Jonathan Loáisiga

Jonathan Loáisiga spent eight years in the Bronx and never once got to just be healthy about it. From 2018 through 2025, he was the guy with the mid-90s sinker that made hitters look silly and the medical file that made the training staff wince -- a shoulder strain here, an elbow bone spur there, and finally a torn UCL that cost him an entire World Series run he didn't even get to watch from the bullpen. When he was actually on the mound, he was one of the nastiest relievers on the roster. The problem was how rarely that lined up with a full season.

Path to the Bronx

Loáisiga signed with the San Francisco Giants as a 17-year-old international free agent on September 23, 2012, and got off to a solid start -- an 8-1, 2.75 ERA debut in the Dominican Summer League in 2013. The Giants cut him loose anyway, and the Yankees scooped him up on February 9, 2016 (a nobody-outside-the-org afterthought at the time). Tommy John surgery came almost immediately after he signed, which, in hindsight, was basically foreshadowing for the next decade of his career.

He rebuilt himself into one of the better arms in the system fast. Entering 2018, Loáisiga was already a top-25 prospect in the Yankees' farm by MLB Pipeline, FanGraphs, and Baseball America standards, and after that season he jumped to No. 2 in the org (Baseball America) and No. 66 overall on MLB.com's Top 100. He debuted on June 15, 2018, against Tampa Bay and threw five scoreless innings with six strikeouts. Yankees fans, being Yankees fans, immediately nicknamed him "Johnny Lasagna." He didn't fight it. "It's grown on me," he said.

Yankees Career

He didn't become a full-time reliever by choice, exactly -- the rotation experiment in 2019 didn't take, and a strained rotator cuff shut that year down early anyway (a 4.55 ERA over just 31.2 innings, bouncing between the Bronx and Triple-A). But once the Yankees committed to using him purely out of the bullpen, the stuff started playing up in a way it never had stretched out as a starter. In the shortened 2020 season, he closed things out with a ridiculous final stretch: 2-0, three saves, a 0.79 ERA over his last 19 appearances. That was the preview. 2021 was the movie.

Boone wasn't exaggerating much. Loáisiga went 9-4 with a 2.17 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP across 70.2 innings that year, his first full season as a reliever, and every one of those numbers was a career best at the time. The engine behind it was a sinker he suddenly started throwing over half the time (up from about a quarter the year before), and hitters just couldn't lift it -- a 61.5% ground ball rate, eighth-best among 158 qualified relievers in baseball. He picked up the 2021 Latino MVP AL Reliever Award for his trouble. And even in his best, healthiest season, he still missed close to a month with a rotator cuff strain and a COVID IL stint. That's the Loáisiga experience in miniature: brilliant, and never quite whole.

The shoulder problems didn't stop there. He missed roughly seven weeks in 2022 with more shoulder inflammation, but he still showed up huge that October -- six postseason appearances, a 0.96 ERA over 9.1 innings, including 5.0 scoreless frames in the ALDS. He didn't allow a run in his first nine innings of work that postseason. Then 2023 brought elbow inflammation, a bone spur that needed surgically removed, and yet another IL stint in September, limiting him to just 17 appearances all year (though a sharp 3.06 ERA and 0.85 WHIP in the outings he did make -- when healthy, this guy was never the problem).

Key Moments

The Injury That Never Quite Let Go

Here's the part of the file that's brutal to read in one sitting. 2019: rotator cuff strain. 2020 was actually fine, if you can believe it. Then 2021: rotator cuff strain again, even in his best year. 2022: seven weeks with shoulder inflammation. 2023: elbow inflammation, bone spur surgery, another IL stint in September. 2024: a torn UCL that needed season-ending surgery in April -- not a full Tommy John, but still enough to wipe out the entire year, World Series included. 2025: back tightness that turned into a flexor strain on a rehab assignment. Six of his eight seasons in pinstripes came with a real arm or back injury attached. Freakin' relentless.

He still tried to come back in 2025 (mid-May, coming off surgery, a legitimately good stretch with a 1.59 ERA through his first six outings), and for a minute it looked like the injury cycle might finally be broken. It wasn't. Two home runs allowed in a single inning against the Dodgers on June 1 signaled the regression, and by August he was done for good -- back tightness first, then a flexor strain that turned a rehab assignment into a season-ender. He finished his last year in pinstripes at 30 games, a 4.25 ERA, and a lone save (July 31, closing out a win over Tampa Bay with a strikeout of Jonny DeLuca). The Yankees declined his $5 million option that winter, and eight years in the organization -- his entire big-league career to that point -- came to a quiet end.

He signed a minor-league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks that offseason (an invite to spring training, nothing guaranteed), showed up healthy for once, posted a 3.86 ERA with seven strikeouts against two walks over seven spring outings, and made their Opening Day roster in 2026. New chapter, same sinker.

Loáisiga never got the sustained health to become what his stuff always promised -- a genuine, year-in-year-out lockdown arm at the back of the bullpen. What he got instead was eight years of flashes: a nasty sinker, a ridiculous 2021, a scoreless October in 2022, and an awful lot of time spent rehabbing instead of pitching. Johnny Lasagna left the Bronx the way he spent most of his career there -- talented, snake-bitten, and gone before anyone quite got to see the whole picture.