Meet the journeyman reliever blossoming with Yankees

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Slightly glassy-eyed, Michael Tonkin pocketed his cell phone and rose from a chair in front of his assigned locker in the visitors’ clubhouse of Milwaukee’s American Family Field on April 26. Already cast off by two big league teams during a month that he described as “chaotic,” the 34-year-old righty had just been saddled with a blown save and a loss in his Yankees debut.

Tonkin spoke that night about baseball being “tough.” He almost seemed to be bracing for an inevitable nudge from one of the coaches, a combination package of bad news and instructions: “Thanks for coming, nice to meet you, here’s where to pick up your stuff.” Unlike in previous stops this year with the Twins and Mets, that message never came.

Instead, Tonkin pitched well a couple of nights later, then again on May 2, then again a few more times the following week. Before long, Tonkin had gained points in manager Aaron Boone’s trust circle, an ascendance that led to the journeyman logging his second big league save Monday night in Kansas City.

“[I’m] in a position where I feel like I’m not scared that I’m getting tapped on the shoulder after every game. So all of that kind of helps,” Tonkin said. “As of late, I feel like I’m kind of in a spot where I don’t have to fear too much about what could happen. But, obviously, I still have to go out and do my job.”

That he has done. In 14 appearances as a Yankee spanning 20 1/3 innings, Tonkin has pitched to a razor-sharp 0.89 ERA, permitting just 12 hits and seven walks while striking out 19.

“He likes the fire. He likes the competition,” Boone said. “He’s got guts; he’s fearless out there, and really, really competitive. He’s fit well in that room, and I trust giving him the ball.”

Having pitched mostly with a four-seam fastball and slider earlier in his career, Tonkin credits the increased use of his two-seamer for his Yankees performance. The pitch comes from an old-school arm slot and whips from his 6-foot-7 frame at a three-quarters angle, almost making the ball seem delivered from the shortstop position.

“I’ve been throwing more two-seams and just getting more comfortable with it, because I started throwing it this spring,” Tonkin said. “I used to throw it seven, eight years ago, but we started using it [again] this spring. I’m just trying to get comfortable with it because it is a little bit difficult, the movement is different and I kind of have to change my sights as opposed to the four-seam. Getting comfortable with that and getting to use it more has helped.”

It would be easy to point to Tonkin’s stats as another feather in the caps of pitching coach Matt Blake and his department. Though the coaching staff has helped somewhat, Boone suggests that the pitcher himself performed most of the tweaks.

“There is no question those guys [in the pitching department] do a great job, but also, give him a lot of credit. It’s not like we’ve overhauled him to any big degree,” Boone said. “He’s come in here and just taken advantage of opportunities and pitched really well. You couple that with fitting in and now getting with our pitching group, who do a good job maximizing guys’ arsenals, hopefully we continue to see impactful performances.”

Tonkin’s professional career has mainly been with the Twins, the organization that selected him in the 30th round of the 2008 MLB Draft out of high school in Palmdale, Calif., located in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles.

Tonkin made 141 appearances for Minnesota from 2013-17. Then, he began a dizzying sequence that saw him suit up for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan, the independent Long Island Ducks and the Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican League. He pitched briefly in the Rangers, Brewers and D-backs organizations before latching on with the Braves, earning a spot in Atlanta’s big league bullpen last season.

“The biggest thing is the guy fills up the zone and is not scared to pitch, that’s for sure,” said Yanks pitcher Carlos Rodón. “[There is] a lot of confidence out of him. … The proof is in the pudding when you see a guy attacking the zone and not walking many guys. You can tell he has no fear [by] the way he carries himself on the mound.”

The Mets signed Tonkin to a $1 million split contract this past offseason, then designated him for assignment on April 5 after three outings.

Traded to the Twins for cash on April 9, Tonkin made one appearance for his original club before they, too, cut him loose on April 13 -- and when he was claimed on waivers on April 17, Tonkin returned to the Mets.

He pitched in back-to-back games over a weekend before Mets manager Carlos Mendoza summoned him for an all-too-familiar conversation, informing him that the club had once again stamped his name with a DFA.

“It’s not easy and it’s not a fun part of this job, obviously, and you have to do it twice,” Mendoza said at the time. “These guys, they’ve got families, and it’s hard. It really is. It’s a business. He understood, [but he was] obviously disappointed.”

Tonkin described that Mets-Twins-Mets sequence as “less than ideal” – in fact, when he made his Yankees debut in April, his wife, Becky, was at home juggling two young children while scrambling to figure out what to do with the Minneapolis apartment that they’d barely moved into.

“Without her, I’m not playing,” Tonkin told The Athletic in 2023. “She’s at home taking care of the kids. But, I mean, without her support, I wouldn’t be here. Because there were many times where I was like, ‘It’s obvious nobody wants me. The writing’s on the wall, I’m not a Major League player.’ As much as I believed I was, if no one else believes it, you’re crazy.

“But I felt like I could still pitch; I was still throwing hard. And I talked to her, and she’s like, ‘If you still feel like you can pitch, go. Go to indy ball.’ Really, it’s not an easy decision when you’ve got kids at home, and you’re leaving to go make not enough money to eat. It’s not easy.”

Certainly, in those more challenging moments, Tonkin could not have pictured the success that he’d find with these first-place Yankees -- making him thankful for each new opportunity.

“To be here on this team, in this position and be in a spot where they have faith in me to get the job done is great,” Tonkin said. “It’s special.”