Domingo Acevedo Archives - Page 3 of 8

Open Thread: March 10th Camp Notes

March 10, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

The Yankees snapped their little two-game Grapefruit League losing streak with a 10-3 win over the Mets this afternoon. Giancarlo Stanton swatted his first spring home run, so that’s fun. The video is above. Aaron Judge walk, Stanton two-run homer. Get used to it. Judge had a single, a double, and a walk. He’s starting to get locked in. Brett Gardner had two hits as well. So did Kyle Holder off the bench. He is 8-for-17 (.471) this spring. Who knew?

Luis Cessa started and walked three in 1.1 somehow scoreless innings. David Robertson struck out both batters he faced in his spring debut. Two strikeouts in a scoreless inning for Aroldis Chapman. Dellin Betances, Adam Warren, and Chad Green all pitched as well. The Yankees threw the “A” bullpen at the Mets today. George would’ve been proud. Here are the box score and video highlights, and here are the rest of the day’s notes from Spring Training:

In case you missed it earlier, Tyler Wade left this afternoon’s game with a left wrist injury. He rolled over on the wrist after making a diving play. Fortunately Wade is fine. He iced it down and will play as scheduled Monday.
Clint Frazier (concussion) is still experiencing symptoms. “It’s affecting my driving. I had a couple of scary moments driving. I’m calling my cats the wrong names at times,” he said. Yikes. Jacoby Ellsbury (oblique) could resume baseball activities soon. [Bryan Hoch, George King]
Two more roster cuts: Domingo Acevedo was optioned down and Brian Keller was reassigned to minor league camp. Didn’t even realize Keller was in big league camp. The Yankees are down to 51 players in big league camp, by my count.
As for Acevedo, he didn’t pitch at all this spring because he’s working to build arm strength on the side. He was shut down late last season with a shoulder problem and got a late start on his offseason throwing, so he’s behind the other pitchers. [Brendan Kuty]

This is the nightly open thread. This afternoon’s game will be replayed on YES (7pm ET), if you’re interested. MLB Network will have the Mariners and Reds live, the (hockey) Rangers and Devils are both playing, and there’s a bunch of college basketball on the schedule as well. Talk about anything here except religion or politics. Thanks in advance.

Saturday Links: Judge, Captain’s Camp, Farm System Rankings

February 17, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Position players will report to Spring Training tomorrow and, one week from yesterday, the Yankees will play their first Grapefruit League game. Can’t come soon enough. Here are some links to check out on the final weekend without Yankees baseball until (hopefully) November.

Judge takes over Captain’s Camp

Now that Derek Jeter has jumped shipped to the Marlins, the Yankees turned to Aaron Judge to lead Captain’s Camp, reports Brendan Kuty. Judge took Jeter’s place at the annual steak dinner in which the prospects get to ask questions and pick the brain of a big leaguer. The second year player has taken on a role as a veteran leader. Neat.

“It’s great looking back on it,” said Judge to Kuty. “The whole thing is, those are my teammates, my future teammates. Got to talk with them, get to know them, and ask about what their experience in the minor leagues has been and tell them about what I went through. It was a fun evening … I’m going to kind of keep it to them. But any way I can give back to future teammates, I’m going to do it.”

Judge one has one year (and two months) of big league experience, but he carries himself like a ten-year veteran, and obviously the Yankees believe he is someone their young players should emulate. And hey, being the reigning Rookie of the Year and MVP runner-up sure helps too. Judge has the credentials and the personality. Maybe one day Captain’s Camp will be named after him?

Yankees rank fourth in BP’s farm system rankings

A few days ago the crew at Baseball Prospectus released their annual organizational rankings. The Yankees placed fourth behind the Padres, Phillies, and Braves. Both Baseball America and Keith Law had New York’s system second behind the Braves, for what it’s worth. Anyway, here is the blurb from Baseball Prospectus:

The Yankees drop a bit as they switched to deadline buyers this year—as if slipping on an old pair of comfortable slippers you lost under the bed for a while. They also traded for Giancarlo Stanton, but that barely moved the needle on system flush with young Latin talent. Gleyber Torres is one of the best prospects in baseball and it was only a UCL tear on his non-throwing arm that kept him from graduating (or perhaps being the best prospect in baseball. They only put five names on the Top 101 this year, but Miguel Andujar just missed, and the balance of their top ten would have landed in the next 50 names. There’s substantially more risk in the Luis Medinas and Matt Sauers of the world though.

I was pretty shocked to see the Yankees second on the Baseball America and Keith Law lists. A chunk of their depth is tied up in risky lower level arms, and I figured that’d knock them down a peg, like it seems to have done with the Baseball Prospectus list. Either way, the Yankees traded and graduated a bunch of prospects last year, yet they still have a top tier farm system. That is pretty darn cool.

Several Yankees among top 100 just misses

Both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus posted a collection of “just missed” players for their annual top 100 prospect lists. The Yankees landed six players on Baseball America’s top 100 and five players on Baseball Prospectus’ top 101. Here are the others who received consideration:

Baseball America: RHP Domingo Acevedo, SS Thairo Estrada, RHP Luis Medina, OF Everson Pereira, RHP Matt Sauer, RHP Dillon Tate
Baseball Prospectus: Acevedo and 3B Miguel Andujar

In the Baseball Prospectus write-up, it notes the gang who put together the top 101 were split on Andujar. Some wanted him on the main list and some wanted him on the outside. Ultimately, those who wanted him outside won out. So it goes. That the Yankees had six players on Baseball America’s top 100 and six others considered for the list is pretty damn amazing.

Sorting out the projected 2018 Triple-A Scranton roster

February 8, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

These days, moreso than ever before, teams need more than 25 players to get through the 162-game season and contend for a postseason spot. Lots more than 25 players. Last season 1,351 different players appeared in at least one big league game, an average of 45 players per team. The Yankees used 51 players last year, tied for the eighth most in baseball. The Mariners led the way with 61. The Indians and Rockies somehow used only 41 each.

The remainder of the 40-man roster is essentially a taxi squad. Teams shuttle players in and out not only to help cover for injuries or poor performance, but to get matchups too. Facing a team with a lefty heavy lineup? Might as well bring up an extra lefty reliever for the weekend. Need another platoon bat because you’re going to see five right-handed starters the next five days? Call up a lefty with some pop. It happens every single day across the league.

The Yankees have built a very deep farm system and so many of their top prospects are close to the big leagues. My annual top 30 prospects list will be posted tomorrow and I’d say only three of my top ten prospects have no chance to play in the big leagues this season. The Yankees will again use that farm system to supplemental their MLB roster. Injuries happen. Poor performances happen. Sometimes you need to swap guys out, and the Yankees have lots of alternatives waiting.

Clubs use their Triple-A affiliate as an extension of their big league roster nowadays, and because of that, we should take a second to look at the projected Triple-A Scranton roster for the coming season. We’re going to see a lot of these players in Spring Training soon and in the Bronx later this year. Let’s break down the 2018 RailRiders, starting with the position players. Here are the roster candidates. An asterisk (*) denotes a player on the 40-man roster.

Catchers	Infielders	Outfielders	Utility
Kyle Higashioka*	Miguel Andujar*	Jabari Blash*	Tyler Austin*
Francisco Diaz	Thairo Estrada*	Jake Cave*	Billy McKinney*
Erik Kratz	Gleyber Torres*	Clint Frazier*	Tyler Wade*
	Abi Avelino	Mark Payton	Jace Peterson
	Danny Espinosa	Shane Robinson
	Billy Fleming	Zack Zehner
	Ryan McBroom
	Nick Solak

Twenty-one players total and we need to whittle that list down to 12 or 13 names. Triple-A teams carry 25-man rosters these days — it wasn’t that long ago that Triple-A and Double-A teams had 24-man rosters — and it is not at all uncommon for minor league teams to employ a full-time eight-man bullpen. Especially early in the season when young pitchers are still getting stretched out. Don’t want to overload them. Let’s pare down our list of 21 names.

Catchers: This is the easiest position. Gary Sanchez and Austin Romine are entrenched at the big league level. Higashioka, who made his MLB debut when Sanchez got hurt last season, and Kratz, a veteran journeyman who returned to the Yankees on a minor league contract, are the obvious Triple-A catching tandem. I mentioned Diaz only because he is third on the Triple-A catching depth chart. If someone gets hurt or called up, Diaz figures to take that spot on the roster. Higashioka and Kratz are the projected Triple-A catchers. Easy peasy.

