Since the abolition of the post-deadline waiver trades, a new trend has arisen around the majors. After the Trade Deadline, if some teams are headed towards missing the playoffs, they will opt to put a player with an expiring contract on waivers, seemingly mainly just to get the last couple months of their contract off the books. The Yankees themselves did that with Harrison Bader in the doomed 2023 season.
This past season, the Yankees ended up being the beneficiary of one of those moves, as they picked up reliever John Schreiber for nothing. Schreiber was having a pretty solid season already, and he put in a good couple months for the 2026 Yankees.
Grade:Incomplete
2026 Stats (Overall):66 games, 60.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 4.62 FIP, 4.62 xFIP, 16.3 K%, 10.6 BB%, -0.2 fWAR, 0.8 rWAR
2026 Stats (with Yankees):11 games, 11.0 IP, 1.64 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 4.97 xFIP, 9.3 K%, 9.3 BB%, 0.1 fWAR, 0.4 rWAR
2027 Contract Status:Free agent
Schreiber is an eight-year major league veteran, who had been playing for the Royals for the last three seasons. Other than arguably his 2022 with the Red Sox, he's never been an especially dominant reliever, but with a career 120 ERA+, he's been a pretty good one.
Prior to going on waivers, he had been solid but not spectacular in 2026. His 3.65 ERA with the Royals graded out to an above average 116 ERA+, however there was one glaring issue. Schreiber was walking a good amount of people. In Kansas City, he had issued 22 walks in 49.1 innings. That was a major reason why his FIP ended up so out of whack from his ERA. That's also why FanGraphs WAR rates him in the negatives for 2026 but he put up a totally respectable reliever WAR number according to Baseball Reference.
However as a team, the Royals weren't particularly going anywhere. On August 29th, the team opted to put him and the rest of his expiring $3.75 million contract on waivers. (They were definitely out of it at the Trade Deadline too, so why they wouldn't flip Schreiber for just anything seems short-sighted to me, but I don't make the big bucks.) Luckily for the Yankees, he ended up making it through to them and they claimed and acquired Schreiber on the 31st.
In addition to generally just being a solid reliever having a fine season, Schreiber also had one big thing going for him: he is very good against right-handed hitters. For his career, he allows a .587 OPS against righties and .439 in 2026 in particular. The Yankees' bullpen was already pretty solid in general, but that aspect added another dimension.
Adding him so late in the season, the Yankees only used Schreiber in 11 games, but it's hard to have any complaints with what he did. He allowed just two earned runs in 11 innings and dropped his walk rate as well. We felt compelled to give him an incomplete grade as he wasn't around for that long, but if you had to pin me down, I'd personally go B+.
As for the future, Schreiber is now a free agent. While bringing him back wouldn't cost that much exactly, there will probably be plenty of suitors, considering how good he's been against righties over the years. That being said, if the Yankees wanted to, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him get another season working with Matt Blake.
See more of the Yankees Roster Report Card series here .
