The Yankees announced that right-hander JT Brubaker has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Robert Murray of FanSided reported on Brubaker’s activation prior to the official announcement. The 40-man roster is now full. Right-hander Scott Effross was optioned after last night’s game in a corresponding active roster move.
Brubaker, now 31, has technically been a Yankee for about a year and a half but is still looking to make his official debut in pinstripes. The Yankees acquired him from the Pirates in March of 2024, sending a player to be named later or cash to Pittsburgh in exchange for Brubaker and international bonus pool space. The PTBNL was later named as infielder Keiner Delgado.
In April of 2023, about a year before the trade, Brubaker had undergone Tommy John surgery. At the time of the deal, the Yankees surely expected a few more months of rehab but a few speed bumps have popped up and continually kept him on the shelf. He started a rehab assignment in June of last year but an oblique strain put him back on ice in July. He started a new rehab assignment in September but made just three outings that month before the winter kicked in.
The expectation was that he would be healthy coming into 2025. He and the Yanks avoided arbitration by agreeing to a salary of $1.82MM. Unfortunately, he suffered an unusual injury during the spring, somehow breaking three ribs while trying to avoid a comebacker. He landed on the 15-day IL to start the season and was on the 60-day version by the first day of April. He was able to start a rehab assignment a month ago and tossed 21 1/3 minor league innings with a 2.95 earned run average.
The Yanks stretched Brubaker out on his rehab assignment, getting to five innings in his most recent appearance, and he was also a starter as a Pirate. With Pittsburgh, he had a 4.99 ERA in 315 2/3 innings with a 23.3% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 44% ground ball rate.
He will probably be in a long relief role for the Yanks, behind the rotation of Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Will Warren and Ryan Yarbrough. Brubaker has over five years of big league service time and therefore can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent. If he stays on the roster through the end of the year, he’ll have exactly six years of service time and will qualify for free agency.
Photo courtesy of Dave Nelson, Imagn Images
Our fantasy league has a JT Brubaker Award given annually to the player with the most transactions (adds/drops) in our league. Past winners include Ivan Nova. Jeffrey Springs is the leading candidate so far this year with Jake Irvin still in contention.
pirates gave up on him so it’s safe to assume he’ll quickly become a cy young candidate
But can he hit?
Brubaker never had nearly as high of a ceiling as someone like Clay Holmes, or especially Gerrit Cole. Though I think he’ll do well as a reliever.
Hope Brubaker does well. I always thought he had the potential to be a solid starter or an even better reliever. But after missing nearly 3 seasons, I don’t know anymore.
if nothing else he’s an easy guy to root for. blake has shown he doesn’t need a ton to work with in order to produce a serviceable or better arm
Agreed. If Brubaker can get close to where he was, he could be a very useful piece for the Yankees.
He’s a very good fifth starter and decent #4 if he’s healthy. He doesn’t have the swing and miss stuff necessary to be a top of the rotation guy but he gives the team five innings and a decent chance to win a good bit more often than not. He just played on some bad Bucco teams so they lost a bunch of those games anyway.
He’s an okay back of the rotation arm. Don’t know if I’d go so far as to say he’s a ‘very good fifth starter’ yet. Fwiw, he played on some Pirates teams with very poor defense. Underlying numbers suggest he could be better than his ERA suggests. I still believe he would make a better bullpen arm than a starter, but I guess we’ll see what happens. I think he could be a decent 4th/5th arm.
Title confirmed with JT in the fold. He will put our Bombers over the top!
Don’t you need to add the estimated future value of the other three prospects to Devers’ net $225MM net contract to compare? I just skimmed the article, so maybe I missed it if you already did that.
The Yinzer crowd was so mad when the pirates traded him away. I always found it quite funny considering he still hasn’t thrown a pitch for the Yankees. If he was never traded some Yinzer would be posting about how he would turn around the pirates rotation as a valuable 5th starter. Dude is toast. Best of luck to him though.