Infielders: Okay, now it’s getting complicated. We still don’t know who is going to play second or third base at the big league level. We have an idea based on the available personnel, but we don’t know for sure. Who had Jordan Montgomery winning a rotation spot in camp last season? Not many. An infielder could surprise and win a big league spot in Spring Training. Unlikely? Sure. Possible? Absolutely.

I have eight infielders in the table, though it’s really eleven because Wade and Peterson are natural infielders, and Austin is a first baseman. Wade, Peterson, and Austin can all play the outfield as well. Those eleven players have to cover at least eight roster spots. That is second base, third base, and utility infielder at the MLB level, plus all four starting infield spots and a utility infielder at the Triple-A level. It’s really seven roster spots though, not eight. Ronald Torreyes will be on the MLB roster in some capacity. He’s taking one of those three MLB spots. So we need to fill seven total spots.

My guess right now is, if the season started today, Andujar would start at third in the Bronx and Torres would start the season in Triple-A. He’s coming back from a major injury and he hasn’t played at all since last June. There’s also the whole service time thing. Sending him down for roughly three weeks buys another year of control. The Yankees typically do not obsess over service time, but man, how could you pass up that chance? It’s three weeks! And he’s coming back from a major injury!

I’m putting Andujar on the MLB roster and Torres on the Triple-A roster with the expectation Gleyber will be in the big leagues a few weeks into the season. My hunch is the Yankees signed Peterson and Espinosa as veteran safety nets. Not because they actually want to carry them on the roster. The Yankees are going young wherever possible and, unless all the kids fall flat in Spring Training, I think Peterson and Espinosa wind up going to Scranton. From what I understand both can opt-out of their contracts at the end of Spring Training if they’re not on the MLB roster, but I’d be surprised if that happens in this free agent climate.

Putting Espinosa and Peterson in Triple-A means Wade gets that final MLB infield spot almost by default. Does he start at second or sit on the bench while Torreyes starts? Who knows. Hopefully he starts. But Wade getting that job over Estrada (zero Triple-A games) and Avelino (more of an organizational utility guy at this point) makes sense. Our three big league infield spots are set. Second, third, and the utility spot go to Andujar, Wade, and Torreyes.

There are still two Triple-A roster spots to fill, however. One will go to Thairo. The last spot has to go to a first baseman and as things stand, Austin has a spot on the big league team’s bench. Either that or the Yankees are going to carry an eighth reliever, which is absolutely possible. I’m assuming Austin is on the bench though. In that case, I think McKinney gets the nod at first base over McBroom, who didn’t wow anyone in Double-A last season. The Triple-A outfield is crowded and McKinney at first, a position he began playing in the Arizona Fall League last year, clears up the logjam. Espinosa, Peterson, and Kratz all have some first base experience and are backup options.

Okay, so based on all that, we have filled the three big league infield spots (Andujar, Torreyes, Wade) and the five Triple-A infield spots (Espinosa, Estrada, McKinney, Peterson, Torres). Solak played only 30 games with Double-A Trenton last season and going back there to start this season should not surprise anyone. He’ll get another half-season with the Thunder, and if all goes well, expect Solak to get a midseason bump up to Triple-A. Not on Opening Day though.

Outfielders: The outfield is pretty straightforward. The big league roster is loaded with outfielders and that means Blash, Cave, and Frazier have little chance of winning an MLB job based on merit this spring. They’re tentatively scheduled to go to Triple-A and bide their time. McKinney and Peterson can also play the outfield, if necessary. Simple as it gets.

Utility: We have two catchers (Higashioka, Kratz), five infielders (Espinosa, Estrada, McKinney, Peterson, Torres), and three outfielders (Blash, Cave, Frazier). Ten Triple-A position players. We need two more because based on the last few years, the Yankees will go with an eight-man Triple-A bullpen out of the gate. Robinson signed a minor league deal last night and will be in Triple-A, so that’s one of the two remaining spots. I think Fleming gets the final spot because he’s a true organizational utility infielder type. That’s usually the type of player who gets the last bench spot in Triple-A.

Alright, so putting it all together, we’re sending Avelino, Diaz, McBroom, Payton, Solak, and Zehner back to Double-A Trenton to begin the season, leaving us this group of 12 Triple-A position players:

Catchers (2): Higashioka, Kratz
Infielders (4): Espinosa, Estrada, Fleming, Torres
Outfielders (4): Blash, Cave, Frazier, Robinson
Utility (2): McKinney, Peterson

The big league openings at second and third bases complicate things. It could easily be Torres and Espinosa in MLB with Wade and Andujar in Triple-A. I wouldn’t put it past Torres to blow everyone away in Spring Training and get the second base job despite his injury and service time manipulation. We’ll see. Here, for the fun of it, is a possible Triple-A lineup based on my projected roster:

SS Thairo Estrada
2B Gleyber Torres
RF Clint Frazier
1B Billy McKinney
LF Jabari Blash
CF Jake Cave
C Kyle Higashioka
3B Danny Espinosa
DH Jace Peterson

Bench: Kratz, Fleming, Robinson

Don’t get too hung up on positional assignments. Players will rotate around like they always do. Torres and Thairo figure to see time at second, third, and short. Frazier will play both corner outfield spots, as will Blash. Peterson will get time in the outfield. That’s Triple-A baseball. More importantly, that is a crazy stacked lineup by Triple-A standards. Stacked with good prospects and hitters who will pummel Triple-A pitching. Fun summer ahead for the RailRiders. Let’s get to the pitching staff now.

Starters	Righty Relievers	Lefty Relievers
Domingo Acevedo*	Gio Gallegos*	Caleb Frare
Luis Cessa*	Ben Heller*	Wade LeBlanc
Domingo German*	Jonathan Holder*	James Reeves
Chance Adams	Cody Carroll	Stephen Tarpley
David Hale	Will Carter
Brody Koerner	Cale Coshow
Brady Lail	J.P. Feyereisen
Justus Sheffield

Fortunately, the big league pitching staff is much clearer than the infield. The Yankees have five starters for five rotation spots (Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, CC Sabathia, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka) and six relievers for seven bullpen spots (Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson, Adam Warren). The out-of-options Chasen Shreve presumably has a leg up on the final bullpen spot as the designated low-leverage “only when losing” reliever.

I have 19 pitchers in the table and we have to cut that list down to 13 for the Triple-A roster. Won’t be too difficult, especially with the big league pitching staff settled already.

Rotation: Let’s start with who I don’t expect to be in the Opening Day Triple-A rotation: Acevedo and Sheffield. Acevedo made only 14 Double-A starts last season (plus two Triple-A spot starts) and Sheffield made only 17 Double-A starts. Had he not strained his oblique and missed close to two months, chances are Sheffield would be ticketed for Triple-A Scranton right now. But he got hurt, missed time, and has to make it up.

I expect both Acevedo and Sheffield to return to Double-A Trenton to begin the season before a midseason (or sooner) promotion to Triple-A Scranton. the Triple-A rotation falls into place then. Adams, Cessa, and German all spent time — a lot of time, at that — with the RailRiders last year and will return. Hale is a veteran journeyman with gobs of Triple-A experience. He was signed to be the Triple-A innings guy, so he’s in the rotation too. Lail, who will again be in Spring Training as a non-roster player, is the obvious candidate for the fifth rotation spot. Acevedo, Koerner, and Sheffield go back to Trenton for the time being.

Bullpen: There are eight bullpen spots and four will go to Heller, Holder, Gallegos, and LeBlanc. Feyereisen spent much more time in Triple-A than Double-A last year, so he’s in too. Coshow has spent parts of three seasons in Double-A now and he got his feet wet in Triple-A late last year, and he’ll be in camp as a non-roster player, so I think he’s a lock for the RailRiders bullpen. Carroll was last year’s big breakout relief prospect, and given the fact he spent most of last season in Double-A and is already 25, I think Triple-A is a good bet for him.

