NY minor league prospect news (2021 edition)

DanoooME

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I have a sub. The Yankees might have the longest list of players beyond the top 10 that they covered. Breaux, Contreras, Vizcaino, Vargas, Escotto, Peraza, Abreu, Sikkema, Yajure, Seigler all got short write-ups for various reasons.
 

jon abbey

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Prospects1500 did a top 50 Yankee prospects list, it is an exciting set of players through 'tier 4', 42 players.

https://www.prospects1500.com/al-east/yankees/new-york-yankees-2021-top-50-prospects/
I don't understand how my man Medina is not at least a consensus top 100 guy yet, but at least he says: "In my opinion, he has the most upside of any Yankees pitching prospect and is a huge sleeper in fantasy." Medina is the same age as Deivi and has had nowhere near the success yet, but I will be very sad if he is traded before getting a chance here.
 

jon abbey

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Medina starts at 5 PM today against a pretty tough lineup for the Dominican Republic, game is on ESPN Deportes:

Melky Cabrera RF
Juan Lagares CF
Robinson Canó 2B
Rangel Ravelo 1B
Ronald Guzmán DH
Junior Lake LF
Johan Camargo 3B
Francisco Peña C
Jonathan Villar SS
 

jon abbey

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I’m irrationally pumped to see Medina, top of the 1st now, he pitches the bottom of the inning (channel 1537 on my cable).
 

jon abbey

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Medina looks strong through 2, the only batter to reach was Cano on a weak infield hit. No good contact, a bunch of swing and misses, 2 1 0 0 0 2 on 29 pitches.
 

jon abbey

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3rd inning not going as well: squeezed on a walk, sharp single up the middle, grooved a 3-2 pitch to Juan Lagares that he hit out, 3-1 DR.
 

jon abbey

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Also not a good 4th inning, although he is really being squeezed by the home plate ump. Great experience for him to face these guys, though.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, prospect rating is normally far from a science and even more so now when almost no one has played since Sept 2019. I am also dubious of the position player ratings there (except for the Martian, who supersedes ratings) but I love the collection of young pitching that Cashman has on the verge of the bigs now.

Speaking of which, Medina with the start and win for Puerto Rico in the semifinals of the Caribbean Series tonight , 5 2 1 1 2 4, 78 pitches in a 2-1 win over Mexico. Yadier Molina caught him which must have been pretty exciting for Medina, I should look for quotes from Molina.
 

jon abbey

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Five of the top 13 on the Fangraphs list are SPs with ETAs listed as this year, all already on the 40 man. Deivi, Schmidt, Medina, Vizcaino and Gil, maybe all between 5-11 on the depth chart now?

Cole
Kluber
Taillon
Montgomery
German

Deivi/Schmidt/King
Medina/Vizcaino/Gil
Yoendrys Gomez (also on the 40 man already)
 

jon abbey

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As we get closer to Opening Day roster decisions, it's worth remembering that NY had three rule 5 guys taken, so they need to stick all season or be offered back: Whitlock with BOS, Trevor Stephan with CLE and slick fielding Kyle Holder with CIN. Right before Opening Day was when SEA returned Mike Ford and he went on to have a very strong 2019 for NY, hopefully NY gets at least one of these three back (Holder I think is the most likely).
 

jon abbey

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Not going to do an update every day, but since it was 20 months since the last minor league games (Sept 2019) and since NY had some very exciting performances on the first night, I am doing one tonight.

Strong performances from guys on the 40 man:

Estevan Florial homered in his first AA AB.

Luis Gil: got the start in AA, 3.2 2 0 0 1 6

Luis Medina: got the start in high A, hopefully he will not stay there long: 4 1 0 0 2 8

Recent high draft picks in low A:

Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Trevor Hauver (1st in 2019, 1st in 2020, 3rd in 2020) were in the top three spots in the batting order for Tampa (who are in a league one level lower this year, low A from high A) and wow did they have a game.

Volpe: 2-3 with a double, a triple, three walks and two stolen bases.

