Hidden Value, Part 3: Will Warren Is the New York Yankees Most Overlooked Starter, and the Numbers Prove It
About this series: Surface stats still drive the conversation, batting average, ERA, RBIs, saves. The numbers on the back of the baseball card shape how most fans judge players. But the expected-stats era tells a different and more accurate story. This “Hidden Value” series goes looking for the New York Yankees whose traditional numbers undersell them: the players whose real worth lives in the gap between what the box score shows and what the underlying data says they’ve actually earned. Each installment takes one overlooked player and uses Statcast, batted-ball data, and run values to reveal the contributor underneath the surface line.
Aaron Boone has taken to calling Will Warren the rotation’s “non-talked-about guy,” and he means it as a compliment. With Cam Schlittler’s emergence, Ryan Weathers’ early success, and the returns of Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón from injury all dominating the Yankees’ pitching narrative, Warren has spent 2026 doing something far less glamorous: quietly turning into a very good starter. The numbers say he deserves a much bigger share of the conversation.
The ERA already took the leap
Start with the topline. Warren has dropped his ERA to the low 3.00s after posting a 4.44 mark across 162.1 innings as a rookie in 2025, and he’s done it without overhauling his arsenal or mechanics. By his own account, the change is more mental than physical: trusting a deep five-pitch mix in the strike zone rather than nibbling. The results validate the approach.
The command is the real story
The single most important development is the walks. Warren has trimmed his walk rate to around 7% from 9.1% a year ago, and that improvement powers everything downstream. Pair it with a strikeout rate that ranks among the better marks in the rotation and you get a K-BB% comfortably above the league average for a starter. That matters because K-BB% is one of the fastest-stabilizing, most predictive numbers in pitching. It tells you the underlying skill is real long before ERA settles. Warren isn’t surviving on soft contact or sequencing luck; he’s missing bats and throwing strikes.
The fastball is a genuine weapon
Under the hood, Warren’s four-seamer grades among the most valuable fastballs in the league by run value, a carry-and-extension profile that lets a mid-90s pitch play up in the zone. His ERA estimators, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, have consistently sat at or below his actual ERA, the signature of a pitcher whose surface results, if anything, slightly undersell the quality of his work.
Why “hidden”
Warren’s value is hidden by context more than by his own line. On a staff stocked with bigger names and louder storylines, a steady mid-rotation starter posting top-of-the-staff peripherals simply doesn’t command attention. But durability plus command plus a plus fastball is exactly the profile contenders pay a premium for at the deadline and the Yankees already have it in a starter they developed internally through their player development system.
The verdict
Will Warren has gone from a back-of-the-rotation question mark to one of the Yankees’ most reliable and underappreciated arms, and the peripherals insist it’s no fluke. The improved command, the strong K-BB%, and the elite fastball describe a pitcher pitching well above his reputation. He’s the most overlooked starter on the staff and the one whose numbers most deserve a second look.
Next in Hidden Value, Part 4: a reliever who got demoted in April and has been one of the Yankees’ best arms since.