.7 million in 2021 but just $6 million in 2022 and $13.7 million last year.

Indeed, Hader is not terribly far removed from his lone bad season — a 2022 campaign in which he sported a 5.22 ERA between the Brewers and Padres — which the reliever and his coaches attributed to mechanical issues.

Hader rebounded with a strong 2022 postseason before last season’s sustained excellence. Still, a deeper dive into Hader’s metrics reveals several negative trends. His 13% walk rate in 2023 marked a career high. His 36.8% strikeout rate, while still elite, was far below the 45.5% or better he recorded in his three Reliever of the Year seasons (2018, 2019 and 2021).

Hader managed to navigate the increase in walks and drop in strikeouts by limiting hitters to a 28.3% hard-hit rate, which was among the best in baseball and well below several of his past seasons.

His sinker, which Hader throws 73.4% of the time, averaged 96.1 mph last year. That measures up to or exceeds Hader’s velocity in his other best years. A decline in that overpowering velocity over the course of a long-term contract would be reason for concern, however, given Hader’s propensity to walk batters.

It’s also worth noting Hader is almost exclusively a one-inning pitcher. He hasn’t pitched more than one inning in a regular-season outing since 2020, though he did record four outs without surrendering a run during an appearance in the 2022 postseason.

Regardless, few relievers in history measure up to the consistency and dominance of Hader, who in 2021 became the fastest pitcher to reach 400 strikeouts. His ability to strike out batters and limit hard contact in 2023 eased concerns that 2022 was the beginning of his decline.

The Yankees are in the mix for Hader, according to The Athletic’s Jim Bowden, who reported they could pursue the closer if they miss out on Montgomery.

The Yankees tried the super-pen approach in 2016, pairing Aroldis Chapman with fellow closer-quality relievers in Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances. All three delivered standout seasons, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a shaky rotation and below-average offense. Before that trade deadline, the Yankees shipped Chapman to the Cubs and Miller to Cleveland.

The current Yankees’ rotation features ace Gerrit Cole; a pair of former All-Stars coming off injury-plagued seasons in Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes; and Clarke Schmidt, who made 32 starts and posted a 4.64 ERA last year.

There’s little doubt they’ll add to that group. Montgomery comes with his own set of concerns, namely that he may be cashing in after a breakout 2023 postseason following years as a steady, if unspectacular, middle-to-back-of-the-rotation option. Snell, too, is far from a sure thing, considering he’s only exceeded 130 innings twice in his career. Both of those seasons ended with him winning a Cy Young Award.

Should the Yankees strike out at the top of the market, they could turn to less-heralded starting options such as Brandon Woodruff or Hyun Jin Ryu.

If that’s the case, the Yankees could do much worse than bolstering their bullpen with Hader.