YANKS JUST SIGNED A PITCHER. YEA... GO BACK TO BED

Yankees fans just want a breather, man. Is that too much to ask? We’d love — LOVE — to sit down at Thanksgiving and talk about actual baseball players with actual name recognition instead of debating for the 900th straight holiday whether Aaron Boone is a manager or a life-sized marionette. (Spoiler: he’s a full-blown puppet. Jim Henson couldn’t have crafted a more compliant character.)

But of course, it’s late November, which means Brian Cashman has retreated into his natural habitat: the Bargain Bin Jungle. You know the vibe — he emerges with an armful of depth pieces no one’s ever heard of, proudly calling it an “arsenal,” while the rest of us call it exactly what it is: a curated collection of future DFA candidates.

Sure, if there’s any money left after Cashman loads up on mystery pitchers and waiver-wire fossils, maybe — maybe — we land Cody Bellinger and an actual frontline starter to help Max Fried. One can dream. Yankees fans specialize in dreaming; it’s what replaces championships these days.

Anyway… the newest “move.”

According to MLB’s transaction ledger, the Yankees signed 28-year-old right-hander Yerry Rodríguez to a minor-league deal. Yes, that Yerry Rodríguez — the one released by the Pirates, didn’t pitch in affiliated ball all year, bounced between the Rangers and Blue Jays, and is currently elbow-deep in Tommy John rehab. The plan? Be ready by midsummer. The reality? Flip a coin.

As Yanks Go Yard summed it up beautifully:

Best case: the Yankees discover something magically fixable in his footage, he taps into some hidden ceiling, and suddenly he’s getting real high-leverage work like a modern-day bullpen Lazarus. 

Worst case: rehab goes sideways, Year 1 melts into Year 2, and he vanishes into the same void where former “intriguing minor-league depth” goes to die.

In other words: either he’s a miracle or a memory.

So yeah. Another Yankees signing.
Another lottery ticket.
Another footnote we’ll probably never mention again.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone — enjoy the depth.