All that leaves Carter, Frare, Reeves, and Tarpley as candidates for the eighth and final Triple-A bullpen spot. None of them have Triple-A experience. Frare has been in the organization the longest (11th round pick in 2012) but Carter has the most Double-A experience (90 innings). I think it comes down to those two. Tarpley has 10.1 career Double-A innings under his belt, all coming last season. Reeves has 14.1 career Double-A innings, all but four of which came last season. A return to Double-A is in the cards for those two.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the eighth Triple-A bullpen spot, so I’m going to answer the “Frare or Carter” question quickly. Frare is younger (by six months) and he’s left-handed, but Carter has performed better in Double-A, not that either has been a world-beater. Let’s go with Frare for the final Triple-A bullpen spot. Why not? This spot will be a revolving door anyway. Here’s our projected Triple-A pitching staff:

Rotation (5): Adams, Cessa, German, Hale, Lail
Relievers (8): Carroll, Coshow, Feyereisen, Frare, Gallegos, Heller, Holder, LeBlanc

I wouldn’t sweat the Opening Day starter or bullpen roles. On Opening Day, minor league teams tend to start whoever is lined up to pitch that day coming out of camp, and almost zero minor league teams have designated bullpen roles. Seventeen different pitchers recorded a save for the RailRiders last season, led by Ernesto Frieri’s seven. Gallegos, Heller, and Holder figure to be the Circle of Trust™ relievers given their Triple-A experience and success.

Now that we’ve gone through all the trouble of piecing together a projected Triple-A Scranton roster, I have to point out that this will be wrong. Very wrong. Beyond the usual “he didn’t make it when I thought he would” type of wrong too. Guys are going to get hurt in Spring Training. Nature of the beast. Hopefully no one important gets hurt, but guys are going to get hurt, and the Yankees will have to adjust, and that adjustment will change the Triple-A roster.

Thanks to the farm system, Triple-A Scranton will have a very exciting roster this season, even with injuries and promotions and demotions and all that constantly changing things. The lineup is stacked and I count no fewer than eight legitimate MLB calibers on the pitching staff. It’s been a few years since the Yankees last had to scramble to sign scrap heap players to fill out their Triple-A roster. Now they have quality prospects at pretty much every position, which in turn means they have better depth pieces available to the big league team.

Minor League Notes: Prospect Rankings, Bollinger, Graham

February 5, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa one week from tomorrow, which means my annual top 30 Yankees prospects list will be posted this Friday. The whole thing is written. Pretty sure this is the earliest I’ve finished it. I just need to proofread it a few more times and all that. Friday’s the day though. Here are some minor league notes to help pass the time.

Five Yankees on BP’s top 100 prospects list

Another top 100 list was released earlier today. Baseball Prospectus has Braves OF Ronald Acuna as the top prospect in baseball right now. (They didn’t include Angels RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani in their rankings.) Nationals OF Victor Robles is second. Five Yankees make BP’s list:

3. SS Gleyber Torres
26. OF Estevan Florial
51. RHP Chance Adams
57. LHP Justus Sheffield
100. RHP Albert Abreu

Noticeably absent: 3B Miguel Andujar, who ranked in the middle of other top 100 lists these last few weeks. In the chat, Jeffrey Paternostro said he is “just not an Andujar guy. I don’t love the swing or the throwing at third. He keeps making it work though, and I fully admit I may be too stubborn here.” To each his own.

Five Yankees on FanGraphs’ top 100 prospects list

Yet another top 100 list. Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen posted their combined top 100 list today and they had Ohtani in the top spot, followed by Acuna and Blue Jays 3B Vlad Guerrero Jr. Five Yankees made their FanGraphs top 100 list:

12. SS Gleyber Torres
14. 3B Miguel Andujar
39. LHP Justus Sheffield
59. RHP Albert Abreu
79. OF Estevan Florial

That is the lowest Torres appears on a top 100 list this year and, holy crap, also the highest Andujar appears. No other top 100 list has him higher than 54th. “Andujar has cut down on his swing-and-miss while also lifting the ball more and hitting it with more authority, an obviously rare and desirable combination when you’re already working with a toolsy prospect who was always young for his level,” says the write-up. Love it.

Law ranks top ten Yankees prospects (and more)

Two weeks ago Keith Law released his annual top 100 prospects list and organizational rankings. The Yankees had five top 100 guys plus two more on the “just missed” list, and they ranked second in the farm system rankings behind the Braves. Then, last week, Law posted his team-by-team prospect breakdown (subs. req’d), which includes a top ten list and lots more. His introductory Yankees blurb:

The Yankees have drafted well, they’ve scouted very well internationally, and they’ve kept most of the “right” guys in trades so far, such that their system is No. 2 in all of MLB even after promotions and a few deals. Their Trenton (Double-A) and Scranton Wilkes-Barre (Triple-A) affiliates should be extremely fun to watch this year.

Within the write-up are brief scouting reports on the Yankees’ non-top 100 lists. Law goes beyond the top ten with the Yankees and ranks 21 prospects total:

1. SS Gleyber Torres
2. LHP Justus Sheffield
3. 3B Miguel Andujar
4. RHP Freicer Perez
5. RHP Albert Abreu
6. OF Estevan Florial
7. RHP Domingo Acevedo

15. RHP Taylor Widener
16. RHP Trevor Stephan
17. SS Oswaldo Cabrera
18. 2B Nick Solak
19. RHP Cody Carroll
20. 3B Dermis Garcia
21. OF Jake Cave

8. RHP Dillon Tate
9. RHP Chance Adams
10. RHP Luis Medina
11. RHP Jonathan Loaisiga
12. RHP Clarke Schmidt
13. SS Thairo Estrada
14. RHP Matt Sauer

That is an awful lot of right-handed pitchers. Law also mentions C Saul Torres, OF Billy McKinney, RHP Ben Heller, RHP Domingo German, and SS Hoy Jun Park in the write-up, and labels Medina as his sleeper. “Luis Medina is incredibly exciting, just a long way off, but he could be the next great starter prospect in what looks like a line of them from the majors on down,” he writes.

Four Yankees on ZiPS top 100 prospects

Over at ESPN, Dan Szymborski used ZiPS to put together a data-driven top 100 prospects list. For the most part the ZiPS list agrees with the scouting-based top 100 lists. Players are generally ranked in the same spot, with a few notable exceptions. Acuna tops this list as well. Four Yankees made the ZiPS top 100:

6. SS Gleyber Torres
41. RHP Chance Adams
51. OF Estevan Florial
79. 3B Miguel Andujar

LHP Justus Sheffield doesn’t make the list, and in the write-up, it is said “if he were projected to pitch in a less homer-friendly stadium than Yankee Stadium, Sheffield moves back into the top 100. In fact, as a Tampa Bay Ray he would get up to No. 68.” So there you go. Blame the ballpark for the Yankees not having a fifth ZiPS top 100 prospect.

Yankees sign Bollinger, release Graham

The Yankees have signed well-traveled LHP Ryan Bollinger to a minor league contract, it was announced during an Australian Baseball League broadcast. Bollinger, 26, was drafted by the Phillies in the 47th round of the 2009 draft, but did not sign. He spent 2010 in an independent league, 2011-13 in the White Sox system, 2014-16 in independent leagues, 2017 in Germany, and this offseason in Australia. He’s made nine starts with the Brisbane Bandits and thrown 54.1 innings with a 3.48 ERA and a 75/12 K/BB this winter. Would be something if this guy made it, huh?

In other transaction news, the Yankees have released RHP J.R. Graham, reports Matt Eddy. Graham came over from the Twins in a cash trade in May 2016, managed to spend the rest of the season on the 40-man roster, then was outrighted last year. The 28-year-old allowed 19 runs in 20.1 innings with Triple-A Scranton last season before going down with an injury in June. The Yankees have so many bullpen arms for Double-A and Triple-A in the system. It would’ve been tough to find room for Graham.

Misc. Notes: Medina, Double-A Trenton

To other quick notes to pass along:

Baseball America (subs. req’d) tabbed RHP Luis Medina as one of nine breakout prospects for 2018. “The Yankees’ system is full of powerful, high-end arms, and Medina might have the highest ceiling of them all … Medina has an excellent chance to find himself in next year’s Top 100 Prospects,” says the write-up.
The Trenton Thunder are rebranding themselves as the Trenton Pork Roll. For real. The Associates Press has the story. It’s for Friday nights only this season, starting May 18th. The team will wear special jerseys and “sell pork roll sandwiches and pork roll-themed merchandise” at the ballpark.

Pork roll-themed merchandise? Pork roll-themed merchandise.

Thoughts on Keith Law’s top 100 prospects list

January 25, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Spring Training is a few weeks away and that means we’re in top 100 season. Baseball America released their annual top 100 prospects list earlier this week, and a few days ago, Keith Law published his top 100 list as well (1-50, 51-100, just missed). It’s all behind the Insider paywall.

