Luis Cessa Archives - Page 2 of 12

Luis Cessa heading to disabled list with oblique strain

April 17, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

Yet another Yankee is heading to the disabled list. Following tonight’s game Brian Cashman confirmed Luis Cessa will be placed on the 10-day DL with an oblique strain. Cessa was called up earlier today to replace Tommy Kahnle, who was placed on the 10-day DL with shoulder tendinitis.

Cessa exited tonight’s game with the injury after throwing two innings and 28 pitches. Jonathan Holder and Jonathan Loaisiga are the only healthy 40-man roster pitchers not in the big leagues right now, so I’d bet on Holder getting called up tomorrow. Cessa’s injury also means Domingo German is the unquestioned sixth start right now.

Cessa joins Kahnle (shoulder), Greg Bird (ankle), Brandon Drury (migraines), Jacoby Ellsbury (oblique, hip, foot), Clint Frazier (concussion), Ben Heller (elbow), Billy McKinney (shoulder), and CC Sabathia (shoulder) on the disabled list. Sabathia is due back Thursday. Everyone else is out more long-term.

Update: I’m a dolt. The Yankees will probably just activate Sabathia and plug him into Cessa’s roster spot rather than call up Holder. There’s an off-day Wednesday and Sabathia is Thursday’s scheduled starter. Duh.

Tommy Kahnle placed on 10-day DL with shoulder tendinitis

April 17, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The Yankees have placed right-hander Tommy Kahnle on the 10-day DL with right shoulder tendinitis, the team announced. The move is retroactive to yesterday. Not sure why they didn’t (or couldn’t) backdate it further, but whatever. Luis Cessa was recalled from Triple-A Scranton to fill the roster spot.

“We’re hoping that this is something that we can knock out with a few days of rest,” said Aaron Boone to Bryan Hoch this afternoon. Kahnle had an MRI earlier today and the Yankees are optimistic this is a minor injury. Pete Caldera said all the strength tests checked out okay.

Kahnle, 28, has struggled so far this season, allowing seven runs (five earned) in 7.1 innings. He’s struck out nine and walked eight in those 7.1 innings, so yeah. Furthermore, Kahnle’s velocity has been down, which was a pretty good indication something wasn’t right. To wit:

On one hand, at least we now have a possible explanation for Kahnle’s missing velocity and ineffectiveness. On the other hand, a shoulder issue is never good. Tendinitis is intentionally vague too. Doesn’t really tell us what’s wrong. Kahnle did warm up last night, so I guess this is a fairly new injury.

Cessa was sent down Sunday and was scheduled to start for Triple-A Scranton today before being called up. He’s made two one-inning appearances for the Yankees this season, retiring all six men he’s faced with three strikeouts. I wonder if we’ll see him in short relief more often. I’d be open to it.

DotF: Gilliam continues to mash in Tampa’s win

April 15, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

Earlier today, following the double postponements, the Yankees announced RHP Luis Cessa has been optioned and OF Shane Robinson has been outrighted, both to Triple-A Scranton. Robinson remains with the Yankees as a non-40-man roster player. (UTIL Jace Peterson is still in DFA limbo.) The Yankees will call someone up to replace Cessa tomorrow, then they’ll need to send someone down Thursday to make room on the roster for CC Sabathia.

Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barres RailRiders (4-3 win over Charlotte in six innings) completed early due to rain

LF L.J. Mazzilli: 0-2, 1 RBI — three starts at three different positions since the trade
3B Gleyber Torres: 1-3, 1 R, 1 K — that’s five straight starts at third base
C Kyle Higashioka: 2-3, 1 R, 1 2B, 1 RBI — first multi-hit game of the year … he is 8-for-23 (.348) with one double, two homers, five walks, and five strikeouts in seven games so far
1B Mike Ford: 1-3, 1 RBI
SS Abi Avelino: 1-2, 1 R
RHP Jonathan Holder: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 0/1 GB/FB — 15 of 22 pitches were strikes (68%) … not sure why he started today, but it could be that he’s working on a set schedule, and they wanted to make sure he threw his inning before the rain
RHP Brody Koerner: 4 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR, 5/2 GB/FB — 37 of 57 pitches were strikes (65%)

[Read more…]

Yankees place CC Sabathia and Brandon Drury on 10-day DL

April 7, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

The list of injured Yankees keeps getting longer. As expected, the team announced a series of roster moves this morning, which includes sending two more players to the disabled list. Here’s a recap:

Placed CC Sabathia on the 10-day DL with a right hip strain.
Placed Brandon Drury on the 10-day DL with severe migraines.
Optioned Jonathan Holder to Triple-A Scranton.
Called up Luis Cessa and Domingo German from Triple-A.
Added Jace Peterson to the 40-man roster and called him up from Triple-A.