Wells: 2-4 with a double and a HR, two walks and a SB.

Hauver: 3-4 with two HRs and two walks.

Back from injury:

Matt Sauer was the SP NY paired in the 2017 draft with Clarke Schmidt, they paid Schmidt less because he had just had surgery so they could take Sauer in the second round and pay him more. He had Tommy John since and this was his first start since April 2019, a strong 3.1 1 0 0 3 6.

Sad he is gone:

Roansy Contreras, the 21 year old SP NY sent to PIT as part of the Taillon deal, debuted in AA with a 5 5 0 0 0 11. I would guess that Contreras is probably the pitcher Cashman regrets having to deal the most recently, more than Sheffield or Whitlock or Widener or Caleb Smith or Gallegos or whoever, but he had to do it.
 

jon abbey

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That Tampa team is going to be fun until guys are promoted, tonight they were down 7-0 after two and are now up 17-8 in the 6th.
 

jon abbey

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Hard to imagine anyone having two better offensive games to start their professional career than Trevor Hauver just did:

5 for 6 combined with 5 walks and 3 HRs, OPS of 3.167.
 

jon abbey

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And a third game to match: 3-4 with a walk, a double and his fourth HR in 10 ABs, 103 exit velo. That actually dropped his OPS to 2.924, heh.
 

jon abbey

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terrynever

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Can Dominguez be ready by 2023? Judge is a free agent after 2022 and giving him a big contract seems dubious, considering his age and extensive injury history.
 

jon abbey

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Can Dominguez be ready by 2023? Judge is a free agent after 2022 and giving him a big contract seems dubious, considering his age and extensive injury history.
He could but actually I think this is the main reason they have not traded Frazier, they have him for 2023-24 and at the least he is RF insurance if Judge ends up elsewhere.
 

terrynever

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He could but actually I think this is the main reason they have not traded Frazier, they have him for 2023-24 and at the least he is RF insurance if Judge ends up elsewhere.
Would you re-sign Judge? I guess the jury is still out and he has almost two seasons to make his case. But this guy has Angels written all over him to me.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, too hard to guess at this point. He is likely looking at a deal in the $100-150M range, 4-6 years.
 

terrynever

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Yeah, too hard to guess at this point. He is likely looking at a deal in the $100-150M range, 4-6 years.
There is a new strategy in the NFL that only a few teams are buying in to at the moment. It involves quarterbacks. Just keep them through their first contract and then let them walk, rather than paying a huge second contract that puts a disproportionate amount of money into one position. Tampa has done that in baseball, I think, selling off its prime talent in exchange for prospects, largely to keep costs down.
This strikes me as the way to go with Aaron Judge. Get your five years out of him during his prime and then back away. Develop his replacement during those five years. Technically, Jasson Dominquez is Hicks' replacement, but he's an outfielder. Close enough.
 

BigMike

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And a third game to match: 3-4 with a walk, a double and his fourth HR in 10 ABs, 103 exit velo. That actually dropped his OPS to 2.924, heh.
They bench him for their 4th game, and score 25 runs. Good grief they have scored 65 runs in 4 games
 

jon abbey

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They bench him for their 4th game, and score 25 runs. Good grief they have scored 65 runs in 4 games
All home wins, so they have only had 8 offensive innings in each, which means they’re averaging just over 2 runs per inning (65/32).
 

EvilEmpire

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This strikes me as the way to go with Aaron Judge. Get your five years out of him during his prime and then back away. Develop his replacement during those five years. Technically, Jasson Dominquez is Hicks' replacement, but he's an outfielder. Close enough.
It probably is the right thing to do since I really don't think Judge and his massive body will become less injury prone as he ages. But I'll still hate it.
 

jon abbey

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All four NY teams won, they are now 15-5 combined so far.

Nick Nelson bounced back from a bad first AAA outing with three scoreless, 3 2 0 0 0 4, nice to see.

Glenn Otto was probably next in line of NY's SPs to get plucked away in the past rule 5, but he was not selected and tonight debuted in AA with 6 2 0 0 1 6.

