David Bednar
#53 RP · Yankees
Height
6'1"
Weight
250 lbs
Age
31
College
Lafayette
Draft
2016, Rd 35, #1044
Experience
7 yrs
Bats/Throws
L/R
A+
A+
D
—
Fan Verdict
Grade this player:
Career StatsA+
| Year | Team | GP | ERA | W-L | K | WHIP | IP | SV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Career |  | 324 | 3.1748466 | 19-25 | 401 | 1.1717792 | 0.0 | 117 |
Current Contract
Length
1 year
Total Value
$9.0M
Guaranteed
$5.4M
AAV
$9.0M/yr
Guaranteed %60%
Performance Analysis
A+
FCA+
David Bednar has established himself as an elite closer, earning an A+ performance grade that positions him among the premier relief pitchers in baseball. The 31-year-old right-hander has become a shutdown artist in high-leverage situations, consistently delivering the clutch performances that define elite closers — as evidenced by his recent double-play escape act to seal a Yankees victory. His $9M AAV contract represents solid value for a proven veteran who has developed into a reliable ninth-inning option after being selected in the 35th round of the 2016 draft. While Bednar lacks major individual hardware at this stage of his seven-year career, his consistent production has made him a cornerstone of the Yankees' bullpen construction. The veteran phase of his career brings natural questions about sustained health and effectiveness, but his current elite-tier performance suggests he's maximizing his prime years in pinstripes. Fan sentiment reflects cautious optimism — they appreciate his elite production but remain watchful for continued consistency before declaring him a long-term foundational piece.
Fan & Media Sentiment
D
Negative
NegativeNeutralPositive
David Bednar is living through one of the more frustrating narrative disconnects in baseball right now — a reliever whose public perception has cratered to D-grade territory despite delivering A+ performance on the mound. The central driver of the negative sentiment is self-inflicted: his public comments attributing early struggles to cold weather drew sharp criticism from analysts and beat writers who pointed out that the numbers simply did not support the explanation, and in New York, that kind of deflection gets amplified and weaponized fast. The disconnect is genuinely striking because his underlying performance grades out as elite — this is not a case where the skepticism is rooted in what he has actually done between the lines, but rather in how he has handled the transition from Pittsburgh to the highest-pressure market in baseball. Recent headlines around his demotion with the Pirates have actually worked in his favor to some degree, with the narrative emerging that the benching served as a catalyst and his Yankees tenure has reflected that growth — but the weather excuse story buried that goodwill almost immediately. The Yankees sit at 25-11 and hold the top seed in the American League East, so team performance is not dragging him down; if anything, the winning environment makes his individual narrative more scrutinized, not less. The sentiment grade has been trending upward — moving from F to D over the last 30 days — which suggests the initial firestorm is slowly cooling, but Bednar needs to let his work on the mound do the talking and keep the explanations to a minimum if he wants New York to fully buy in.
Recent Games
| Date | OPP | Result | AB | H | R | HR | RBI | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, 5/5 | vs TEX | W 7-4 | - | - | - | 0 | - | - | - |
| Sun, 5/3 | vs BAL | W 11-3 | - | - | - | 0 | - | - | - |
Transaction History
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About this player
David Bednar is a player in his 7th MLB season listed at RP for the Yankees. FanVerdicts maintains four independent grades for every MLB player on an active roster — Contract Value Index for the deal itself, Performance for on-field production, Sentiment for media and fan reaction, and Fan Verdict for community voting. Current grades for David Bednar: Contract Value Index A+, Performance A+, Sentiment D, Fan Verdict pending.
Every grade refreshes on its own cadence as new data lands. Performance recalculates when MLB game stats post; Sentiment updates with new media coverage and fan discussion; Contract Value Index recomputes when contract terms change; Fan Verdict reflects live community voting on this profile. Contract details below show the structure (years, total value, average annual value, guarantees) the Contract Value Index grade is computed against.
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