The Yankees had an open 40-man roster spot after losing Trayce Thompson on waivers a few days ago, so no 40-man move was necessary to accommodate Peterson. Three removed from the 25-man roster and three added to the 25-man roster. Straight swaps.

Sabathia left last night’s start with right hip soreness and an MRI came back clean. He said he didn’t believe he’d have to miss a start, and even if true, the Yankees are going to play it safe early in the season. Monday’s off-day means Sabathia will only miss one start if he misses the minimum ten days.

Drury left last night’s start with a migraine and blurred vision. Assuming Peterson takes on a bench role, Miguel Andujar could get an opportunity to play third base on an everyday basis for at least the next ten days. That’d be cool. Something tells me Ronald Torreyes will see some action there as well.

“Vision’s been very blurry. It’s baseball. I need my eyes to be right to play,” said Drury to Erik Boland, adding he’s been dealing with migraines since Spring Training. “I want to get that fixed up and see what’s going on with my vision.”

The Holder, Cessa, and German moves are all about adding fresh arms following last night’s 14-inning game. Holder has not been good this year (seven runs in 2.2 innings) and is the only optionable reliever in the bullpen, so down he went. Cessa was scheduled to start today for the RailRiders and German was due to start Monday.

Presumably either Cessa or German will step into Sabathia’s rotation spot for the time being, and it might come down to who is available. Monday’s off-day means Aaron Boone can use both in relief this weekend and still have them make Sabathia’s next start, which could be pushed back to next Saturday, on normal rest.

The Yankees now have eight (!) players on the MLB disabled list: Sabathia, Drury, Greg Bird (ankle), Jacoby Ellsbury (oblique, hip), Clint Frazier (concussion), Ben Heller (elbow), Aaron Hicks (intercostal), and Billy McKinney (shoulder). Hicks is expected back as soon as Tuesday. The other guys are all a little further out. Also, Tyler Wade left last night’s game with an illness, so he’s not 100% either.

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Bullpen Shuttle [2018 Season Preview]

March 26, 2018 by Domenic Lanza Leave a Comment

The Yankees have managed to maintain a stable of major league-ready pitchers on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre roster for the last several years, and this season is no exception. By the time the official Opening Day roster is announced, it is likely that the team will have at least five pitchers with experience at the highest level heading to or already at Triple-A, where they will bide their time until the need for a fresh arm inevitably arrives. And, while most teams would be satisfied with a bunch of competent arms awaiting the call, the Yankees have more than a bit of upside in their first line of defense.

Luis Cessa

This is Cessa’s third year in the organization and it stands to be his third time as an up-and-down arm, as he was optioned to Triple-A on Friday afternoon. The soon-to-be 26-year-old was less than stellar in four Spring Training starts, pitching to a 6.75 ERA in 9.1 IP, but I suspect that the Yankees were always more comfortable with him staying stretched out in the minors regardless of how he performed in the Grapefruit League. After all, Cessa has a 4.54 ERA in 14 major league starts, and he’s probably the de facto sixth starter … for now.

That being said, Cessa is almost certainly best-suited for the bullpen. While he technically throws four pitches, his fastball and slider are several steps above his curveball and change-up, with the latter two largely profiling as show-me pitches. That’s not a great look for a starter. However, his fastball has averaged just over 95 MPH in his time in the big leagues, and his plus slider has a ridiculous 42.05% whiffs per swing rate (compare that to Chris Sale, whose slider had a 40.32% whiff rate last year). That formula could work wonders in one or two inning bursts.

The real issue with shifting Cessa to the bullpen full-time is the simple fact that the team’s bullpen is already ridiculously deep, and this group of Triple-A arms includes two or three pitchers that are exclusively relievers. Shifting Cessa to the bullpen may be the right move to maximize his value in an individual sense, but keeping him stretched out to provide insurance for the rotation makes a bit more sense for the team as-is. This could all change, however, depending on the performance of Domingo Acevedo, Chance Adams, and Justus Sheffield – so this bears watching.