Braves OF Ronald Acuna sits in the top spot on Law’s top 100, just like Baseball America’s top 100. Blue Jays 3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Padres SS Fernandez Tatis Jr. are second and third, respectively. Lots of good sons of former big leaguers in the minors right now. (Bo Bichette is a top prospect too.) Here are the Yankees prospects in Law’s top 100:

5. SS Gleyber Torres
16. LHP Justus Sheffield
54. 3B Miguel Andujar
73. RHP Freicer Perez
99. RHP Albert Abreu
Just Missed: RHP Domingo Acevedo and OF Estevan Florial

Athletics SS Jorge Mateo (No. 39) and RHP James Kaprielian (No. 56) both made the top 100 as well. They went to the A’s in the Sonny Gray trade. As a reminder, OF Clint Frazier exceeded the 130 at-bat rookie limit by four at-bats last season, so he is no longer rookie (or prospect) eligible. He would’ve surely made Law’s (and Baseball America’s) top 100 lists had he still been eligible. Anyway, I have some thoughts on Law’s list and the Yankees’ top prospects in general.

1. Let’s talk about Gleyber’s power. There’s a difference of opinion about Torres’ power these days. Law’s write-up says Torres projects to “probably just 10-15 homers a year,” which is below-average pop. Especially these days with the juiced ball. Baseball America and MLB.com both slap a 55 on Gleyber’s future power, which is a tick above-average on the 20-80 scouting scale. Generally speaking, 55 power projects to about 18-22 homers per season. Maybe a little more in this homer happy era. Either way, Law is lower on Torres’ long-term power than Baseball America or MLB.com, which doesn’t mean one or the other is wrong. They could both be wrong! It just means there’s a difference of opinion. In his limited time last season Torres hit seven homers in 235 plate appearances as a 20-year-old in Double-A and Triple-A, which is damn impressive. These days it seems like young players are coming up and hitting for more power than expected almost instantly, and it’s not just the Gary Sanchezes and Cody Bellingers and Aaron Judges. Guys like Tyler Naquin came up and started smacking homers. Based on that and the whole Yankee Stadium thing, I’d take the over on 10-15 homers annually from Gleyber.

2. Setting the record straight on Andujar’s defense. The Yankees opted to keep Andujar in Triple-A during the second half last year to work on his defense even though they needed another bat and had an opening at DH. There was a clear path to regular big league playing time. Instead, the Yankees left Andujar in Triple-A so he could work on his defense in games that don’t count. That seems to have created the narrative that Andujar is bad in the field. That’s not true. He’s not Brooks Robinson, but he’s a fine third baseman. “He has a rifle of an arm and has improved his footwork to the point that he should be an average defender at third,” wrote Law. More than anything, the Yankees kept Andujar down to correct some bad habits in the field. He tends to show off his arm, which robs him of accuracy, and there are times he’ll rush and let the ball play him. Andujar’s defensive tools are fine. He has plenty of arm and he has the quick twitch reactions needed for the hot corner. He just needs to iron some things out. This isn’t like Marcus Thames playing third base. The Yankees aren’t forcing something that obviously won’t work.

3. Perez has at least one big fan. I’m pretty sure you’re not going to see Freicer Perez on another top 100 list this spring. Law calls him a “potential front-line starter” who “pitches at 94-98 now and shows a plus curveball and projectable slider along with a changeup that he’s still learning to use.” I haven’t seen a report that glowing basically anywhere. Everything I’ve heard and read says Perez’s secondary pitches are still iffy. It’s possible Law caught him on a good day(s) and/or received favorable reports. If someone saw it though, it’s in there, and it’s a matter of getting to it consistently. Pretty much every tall Yankees pitching prospect — Perez is 6-foot-8 — gets compared to Dellin Betances at some point, though that’s unfair. When one of these guys goes out to the mound with 98+ and that breaking ball, we can talk about the Dellin comparison. Let’s let Freicer Perez be Freicer Perez. Law’s scouting report is glowing, and there’s no doubt Perez is a quality prospect even if you aren’t this high on him. Not too bad for a kid who signed for $10,000 back in the day.

4. Let’s talk about who is not on the top 100. Florial is going to be a top 100 prospect pretty much everywhere else and the same is probably true for Chance Adams as well. I’m not a big Adams guy — I think he’s probably a reliever long-term (a good reliever, I should add) because his fastball is true and he’s been unable to prevent upper level hitters from getting the ball airborne (41.4% grounders in Triple-A last year) — and I wouldn’t have him in my personal top 100 list, so I don’t have a problem with Law excluding him. As for Florial, Law explains it’s all about pitch recognition. “On raw tools, Florial would go somewhere in the top half of the list. Maybe in the top 25 … His pitch recognition, however, is a huge problem … in large part because he does not seem to recognize changing speeds at all,” says the write-up. Last year’s 31.1% strikeout rate — it was 35.8% against mostly Double-A caliber and above pitchers in the Arizona Fall League — doesn’t lie. The kid is super talented, but he has some holes in his swing and issues with breaking balls. The Yankees love Florial and expect him to get better as he gains experience after not playing a ton as an amateur. Until he gets better though, he’ll be a very high risk prospect. High reward! But also high risk. And besides, Law’s lists always seem to generate a ton of outrage no matter what. The focus is on Florial not making the top 100 rather than Perez making it, or Sheffield ranking way higher than he’ll rank anywhere else, or Acevedo being a borderline top 100 guy.

Sorting out the Yankees’ current rotation depth chart

January 11, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

If the Yankees get their way, they will go into Spring Training with six viable big league starters for five rotation spots. They’ve been trying to add a starter to a group that already includes Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, Sonny Gray, and Jordan Montgomery. And not just a depth arm, either. They’ve been after guys like Gerrit Cole, Michael Fulmer, and Chris Archer. The Yankees want impact.

Of course, even if the Yankees get that impact pitcher, they’re probably going to end up using more than six starters this coming season. That’s baseball. Last season the Yankees used eleven different starting pitchers, right at the MLB average of 11.6 starters. The last team to use as few as six starters in a single season is the 2013 Tigers. The 2003 Mariners are the last team to get through a season using only five starters. Think we’ll ever see that again?

The Yankees have five starters at the moment, so while they would like to add another high-end starter, they’re not desperate. They can wait out the market until the price drops to their liking. As for their depth starters, well those guys are going to come from the farm system, and the Yankees have some quality arms slated to begin the season in Triple-A. Here are the team’s No. 6-10 starters according to their 2018 ZiPS projections:

6. Chance Adams: +1.4 WAR in 132.2 innings
7. Domingo German: +1.0 WAR in 113.1 innings
8. Domingo Acevedo: +0.7 WAR in 117.1 innings
9. Justus Sheffield: +0.6 WAR in 99 innings
10. Luis Cessa: +0.3 WAR in 115.2 innings

Being able to stash two +1 WAR pitchers in Triple-A for emergencies is a pretty nice luxury. (I’m higher on Cessa than basically everyone, so I think it’s more like three +1 WAR pitchers in Triple-A, but ZiPS says what ZiPS says.) Lots of teams will go into the new season with a +1 WAR guy slated to be their fifth starter, hoping they won’t have to dip into the replacement level fodder sitting in the minors.

Teams do not base their rotation depth charts on ZiPS, however. Real live depth charts are based not only on the team’s internal statistical projections — yes, teams develop their own projections — but also scouting reports, development goals, and the 40-man roster. Oftentimes the spot starter decision will be made for the team. Who lines up to pitch that day? Okay, well, he’s getting the ball then. It happens all the time. A few thoughts on the rotation depth chart.

1. Do the Yankees consider Adams ready? Last season, they did not. At least not enough to justify putting him on the 40-man roster two years earlier than necessary. The Yankees wanted Adams to meet some developmental goals in the minors before bringing him to the Bronx, which is why those midseason spot starts when to Cessa and Bryan Mitchell and whoever else.

Adams put in close to a full season at Triple-A last year, and he did well superficially: 2.89 ERA (3.76 FIP) with 22.3% strikeouts and 9.3% walks in 115.1 innings. Those numbers usually do not tell the entire story, however. The Yankees may want Adams to, say, improve his changeup. Or get more comfortable pitching lefties inside. Or do a better job locating his fastball from the stretch. That sorta stuff determines MLB readiness more than stats.

I expected Adams to make his MLB debut last season, and if you’d have told me in March he wouldn’t, I would’ve assumed an injury was involved. Instead, the Yankees wanted Adams to continue working on some things in Triple-A. Has he improved enough to get the call this year? If not, how long until that happens, assuming he isn’t traded before Opening Day? When it comes to Adams being an MLB option, the numbers tell one story. The Yankees’ actions tell another.

