The signing the New York Yankees made on Thursday won’t grab a lot of attention.
It’s mostly a depth move for the pitching staff, but it’s still worth noting.
According to Joel Sherman, the Yanks have signed right-handed pitcher Bradley Hanner.
Hanner is a 26-year old, 6-foot-4 hurler who most recently was in the Cleveland Guardians‘ organization. He has yet to make his MLB debut.
He entered pro baseball in 2019 as a 21st-round draft pick by the Minnesota Twins out of Patrick & Henry Community College.
He joined the Cleveland organization before the 2023 season and has spent a season and a half in Double-A with Akron and a season and a half at Triple-A Columbus.
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Hanner, a reliever, has very different numbers at those two levels.
At Double-A, Hanner has been great, a 2.78 ERA with 136 strikeouts in 120 innings pitched.
At Triple-A, that ERA has risen to 4.89, still with a solid strikeout rate of 62 in 49.2 innings.
He spent the entire 2025 season at Triple-A and had a 4.74 ERA.
Hanner has struggled with walks in his minor league career, walking 4.7 batters per nine innings.
His stuff wins when he’s in the zone, though, getting strikeouts and not giving up many home runs. So the Yankees’ task will be to figure out how to enhance Hanner’s control just a bit to make him more effective.
The Yanks won’t be counting on Hanner for anything at the MLB level, but if he finds a way to breakthrough, it’d be a nice little bonus.