Giovanny Gallegos

Gallegos built a reputation for stingy walk rates and surprising strikeout rates through five-plus seasons in the Yankees organization, and seemed destined to ride the shuttle in 2017 as a result. And he did just that, bouncing between Triple-A and the majors seven times last year. He was dominant at Triple-A (43.1 IP, 2.08 ERA, 2.3 BB/9, 14.3 K/9), but pedestrian at-best in the bigs, pitching to a 4.87 ERA (94 ERA+) in 20.1 IP across 16 appearances. The peripherals were there in many ways, as racked up 22 strikeouts against just 5 walks, but his paltry 35.6% groundball rate was not conducive to keeping the ball in the park.

One of the interesting things about Gallegos’s time with the Yankees is that he was almost exclusively shelled when being caught by Austin Romine. He pitched to a 9.95 ERA and allowed all 3 of his home runs in the 6.1 innings caught by Romine, and a 2.57 ERA in the 14 innings thrown to Gary Sanchez and Erik Kratz. That almost certainly means a whole lot of nothing, but it caught my attention nevertheless.

Gallegos doesn’t have the upside to be much more than a solid middle reliever, and he’s likely to be used in that capacity if and when he is called up. His demonstrated ability to pitch more than an inning per appearance doesn’t hurt, either.

Domingo German

If Cessa isn’t the sixth starter right now, it’s because the 25-year-old German is simply too darn good to overlook. German missed all of 2015 due to Tommy John surgery, and tossed just 49.2 IP between Charleston and Tampa upon returning in 2016. They were excellent innings, though (3.08 ERA/3.44 FIP), and the Yankees took the training wheels off in 2017, allowing him to throw 109.1 IP between Trenton and Scranton, and another 14.1 in the majors. And, once again, German excelled, pitching to a 2.88 ERA, 9.8 K/9, and 2.6 BB/9 in the minors, and a 3.14 ERA (147 ERA+) and 11.3 K/9 for the Yankees. To cap it off, he had a 2.30 ERA in 15.2 spring IP before being sent down on Saturday.

Well, saying that he excelled in the majors might be a bit misleading. The run prevention, strikeouts, and groundball rate (54.5%) were all great; the 5.7 BB/9, not so much. It’s not too shocking that a pitcher with German’s stuff would struggle to find the zone at times, and 14.1 IP is a small sample size – but it was the lone blemish on an otherwise brilliant overall season. It’s something to keep an eye on going forward, though his 2.7 BB/9 mark in the minors for his career suggests that there’s better control to come.

As is the case with Cessa, German has mostly been a starter in the minors. 19 of his 20 minor league appearances last year were starts, as were all of his games in 2016. And the Yankees kept him stretched out in the majors last year, as those 14.1 IP were spread across 7 games. German has more upside than Cessa as a starter, though, as he has three pitches that profile as at least fringe-average offerings, in his 95-plus MPH fastball, upper-80s change-up, and low-80s curveball. And that curveball had a 53.57% whiff rate last year, so he may well have more upside as a reliever, too.

If I were the Yankees, German would be my sixth starter. And I suspect they’ll allow him to earn that opportunity when the need arises.

Ben Heller

If you were to create a player that was the statistical norm for a right-handed relief pitcher, you may well wind up with Heller. The 26-year-old checks in at 6’3″ and 205 pounds, and sports a mid-to-upper 90s fastball and a low-to-mid 80s slider that is nearly unhittable when it’s right. In fact, his slider has a 54.28% whiff rate in his 18 IP at the highest level. And that sort of one-two punch is what dozens of relievers have made a successful career of.

Heller is back by his control, though. He has walked 10 batters in those 18 innings, and he’s walked 3.6 per 9 in his minor league career. Control has never been his strong suit, but his stuff could bail him out in the minors – that won’t work so well against big league hitters. Spring training stats may not mean much, but seeing him walk just 3 batters in 11.1 IP thus far is a good sign – particularly when it’s still coupled with a healthy 16 strikeouts.

Heller’s premium stuff might have him a tick above Gallegos on the depth chart, but the Yankees aren’t too likely to trust him as anything more than an up-and-down guy until he shows that he can throw strikes with consistency. If he does do that, though, he could be Tommy Kahnle 2.0 – and I don’t think that’s terribly farfetched.

Jonathan Holder

Holder was named to the Yankees Opening Day roster on Saturday, and it’s not too difficult to see why. He pitched to a 3.89 ERA (117 ERA+) with 1.8 BB/9 and 9.2 K/9 in 39.1 IP for the Yankees last year, and he was excellent in Spring Training. Holder might not have the most upside on this list, but he may well be the safest bet to be the placeholder for the shuttle to open the season. And, make no mistake, he’s a placeholder for the time being, profiling as the eighth reliever in lieu of a true back-up outfielder until Jacoby Ellsbury comes off of the disabled list.