2. Acevedo and Sheffield aren’t rotation options yet. Unless the Yankees manage to get to August or even September without needing their eighth or ninth starter, I don’t think Acevedo and Sheffield are really eighth and ninth on the depth chart, as ZiPS suggests. Acevedo made two Triple-A starts last year and spent most of the summer in Double-A. Sheffield spent the season at Double-A and missed several weeks with an oblique injury.

Based on the Adams (and Severino and Montgomery) precedent, both Acevedo and Sheffield are going to get Triple-A time before the Yankees are ready to bring them to the show. Acevedo is on the 40-man roster, so perhaps he gets called up as a shuttle arm or emergency starter or something, but I think the plan is to give him a bunch of innings in Triple-A so he can continue working on his breaking ball and command. Sheffield isn’t on the 40-man and has yet to throw even 130 innings in a season. The Yankees will stick to their development plan with him. It’ll probably be a few months before these two are realistic big league options.

3. Like it or not, Cessa is going to keep getting chances. Like I said, I’m a Cessa fan. I like his velocity, his array of secondary pitches, and his athleticism. Does that mean I think he’ll be an impact starter? Of course not. I think the tools are there for him to be a solid fourth starter, the kinda guy who gets about $10M a year in free agency. At the same time, I know I am in the minority. Cessa has a 4.49 ERA (5.58 FIP) in 106.1 MLB innings, so yeah.

Clearly, there’s something the Yankees like about Cessa, because he keeps getting chances. He joined the rotation late in 2016 after Nathan Eovaldi got hurt, and he drew spot starts last year when Sabathia’s knee acted up. Cessa can start, he can relieve, and he’s on the 40-man and optionable. Maybe the Yankees don’t like him as much as me. They probably don’t. But Cessa is a viable depth arm and he’s only 25, so the Yankees are going to continue giving him opportunities to see if something clicks. Maybe it clicks in relief, ultimately. Either way, I think Cessa is the de facto sixth starter right now, regardless of the ZiPS projections.

4. Mystery starters are coming. Who had Caleb Smith making starts at midseason last year? Or Cessa and Chad Green two years ago? Or Chase Whitley in 2014? These unexpected call-ups happen all the time and for all different reasons. Smith was having an exceptional Triple-A season and impressed enough in a long relief outing to get a start. Green was throwing the snot out of the ball for the RailRiders two years ago. Whitley handled the reliever-to-starter conversion better than anyone expected.

These surprise starters come with the territory during a long 162-game season. Who will be the random minor leaguer who ends up making some starts this summer? My money is on Brady Lail, but don’t sleep on Nestor Cortes. He’ll be in camp as a Rule 5 Draft pick with the Orioles, though if he comes back, he could get a look. That’s basically what happened with Smith last year. He was a Rule 5 Draft guy with the Cubs, came back to the Yankees, then got called up. Point is, we can put together this carefully thought out rotation depth chart, then some random minor leaguer will barf all over it.

* * *

Rotation depth tends to disappear quickly. As soon as you think you have it, you don’t. Guys get hurt, guys underperform, things never go according to plan. That’s why the Yankees are looking to add a high-end starter. The more the better. I have some concerns about the current rotation given last year’s workloads, but I’m also comfortable with Cessa and German as the sixth and seventh starters, especially with Adams waiting behind them. At the same time, if the Yankees want to add more arms for depth, I am all for it.

The Farm System That Fueled The Yankees’ Surprising Success [2017 Season Review]

December 19, 2017 by Mike Leave a Comment

Coming into the 2017 season, the Yankees had arguably the best farm system in baseball, thanks largely to last summer’s trade deadline deals. The development of players already in the system contributed to that as well. It would be wrong to credit the farm system turnaround to the trades only. Player development helped too.

That highly ranked farm system helped the Yankees get to within one game of the World Series this year. The system pumped productive players into the big league roster and also gave the Yankees plenty of trade chips. And, amazingly enough, the Yankees still have a very good farm system. Jim Callis rated the system as the fourth best in baseball back in August, after the trade deadline and all the graduations. Pretty incredible. Let’s review the year that was down on the farm.

The Graduates

Might as well start with the players who are no longer prospects. MLB’s rookie limits are 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched, and according to that, the Yankees graduated a very impressive group of prospects to the big leagues: OF Clint Frazier (season review), RHP Chad Green (season review), OF Aaron Judge (season review), and LHP Jordan Montgomery (season review). Also, IF Tyler Wade (season review) is no longer rookie eligible due to service time, not at-bats.

Judge set a new rookie record with 52 home runs, earning him the AL Rookie of the Year award (unanimously) and the runner-up spot for the AL MVP. Green was a top ten reliever in baseball this season despite not getting called up until early-May. Montgomery led all rookie starters in WAR. Frazier and Wade did not have that sort of impact this season, though Frazier did hit a walk-off homer, and that’s pretty cool. By WAR, no team in baseball received more production from their farm system in 2017. It wasn’t even close.

The Top Prospect

There was no change atop the organizational prospect list this year. The top prospect going into Spring Training is still the top prospect today. That is both good news and bad news. It’s good news because that prospect, SS Gleyber Torres, is really freaking good. He was a consensus top five prospect coming into the season and MLB.com currently ranks him as the second best prospect in baseball, behind Japanese league veteran Shohei Ohtani.

It is also bad news because had things gone according to plan this season, Torres would not be a prospect right now. He would’ve made his MLB debut at some point and likely accrued enough playing time to land with the graduated prospects. Instead, Torres’ season ended on June 16th, when he managed to tear the ulnar collateral ligament in his non-throwing elbow during a slide into home plate. What a fluky injury.

“(Torres) was starting to conquer the International League and then he got hurt,” said Brian Cashman to Brendan Kuty last week. “The way his trajectory was going, I think you would have seen him in the big leagues last year some point in the end. You may very well have seen him as the DH or third base. It may have prevented us from trading for Todd Frazier. Who knows. We never did find out because he didn’t get more time.”

Torres started the year by tearing the cover off the ball in Spring Training — he hit .448/.469/.931 with nine extra-base hits (six doubles, one triple, two homers) and four singles in 32 Grapefruit League plate appearances — so much so that some wanted him on the Opening Day roster in place of the injured Didi Gregorius. I don’t mean fans either. Members of Joe Girardi’s coaching staff wanted to take Gleyber north out of camp.

“Our Major League staff wanted him ‘now.’ They wanted him to break camp and then play him at shortstop,” said Cashman to Ron Blum last week. “We just felt it was important for him to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run, and I didn’t want him drinking out of a fire hose in April. So I took my time, and I think it was the right move for him and for us.”

Torres went to Double-A Trenton and hit .273/.367/.496 (138 wRC+) in 32 games while being more than four years younger than the average Eastern League player. Then, after being promoted to Triple-A Scranton, he hit .309/.406/.457 (145 wRC+) in 23 games before the injuries. He was nearly seven years younger than the average International League player. Torres finished the season with a .287/.383/.480 (141 wRC+) batting line, seven homers, 12.8% walks, and 20.0% strikeouts in 55 minor league games.

As far as we know, Gleyber’s rehab is going well — he posts occasional workout videos on social media — well enough that Cashman confirmed Torres asked to play winter ball. The Yankees said no, however. They want him to come to Spring Training at full strength, not rush him back. We’ll see how what happens the rest of the offseason, though as things stand, there are openings at second and third base, and Torres could get a chance to win one of those jobs next spring. This time the coaching staff may get their wish and he’ll be included on the Opening Day roster.

The Other Top Prospects

I think there are two pretty defined tiers at the top of the farm system at the moment. There’s Gleyber and then there are the other guys who are top 100 caliber prospects. Will they all appear in top 100 lists next spring? Probably not, but I am sure they will all receive consideration, at the very least. Personal favorite 3B Miguel Andujar (season review) is among them. Even after graduating Judge and Frazier, the Yankees could still boast five or six top 100 prospects next year. That’s pretty cool.

LHP Justus Sheffield, who came over from the Indians with Frazier in the Andrew Miller trade, started the season as a 20-year-old in Double-A and threw 93.1 innings with a 3.18 ERA (4.58 FIP) and 20.3% strikeouts and 8.2% walks before an oblique injury shut him down. Sheffield returned in time to pitch in the Arizona Fall League (3.10 ERA in 20.1 innings) and was so impressive one scout told Josh Norris he had “No.1 starter-type stuff.” A lefty with good velocity and two potential out-pitch secondary pitches is a mighty fine prospect, and it is not out of the question that Sheffield will make his MLB debut at some point in 2018.