That doesn’t mean that Holder’s anything less than competent, though. He lacks high-end stuff, but he has three solid offerings in his low-90s fastball, high-80s cutter, and mid-70s curveball, and he commands everything well. And, unlike the other arms at Triple-A, he’s demonstrated that he can ply his craft in the majors for a fairly long period of time. That may not be exciting, but it’s important.

Holder’s upside, however, may be limited by his struggles against LHH. Lefties hit .351/.439/.528 against him last year, which is terrifying. That’s not in-line with his cup of coffee in 2016 or his time in the minors, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless – especially in Yankee Stadium. And he uses his cutter in place of a change-up, and it’s not a swing-and-miss pitch. So while Holder may be the safest bet here to hold down the middle innings, his upside is something of a question.

Open Thread: March 23rd Camp Notes

March 23, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

Only four more exhibition games to go. The Yankees lost 5-0 to the Red Sox this afternoon, in their penultimate home game of the spring. Masahiro Tanaka started and looked to be in midseason form: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR. The quintessential Tanaka pitching line. Chasen Shreve allowed two runs in his messy inning of work.

Not a whole lot to see offensively. Neil Walker and Didi Gregorius had doubles, and Aaron Judge and Brett Gardner (two) had singles. Giancarlo Stanton drew two walks. That’s about it. The guys are ready to get the hell outta Tampa. I don’t blame them. Here are the box score and video highlights, and here is the rest of the day’s notes from Tampa:

Brandon Drury left this afternoon’s game after taking a pitch to the left elbow. X-rays came back negative, thankfully. Drury did stay in the game to run the bases before being removed. He is day-to-day with an elbow contusion, the Yankees say.
Prior to today’s game the Yankees optioned out Luis Cessa, the team announced. That means the competition for the eighth reliever’s spot — assuming the Yankees start the season with eight relievers — is down to Domingo German and Jonathan Holder.
So long, Wade LeBlanc. He was released following today’s game at his request. I guess the Yankees told LeBlanc he wasn’t going to make the team, so he asked for his release to look for an opportunity elsewhere. I count 37 players still in big league camp. [Bryan Hoch]
Congrats to Miguel Andujar. He was named the James P. Dawson Award winner as the best rookie in camp today. Previous winners include Gleyber Torres and, uh, Johnny Barbato, Slade Heathcott, Vidal Nuno, and Jon Weber. Here are the day’s minor league workout groups.
The Yankees have a pair of split squad games tomorrow. Luis Severino will pitch on the road against the Braves while David Hale pitches at home against the Blue Jays. The road game will be televised. The home game will not.

This is the nightly open thread. If you’re interested, this afternoon’s game will be replayed on YES (11pm ET) and MLB Network (9am ET). The Knicks, Nets, and Devils are all playing tonight, plus there’s all the March Madness action. Talk about anything here except religion or politics.

Five bold predictions for the 2018 Yankees season

March 21, 2018 by Mike Axisa Leave a Comment

One week and one day until the Yankees open the 2018 regular season in Toronto. Is it just me, or has Spring Training flown by this year? I feel like it’s gone much quicker than previous years. Maybe that’s because Spring Training was longer than usual last year due to the World Baseball Classic. Whatever. Opening Day is rapidly approaching and I can’t wait.

With the start of the regular season on the horizon, this is as good a time as any to lay down some bold 2018 Yankees predictions. Last year I came up with ten bold predictions and learned two things. One, ten is too many. And two, I didn’t go bold enough. I went 7-for-10 last year. As much as I’d like to say I’m just that smart, going 7-for-10 tells me my bold predictions weren’t really that bold.

So this year, I’m shortening up to five predictions that I hope qualify as actually, you know, bold. Or at least bolder than last season. Anyway, here are my five bold predictions for the 2018 Yankees season, in no particular order.

1. Hicks will lead the Yankees in WAR.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing! I try to be an optimist and hey, Spring Training is the time of year for unbridled optimism, so I see this as a good thing. I’m all in on Hicksie. I think last year’s first half Hicks, the guy who hit .290/.398/.515 (144 wRC+) with nearly as many walks (15.3%) as strikeouts (17.4%) before his oblique betrayed him in the second half, is the real Hicks going forward.

A few reasons I’m buying the new Hicks. One, this didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s a former first round pick and highly regarded prospect — Baseball America ranked him as the 19th best prospect in baseball prior to the 2010 season — so the talent has always been there. Two, Hicks has been making more and more hard contact with each passing season. His yearly hard contact rates:

2014: 24.1%
2015: 25.3%
2016: 28.9%
2017: 30.8%

Three, Hicks has always controlled the strike zone. Going into last season he had a 9.6% walk rate and a tiny 22.4% chase rate in his career. He didn’t swing-and-miss much either (8.9%). That overall .372 OBP last season wasn’t an accident. Four, he switch-hits! Never being at the platoon disadvantage is kind of a big deal. And five, Hicks is right smack in the middle of what should be the prime of his career. He turned 28 in October, and if there was ever a year to have a career year, this is it.

With good health this season, I think Hicks is a .280/.400/.500 guy with 20+ homers, 20+ steals, and very good center field defense. That last part is important. Hicks isn’t going to out-WAR guys like Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gary Sanchez on offense alone. It’ll be the superb defense at an up-the-middle position that puts him over the top and into the +7 WAR range this season.

2. The Yankees will be the first team ever with four 40+ home runs hitters.

The four: Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, and Ronald Torreyes. Okay fine, Greg Bird instead of Torreyes. Only three teams in history have had as many as three 40-homer guys.

1973 Braves: Davey Johnson (43), Darrell Evans (41), Hank Aaron (40)
1996 Rockies: Andres Galarraga (47), Vinny Castilla (40), Ellis Burks (40)
1997 Rockies: Larry Walker (49), Galarraga (41), Castilla (40)

Competing with pre-humidor Coors Field won’t be easy, but the 2018 Yankees and Yankee Stadium are up to the task. Judge and Stanton are obvious 40-homer power guys and I think Sanchez gets there this year as well, especially if the Yankees do indeed cut back on his catching workload slightly to give him more DH days. Gary hit 33 homers in 122 games last season. Reaching 40 with good health is doable.

The fourth 40-homer guy is the sticking point. We all love Greg Bird. He’s awesome. But he has not been the most durable player in his career to date. HowEVA, he’s hit 20 homers in 94 regular season games despite playing 19 of those games with a bum ankle early last year. Getting to 40 homers in, say, 150 games is possible because Bird’s swing is so geared for the short porch. Allow me to repeat some numbers:

Career pull rate: 44.8% (MLB average: 39.8%)
Career ground ball rate: 28.4% (MLB average: 44.2%)
Career hard contact rate: 40.6% (MLB average: 31.8%)

A lefty hitter who hits the ball hard in the air and to the pull field is a great it for Yankee Stadium. We’ve seen it already. Bird has peppered the short porch when healthy. This will be the year he finally stays on the field, and that’ll allow him to make 40-homer history with Bird, Sanchez, and Stanton.

3. The Yankees will have four starters each make 30+ starts.

Every spring, like clockwork, we talk about the rotation and all the preexisting health concerns. There’s Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow and CC Sabathia’s knee and the young guys and their workloads limits. We all fret about the breakdown potential, then the Yankees go out and have a pretty good rotation anyway. The rotation was top ten in basically every meaningful category last year, and now the Yankees will have a full season of Sonny Gray.

Starters are throwing fewer innings with each passing season, and not only because they’re being pulled earlier within games. They’re also making fewer starts (by design). Teams are giving their starters more rest whenever possible. The Yankees certainly do that whenever they can. And yet, I have four Yankees starters making 30+ starts in 2018: Tanaka, Sabathia, Gray, and Jordan Montgomery. Why not Luis Severino? Because I think the Yankees will be extra cautious with him after last season’s workload. He might have to settle for 28 or 29 starts.

One team having four pitchers make 30+ starts in a single season doesn’t happen often but it does happen. Recent World Series winners like the 2016 Cubs (Jake Arrieta, Jason Hammel, Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester), the 2012 Giants (Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Vogelsong, Barry Zito), and the 2011 Cardinals (Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse, Jake Westbrook) all managed to do it. Here are the last three times the Yankees got 30+ starts from four pitchers:

2009: Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Joba Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte
2003: Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, David Wells
1999: Pettitte, Clemens, David Cone, Orlando Hernandez

Notice a pattern here? Very good things tend to happen when teams have four starters stay healthy all season. It doesn’t guarantee success — John Danks, Jose Quintana, Chris Sale, and Jeff Samardzija all made 30+ starts for the 2015 White Sox and they went 72-90 — but if it happens, I’m feeling good about my team’s chances. The 2018 Yankees will join the “four starters with 30+ starts each” club. And they might be the only team to do it this year.