The Yankees’ other top pitching prospect, RHP Chance Adams, was impressive in his second full season as a starting pitcher, pitching to a 2.45 ERA (3.70 FIP) with 22.3% strikeouts and 9.6% walks in 150.1 innings at mostly Triple-A. The Yankees had plenty of opportunities to call Adams up this season, though they passed each time, which tells us they believe he still has some things to improve. And that’s okay. He just turned 24 and has been a starter for only two years. I thought Adams would debut in 2017 and it didn’t happen. If he doesn’t debut in 2018 though, something will have gone wrong.

RHP Albert Abreu came over in the Brian McCann trade last winter — the Yankees didn’t stop trading veterans for prospects at the 2016 deadline — and he was awfully impressive around elbow and lat injuries, throwing 53.1 innings with a 3.37 ERA (3.12 FIP) with 27.6% strikeouts and 8.1% walks at two Single-A levels. The injuries are a red flag, obviously, though the good news is Abreu was healthy enough to throw 27.2 innings with a 2.60 ERA in the Arizona Fall League. Abreu has a legitimate four-pitch mix and might have the best stuff in the system. Even with the injuries, he upped his stock this year by improving his control.

The Trade Chips

Aside from producing the AL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP runner-up, as well as several other contributing youngsters, the farm system also helped the Yankees by providing trade chips. We knew this was coming too. There is only so much roster space to go around, so the Yankees either had to trade some prospects, to risk losing them for nothing in the roster crunch. Heck, they made trades and still lost four players in the Rule 5 Draft.

The Yankees dipped into the prospect depth to make three trades this summer. Most notably, they shipped RHP James Kaprielian, SS/OF Jorge Mateo, and OF Dustin Fowler (season review) to the Athletics for Sonny Gray and $1.5M in international bonus money. Coming into the season Kaprielian (No. 5), Mateo (No. 7), and Fowler (No. 12) all ranked among my top 12 prospects in the system. That’s a lot of talent! There’s also more to the story.

Both Kaprielian and Fowler were damaged goods. Fowler blew out his knee crashing into the side wall at Guaranteed Rate Field in his first inning as a big leaguer, and Kaprielian underwent Tommy John surgery in April. He never took the mound this season. And that’s after a flexor injury limited Kaprielian to 45 innings in 2016. Since being the 16th overall pick in the 2015 draft, the soon-to-be 24-year-old Kaprielian has thrown 56.1 pro innings. He’s lost a lot of development time.

Mateo, meanwhile, was looking to bounce back from a wholly disappointing 2016 season, in which he hit .254/.306/.379 (99 wRC+) in 113 High-A games and was suspended two weeks for violating team rules. He hit .240/.288/.400 (98 wRC+) in 69 High-A games to begin this season, was promoted to Double-A anyway, and hit .300/.381/.525 (147 wRC+) in 30 games at the level. The Yankees also had Mateo begin working out in center field.

Aside from those 30 Double-A games before the trade, Mateo’s performance has not been good the last two years, yet the A’s loved his talent so much that they took him as the only healthy player in the Gray trade. In the end, the Yankees traded three of the dozen best prospects in their system for a potential impact starter in Gray, and all three of those prospects had seen their stock slip since Opening Day. Fowler and Kaprielian were seriously hurt and Mateo hadn’t performed aside from a month-long stint in Double-A immediately prior to the trade.

A few weeks prior to the Gray trade, the Yankees traded three prospects, including 2016 first round pick OF Blake Rutherford, to acquire David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, and Todd Frazier from the White Sox. Rutherford’s first full pro season was not going as hoped — he was hitting .281/.342/.391 (113 wRC+) with two homers in 71 Low-A games at the time of the trade — and my guess is that if he was living up to the hype, he would not have been traded. Rutherford hit .213/.289/.254 (63 wRC+) in 30 Low-A games after the trade, so yeah.

LHP Ian Clarkin, a 2013 first round pick, was also included in the trade. He’s been hampered by injuries over the years and, at the time of the trade, he had a 2.62 ERA (3.58 FIP) with 18.7% strikeouts and 8.0% walks in 75.2 innings at High-A. Clarkin made only three starts with the White Sox after the trade due to an oblique injury. The third prospect in the trade, OF Tito Polo, hit .307/.369/.455 (139 wRC+) with five homers and 27 steals in 74 games split between High-A and Double-A before going to Chicago. The ChiSox did not add Polo to the 40-man roster after the season and he was not selected in the Rule 5 Draft. Clarkin was added to the 40-man.

Also at the deadline, the Yankees turned two depth arms into Jaime Garcia, who provided rotation depth down the stretch. LHP Dietrich Enns, a stats before stuff guy, had a 2.29 ERA (2.70 FIP) in 39.1 Triple-A innings before the trade while missing time with a shoulder issue. RHP Zack Littell had a 1.87 ERA (2.88 FIP) in 115.1 High-A and Double-A innings before the trade, though the presence of many higher upside arms made his spot in the organization uncertain. Would the Yankees have 40-man roster space for him after the season? Rather than answer that question, the Yankees used Littell in a trade to help the MLB roster.

The Breakout Prospects

There may not have been a bigger breakout prospect in all the minors this season than OF Estevan Florial. The just turned 20-year-old spent most of the season with Low-A Charleston, hitting .298/.372/.479 (145 wRC+) with 13 homers and 23 steals in 110 total games. That earned Florial a spot in the Futures Game. His walk rate (10.1%) was very good. His strikeout rate (31.1%)? Not so much. Making more contact is the top priority going forward because everything else Florial does on the field is explosive. Power, speed, defense, you name it.

An argument can be made Florial is the second best prospect in the system behind Torres right now. I don’t have him that high in the system just yet — not gonna lie, the contact issues worry me, though he’s still so young and has plenty of time to improve — but it is clear Florial has emerged as a top 100 caliber prospect and one of the most tooled up outfielders in the minors. He has some things to work on. No doubt. Everyone does. But Florial’s emergence this year helped make Rutherford and Fowler expendable.

IF Thairo Estrada, a personal favorite, went from interesting low level guy to 40-man roster player this year by hitting .301/.353/.392 (107 wRC+) with a tiny little 10.3% strikeout rate in 122 games as a 21-year-old in Double-A. The Yankees added Thairo to the 40-man to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft last month and while he’s not another Gleyber or Andujar, Estrada can be the rich man’s Ronald Torreyes thanks to his contact skills and sure-handed defense all around the infield.

It might be a stretch to consider 2B Nick Solak a true breakout player, but the fact of the matter is that in his first full minor league season, the soon-to-be 23-year-old authored a .297/.384/.452 (143 wRC+) batting line with 12 homers, 14 steals, 11.7% walks, and 18.6% strikeouts in 130 games and reached Double-A. That is pretty darn good. Solak has some Rob Refsnyder in him — he’s a hitter first and a second baseman second — though he has more pop than Refsnyder and has a much better chance of staying at second base. I can’t help but feel like he’s trade bait.

Two years ago the Yankees gave 20th round pick OF Isiah Gilliam a well over slot $550,000 bonus because they like his power from both sides of the plate, and this season he put together a .275/.356/.468 (137 wRC+) batting line with 15 homers, 10.8% walks, and 21.7% strikeouts in 125 games, all with Low-A Charleston. He also showed he could handle the outfield full-time after spending most of the junior college career at first base. Gilliam turned 21 late in the season and his power is legit. That $550,000 looks like money well spent so far.

On the pitching side, there was no bigger breakout player this season than RHP Jorge Guzman, who played so well he was the top prospect in the Giancarlo Stanton trade. The 21-year-old came over with Abreu in the McCann trade and emerged as a top ten prospect in the system by throwing 66.2 innings with a 2.30 ERA (2.47 FIP) and great strikeout (33.5%) and walk (6.8%) rates for Short Season Staten Island. Guzman is an extreme hard-thrower — he reportedly sat 98-99 mph as a starter all summer — who made strides with his secondary stuff this year. As promising a prospect as he is — I think Guzman will pop up on top 100 lists come midseason — parting with a low level arm like Guzman for Stanton is a no-brainer.

RHP Taylor Widener made the college reliever to pro starter transition a la Adams, and he responded with 119.1 innings of 3.39 ERA (3.05 FIP) ball for High-A Tampa. His strikeout rate (26.4%) was good. His walk rate (10.2%) was not. Widener does not have Adams’ stuff — he lacks a legitimate put-away breaking ball or offspeed pitch — though remaining a starter long-term is not completely out of the questions now. If nothing else, Widener has raised his stock and could be a trade chip.

The Emerging Young Arms

A year ago the Yankees had a position player heavy farm system. Now they’re loaded with pitching, most of it in the low minors. RHP Domingo Acevedo is one of the exceptions. He pitched at three levels in 2017, including Double-A and Triple-A, and he finished with a 3.25 ERA (3.25 FIP) and 26.0% strikeouts and 6.2% walks in 133 total innings. Right now the 23-year-old Acevedo succeeds mostly by filling the strike zone with a mid-to-upper-90s fastball, but he’ll have to improve his breaking ball to remain a starter long-term.

In the lower minors, RHP Luis Medina quickly established himself as one of the highest upside pitchers in the system despite throwing 38.2 rookie ball innings with a 5.35 ERA (3.98 FIP) and 22.7% strikeouts and 14.0% walks. The 18-year-old signed for $300,000 in July 2015 and has easy 97-100 mph heat with two potential knockout secondary pitches in his curveball and changeup. Medina has a long way to go from where he is to big league starter, but gosh, the kid can really bring it. He’s a long-term project with frontline starter upside.

RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, a 23-year-old Giants castoff with 103.2 career innings in parts of five seasons, earned a spot on the 40-man roster by throwing 32.2 innings with a 1.38 ERA (2.17 FIP) and 27.2% strikeouts and 2.5% walks in his return from Tommy John surgery. He’s a tiny little guy (5-foot-11 and 165 lbs.) with a big arm, routinely sitting 93-97 mph with his fastball and backing it up with a power curveball and quality changeup. Not every prospect is a high draft pick or big money international signing. Sometimes a scrap heap signing like Loaisiga turns into a legit prospect worth a 40-man spot.

RHP Freicer Perez is a more classic Yankees pitching prospect than Loaisiga — Perez stands 6-foot-8 and 190 lbs. — and he’s gradually added velocity as a pro as he’s added muscle and refined his mechanics. The 21-year-old spent the season with Low-A Charleston and had a 2.84 ERA (3.59 FIP) with 22.7% strikeouts and 8.7% walks in 123.2 innings. Perez has some clunkiness in his delivery …

… which makes it difficult for him to stay on top of his curveball, though he is gaining consistency with the pitch. A mid-90s fastball and a surprisingly good changeup round out his repertoire. The Yankees signed Perez for a mere $10,000 back in December 2014 and he’s come a long way with his mechanics and his control.

It can be easy to stereotype Latin America pitching prospects as raw hard-throwers, but that does not describe 18-year-old RHP Roansy Contreras, a four-pitch pitcher with low-90s gas and a plan. His performance this season wasn’t great — he threw 53.2 rookie ball innings with a 4.02 ERA (4.18 FIP) with 14.0% strikeouts and 7.0% walks — though it’s rookie ball, so who cares. Contreras has the projectability to add velocity and the pitching acumen to further refine his secondary pitches. He’s quite the sleeper.

The Garcias — RHP Deivi Garcia and RHP Rony Garcia — are similar in that they’re teenage prospects with good velocity and a quality curveball. Deivi, 18, had a 3.30 ERA (3.44 FIP) with 36.6% strikeouts and 8.2% walks in 60 rookie ball innings this year. His curveball is said to have an elite spin rate. Rony, 19, had a 2.50 ERA (3.74 FIP) with 18.2% strikeouts and 5.5% walks in 75.2 rookie ball innings, and he operated with a low-to-mid-90s cutter and a snappy upper-70s curveball. Both Garcias are 2018-19 breakout candidates.

The Rebound Prospects

When the Yankees made their trade deadline deals last year, they targeted several once highly touted buy low candidates they’d try to rebuild. Among them was RHP Dillon Tate, the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft and part of the Carlos Beltran trade. Tate missed time with a shoulder problem this year, but when he returned, he had a 2.81 ERA (3.95 FIP) with 18.4% strikeouts and 7.0% walks in 83.1 innings split between High-A and Low-A. More importantly, his stuff bounced all the way back after a down 2016 season. From Keith Law (subs. req’d):

On Tuesday night, he started Game 1 of the Eastern League championship series for Trenton, and was sitting at 94-97 mph from the windup with more fastball life than he’d shown last year in the Arizona Fall League as a reliever, along with a much-improved changeup that I think has surpassed his slider to become his best off-speed pitch … Tate still has starter potential, even good starter potential, but there are a couple of specific facets to his game that have to improve for him to get there.

OF Billy McKinney was part of the Aroldis Chapman trade and he rebounded from a tough 2016 season to hit .277/.338/.483 (124 wRC+) in 124 games at Double-A and Triple-A. His 16 home runs were easily a new career high. That was enough to land McKinney on the 40-man roster and enough for the Yankees to have him try first base in the Arizona Fall League as they look for a way to get him into the lineup.

Although he was not acquired at the 2016 trade deadline, OF Jake Cave qualifies as a rebound prospect because his stock is at an all-time high following several up and down seasons. The 25-year-old posted a .305/.351/.542 (145 wRC+) line with a career high 20 home runs — his previous career high was eight homers — in 103 games at Double-A and Triple-A. He credited the success to a new emphasis on elevating the ball. To wit:

2015: 55.3 GB% and 17.9 K%
2016: 44.0 GB% and 22.5 K%
2017: 42.0 GB% and 26.3 K%

Fewer ground balls and more strikeouts are classic signs a player is selling out for power, and hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. Cave’s career had kinda stalled out and he made adjustments that landed him a spot on the 40-man roster. He and McKinney are both left-handed hitting outfielders who experienced Triple-A success this season. The fact Cave can play center field — and play it well — gives him the edge over McKinney as a prospect in my opinion.

RHP Nick Rumbelow, who spent some big league time with the Yankees in 2015, returned from Tommy John surgery at midseason and was dynamite, throwing 40.1 innings with a 1.12 ERA (1.89 FIP) and 29.4% strikeouts and 7.2% walks between Double-A and Triple-A. Rumbelow was so good the Yankees added him to the 40-man roster after the season, and the Mariners then traded two prospects (LHP JP Sears and RHP Juan Then) to the Yankees to get him. Sears has left-on-left matchup potential and Then is a lower level prospect with starter upside.

The New Faces

The Yankees subtracted way more prospects via trade this season than they acquired. In addition to Sears and Then, the Yankees added 1B Ryan McBroom in a minor trade with the Blue Jays. Refsnyder went the other way. McBroom is a right-handed hitting and left-handed throwing first baseman who hit .257/.327/.379 (96 wRC+) with four homers in 38 Double-A games after the trade. He hit .247/.323/.395 (98 wRC+) with 16 homers overall in 2017. The soon-to-be 26-year-old is a fringe prospect who might hold down first base in Scranton in 2018.

RHP Matt Frawley, a 17th round pick in last year’s draft, came over from the Pirates for Johnny Barbato. The 22-year-old had a statistically excellent season — he threw 71.2 innings between Low-A and High-A, and finished with a 1.63 ERA (2.24 FIP) and 26.7% strikeouts and 4.2% walks — and is a low-to-mid-90s fastball/curveball reliever. Frawley figures to open 2018 at Double-A and could be a big league option come 2019.

A few weeks ago the Yankees sent Garrett Cooper and Caleb Smith to the Marlins for international bonus money and RHP Mike King, Miami’s 12th round pick in last summer’s draft. The 22-year-old threw 149 innings this year, all at Low-A, with a 3.14 ERA (3.97 FIP) with 17.8% strikeouts and 3.5% walks. King is a low-90s fastball/slider guy with very good command. I suspect the Yankees will move him into the bullpen at some point to see what happens when he airs it out for an inning or two.

The Yankees also acquired RHP Yoiber Marquina from the Indians as the player to be named later in last offseason’s Nick Goody trade, though the 21-year-old did not pitch in 2017 as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery. Marquina is a legitimate prospect though, sitting in the low-90s with a usable curveball and changeup. He had a 3.16 ERA (2.90 FIP) with 32.3% strikeouts and 10.5% walks in 31.1 Low-A innings last year, before his elbow gave out.