4. Cessa emerges as the next great Yankees reliever.

This worked with Chad Green last year so I might as well try it with the other player in the Justin Wilson trade this year. I have (inexplicably?) been a Luis Cessa fan the last two years — that isn’t to say I think he’s a budding ace or anything, but I think he’s a long-term big leaguer — though he has probably reached the point where sticking with the Yankees as a starter isn’t going to happen. Spot starter? Sure. Full-time starter? Nah.

Green started last season as the de facto sixth starter before moving to the bullpen out of necessity, and he took off from there. I can see the same thing happening with Cessa, even while acknowledging this year’s bullpen is way better and way deeper than last year’s first half bullpen. Extra arms are always needed. Guys get hurt or underperform. That’s baseball. At some point the Yankees will need a long man and Cessa figures to get the call.

There are three reasons I believe Cessa can succeed as a short reliever. One, he has plenty of velocity. Last season he averaged 95.4 mph and topped out at 99.5 mph with the fastball, even as a starter. Two, his slider misses plenty of bats. It’s true. Last year he threw his slider a touch more than 30% of the time and:

Swing-and-miss rate: 21.4% (MLB average for sliders: 16.9%)
Whiffs-per-swing rate: 43.2% (MLB average for sliders: 35.2%)

Cessa also throws a curveball and a changeup, but with a move into short relief, he can forget about those pitches and work exclusively with an upper-90s fastball and a swing-and-miss slider. That’s similar to what Green did, right? He moved to the bullpen, shelved his subpar secondary pitches, and leaned on his best offering, which happens to be his fastball. Cessa with something like a 55/45 fastball/slider split could be real good.

And three, Cessa’s splits once the lineup turns over are insane. Here are his career numbers each time through the order:

First Time: .212/.279/.385
Second Time: .284/.340/.534
Third Time: .280/.333/.600

Yeah. Cessa is also way more effective from pitches 1-25 (.221/.288/.430) than pitches 26+ (.260/.319/.486). This is Cessa’s final minor league option year, so if he doesn’t carve out a role this season, he’s probably a goner a la Bryan Mitchell. Forget the rotation. Scrap the changeup and curveball, and use him in short relief. It worked with Green last year. It could work with Cessa this year. The opportunity to use him this way will present itself at some point. I have no doubt about it.

5. Medina finishes the season as a top 50 prospect.

Luis Medina is a rising star in the farm system. The Yankees signed the 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic for $280,000 back in July 2015, and he’s already generating lots of buzz. Medina received votes for Baseball America’s annual top 100 prospects list, and, in a separate piece, they say he has “an excellent chance to find himself in next year’s Top 100 Prospects.” Keith Law called Medina the “next great starter prospect in what looks like a line of them from the majors on down.”

The scouting report on Medina is drool worthy. Here’s what MLB.com says:

Medina isn’t physically imposing but has an exceptionally quick arm that repeatedly delivers 95-100 mph fastballs that top out at 102 and feature some cutting action. Both of his secondary pitches have a chance to be at least plus pitches as well. He has a power curveball with a high spin rate and a 90-92 mph changeup with splitter action that can devastate hitters, especially if they’re trying to sit on his heater.

The scouting report also says Medina has a “lofty ceiling as a frontline starter.” As with many 18-year-old hurlers, Medina’s biggest weakness is his command and control. He walked 24 in 38.2 rookie ball innings last season, or 14.0% of batters faced. Also, Medina managed to uncork 18 (!) wild pitches. So yeah, throwing the ball over the plate is the top developmental priority this season. Here’s some video:

The various scouting publications are already talking about Medina as a potential top 100 prospect next year. I think he’s going to figure out how to throw strikes this year — look at his delivery in the video above and look at his delivery when the Yankees signed him in 2015, his tempo is better and he seems way more under control now — and if he does that, he’ll be a top 50 prospect given his stuff.

I should note it would not be unprecedented for an 18-year-old pitching prospect to rank among the 50 best prospects in baseball. Anderson Espinoza was a consensus top 25 prospect at 18 two years ago. Julio Urias was a top 50 prospect four years ago, when he was only 17. Back in the day Felix Hernandez was a top prospect as a teenager. That isn’t to say Medina will be Felix. That’d be nuts. The point is a kid like a Medina, an 18-year-old with a golden arm, can be considered one of the top 50 prospects in baseball, and I’m going to boldly predict he makes that jump this year.