Of course, the Yankees also added talent through the 2017 draft as well. They signed 23 of their 40 picks, including the top 22. First round pick RHP Clarke Schmidt did not pitch after the draft as he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery. RHP Matt Sauer, the club’s second rounder, had a 5.40 ERA (3.68 FIP) with 21.1% strikeouts and 14.0% walks in 11.2 rookie ball innings after signing. Third rounder RHP Trevor Stephan was a monster in his pro debut, posting a 1.31 ERA (1.74 FIP) with 34.1% strikeouts and 4.7% walks in 34.1 pro innings, mostly with Short Season Staten Island.

The Yankees may have found a diamond in the rough in 12th rounder OF Steven Sensley, who hit .292/.370/.584 (157 wRC+) with 13 home runs at three levels after the draft, climbing as high as Low-A Charleston. We’ve seen plenty of guys have big pro debuts and do nothing after, so we’ll see what Sensley does next year, but the scouting report is intriguing. Sensley has power, a plan at the plate, and good athleticism. Here are our Day One, Day Two, and Day Three draft recaps.

The Best of the Rest

Not counting the guys who graduated or were traded away, I’ve covered 32 prospects in this post already. I count about 15 others I haven’t covered who would land in a “normal” top 30 prospects list. The Yankees have a lot of depth in their system. Not everyone is going to be a star, but they have a lot of players who project to be useful big leaguers. Those guys can be plugged into the roster when help is needed or traded. Here are the other notable players who spent at least part of 2017 in the farm system (age in parentheses).

IF Abi Avelino (22): Avelino has become an organizational utility infielder — he hit .254/.304/.356 (82 wRC+) in 98 games at three levels and all different positions — and could really use a fresh start somewhere else.
IF Oswaldo Cabrera (18): Cabrera’s skills don’t show up in the stats: .252/.306/.321 (85 wRC+) with four homers in 112 games at the lower levels. He has good bat-to-ball skills, good defensive chops, and is a very hard worker.
C Gustavo Campero (20): The 5-foot-6 backstop hit .304/.444/.545 (179 wRC+) with three homers, 13 steals, and more walks (27) than strikeouts (23) in 36 rookie ball games. Can he hit more advanced pitching? Can he catch? Those are the questions going forward.
RHP Cody Carroll (25): Very hard-throwing reliever posted a 2.54 ERA (3.04 FIP) with 32.1% strikeouts and 10.8% walks in 67.1 innings at High-A and Double-A. Carroll needs to be more consistent with his slider and control, but he figures to be a big league option in 2018.
SS Diego Castillo (20): Contact maestro hit .263/.310/.315 (83 wRC+) with 10.0% strikeouts in 118 Low-A games. He’s a way better prospect than the stat line indicates. Castillo has great contact skills, he can really play shortstop, and he’s very instinctual.
LHP Nestor Cortes (23): Cortes had another dominant statistical season, throwing 104.2 innings with a 2.06 ERA (2.86 FIP) and 24.8% strikeouts at three levels. He was taken by the Orioles in the Rule 5 Draft, so we might get to see how his soft-tossing approach works against big leaguers in 2018.
RHP Juan De Paula (20): De Paula, who was part of the Ben Gamel trade, quietly posted a 2.90 ERA (3.08 FIP) in 62 innings with Short Season Staten Island. He’s a pitchability guy with a deep arsenal.
RHP J.P. Feyereisen (24): In 63.1 upper level innings, Feyereisen managed a 3.27 ERA (3.85 FIP) with 23.3% strikeouts and 10.9% walks. Despite touching triple digits with his fastball, an inconsistent slider kept Feyereisen from being picked in the Rule 5 Draft.
RHP Drew Finley (21): Injuries continue to hamper the former third round pick. Finley threw 33.1 low level innings with a 6.48 ERA (4.51 FIP), and his stuff has backed up a bit since he was drafted in 2015.
3B Dermis Garcia (19): No one in the farm system has more power than Dermis, who hit .249/.357/.542 (144 wRC+) with 17 homers and 14.3% walks in only 63 low level games. He has to get the strikeouts (30.5%) under control though, especially with a move to first base looking more and more likely.
SS Wilkerman Garcia (19): Second straight disappointing season for Wilkerman, who once upon a time was a top ten prospect in the system. He hit .222/.256/.296 (64 wRC+) in 67 games with Short Season Staten Island.
SS Kyle Holder (23): The defensive wiz hit .271/.317/.350 (95 wRC+) at High-A this year and seems to be getting a little better with the bat with each passing year. I’m buying.
RHP Brian Keller (23): Last year’s 39th round pick ripped up the low minors (3.13 ERA and 2.54 FIP in 144 innings), which is what you’d expect a four-year college guy to do. Keller has four pitches, none of which is great.
RHP Nolan Martinez (19): A shoulder issue limited Martinez to 13.2 rookie ball innings in 2017, during which he allowed one run and struck out 14. He’s a prime 2018 breakout candidate thanks to his low-90s heater and high spin curveball.
RHP Nick Nelson (22): The numbers aren’t great (4.56 ERA and 3.83 FIP at Low-A), but Nelson misses bats with his fastball and curveball, and his changeup is promising as well. Better prospect than the numbers would lead you to believe.
OF Pablo Olivares (19): Olivares is one of those good at everything, great at nothing prospects. He hit .241/.347/.322 (94 wRC+) in 59 games, which included a rough 36-game stint at Charleston (33 wRC+).
OF Alex Palma (22): The outfield assist machine (seven in 49 games!) had his best year with the stick, hitting .280/.322/.435 (120 wRC+) with four homers in 54 Single-A games. Palma did not get picked in the Rule 5 Draft, but with another strong year, he may force a 40-man roster decision next offseason.
SS Hoy Jun Park (21): The .251/.348/.359 (110 wRC+) batting line with seven homers and 25 steals in 110 games doesn’t stand out, but Park can play the hell out of shortstop and he has more raw power than he’s shown in games.
LHP James Reeves (24): The Yankees like Reeves enough that they brought him to Spring Training as a non-roster player this year. An elbow injury sidelined him for much of the season though. He had a 1.96 ERA (2.18 FIP) with 26.6% strikeouts in 46 innings when healthy, and he profiles as a classic left-on-left matchup guy.
LHP Josh Rogers (23): Three-pitch lefty had a 3.24 ERA (3.38 FIP) with 21.7% strikeouts and 4.3% walks in 91.2 innings, mostly at High-A, before surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow ended his season. Rogers has gotten lost in the system’s pitching depth, but he’s a good prospect.
C Donny Sands (21): The conversion to catching isn’t going well so far, but there’s no reason to pull the plug yet. Sands did hit .276/.328/.374 (105 wRC+) with four homers in 93 Single-A games.
LHP Stephen Tarpley (24): The move to the bullpen worked wonders for Tarpley, who threw 41 innings with a 0.88 ERA (2.85 FIP) with 26.9% strikeouts. He’s a left-on-left reliever candidate thanks to low-to-mid-90s heat and a good slider.
C Saul Torres (18): Torres didn’t hit much this year — he put up .174/.230/.309 (45 wRC+) line in 46 rookie ball games — but he’s the best defensive catcher in the system, and the consensus is there’s more offense coming.

OF Trey Amburgey, RHP Will Carter, OF Rashad Crawford, RHP Austin DeCarr, 1B Mike Ford, RHP Anyelo Gomez, RHP Nick Green, OF Jeff Hendrix, RHP Brady Lail, RHP Jose Mesa Jr., OF Leonardo Molina, RHP Jio Orozco, RHP Erik Swanson, and 1B Brandon Wagner all had varying levels of success in the minors this year and should be recognized as prospects, albeit fringe ones way down the organizational depth chart. Ford (Mariners), Gomez (Braves), and Mesa (Orioles) were all selected in the Rule 5 Draft.

* * *

The Yankees’ farm system inevitably took a hit in 2017. They had arguably the best system in baseball coming into the season and there was nowhere to go but down. The farm system took a hit for good reasons though. The Yankees graduated several players to the big leagues, almost all of whom had an impact right away. They also traded several quality prospects for MLB players, most of whom are under control for another few seasons. Seeing your system ranking drop because of graduations and trades is much more preferable to dropping due to poor performance and attrition.

Chances are the farm system will take another hit next season, when Torres likely reaches the big leagues and others like Andujar and Adams possibly exhaust their rookie eligibility. Overall though, the Yankees have become a player development machine the last few years, and that is the single biggest reason they are back to being a contender with such a bright long-term future.