And the hilarious Tampa lineup won their fifth straight, Hauver homered again (5 in 4 games) and they came back from 6-0 down to win 12-11, now 77 runs in 40 offensive innings. No one else in the league is scoring like this but all five have been against the same team (the Blue Jays affiliate) so we'll see when they play someone else next week (minor league teams are playing six game/one week series against a single opponent this year).
 

jon abbey

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My man Luis Medina with another dominant performance in high A, dunno why he is not in at least AA already. He just turned 22 but so did Deivi and he is 2-3 levels ahead, and Medina is already on the 40 man. Medina's two games combined so far: 9 2 0 0 4 15.

Oswald Peraza (NY's consensus #4 prospect, a 20 year old SS also in high A), is starting to hit, 4-6 with four singles today, and he is already 7 for 7 in SBs.

The Tampa offense finally got shut down, held to one run. Of course that one run was another Hauver HR, 6 in 5 games for him now.

And Estevan Florial led off the first inning for the third time with a HR, 4 HRs in total and a 1.355 OPS. They should get him to AAA soon, as he is the only other OF on the 40 man and the call up procedure is much more difficult from AA than from AAA this year because of Covid protocols.

Also another HR and three walks for hard hittin' Chris Gittens who understandably no one wants to pitch to. His OPS so far is 1.581, 6-14 with 9 walks.
 

terrynever

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He is in extended spring training along with a bunch of other teenage prospects, presumably he will join Tampa at some point.
Thanks, Jon. I wonder if missing 2020 is going to be a development issue for the youngest prospects.
 

jon abbey

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Thanks, Jon. I wonder if missing 2020 is going to be a development issue for the youngest prospects.
Also every organization has been forced to eliminate 2-3 affiliates since 2019, so even fewer ABs and innings to go around to try to get back on track.
 

jon abbey

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Estevan Florial promoted to AAA, which would allow him to be called to the majors quicker if needed (AAA has the same Covid protocols as MLB, AA doesn't). This makes me a little more nervous about the Hicks injury.
 

jon abbey

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NY's high A Hudson Valley team faced one of the top few pitching prospects in the entire minors yesterday, Orioles' prospect Grayson Rodriguez (MLB.com has him as the 22nd overall prospect). Rodriguez was unsurprisingly awesome with a 5 3 1 1 0 11. What was the one run he allowed, you might ask? Correct, my man Oswald Peraza's 5th HR in 4 games, a bomb to center off a breaking pitch.

View: https://twitter.com/RotoClegg/status/1393719026799587328?s=20


Luis Gil had another very good start in AA, 4 4 0 0 0 8, 68 pitches.

Nick Nelson's struggles seem behind him, 2.2 scoreless/hitless in AAA tonight, his last three outings now a combined 6.2 3 0 0 1 11.
 

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jon abbey

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How does Peraza impact long-range Yankee thinking about their infield? Looks like he should be ready by 2023.
I think if they like him enough, they could stay away from the mega-bucks guys next winter. Gleyber is under contract through 2024 so Peraza should be ready by then, and they have some highly rated guys behind him too in Vargas (already a top 100 guy in Fangraphs, not yet 20) and Volpe (#1 pick in 2019) plus highly touted prospect Roderick Arias (the #1 international prospect in the upcoming class, should sign with NY in January).
 

terrynever

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I think if they like him enough, they could stay away from the mega-bucks guys next winter. Gleyber is under contract through 2024 so Peraza should be ready by then, and they have some highly rated guys behind him too in Vargas (already a top 100 guy in Fangraphs, not yet 20) and Volpe (#1 pick in 2019) plus highly touted prospect Roderick Arias (the #1 international prospect in the upcoming class, should sign with NY in January).
This is what Tampa has been doing. Rebuild thru your farm system. Don’t pay mega contracts. Replace them with young talent that is cheap and under control for several years. Florial can replace Hicks next year.
 

jon abbey

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Deivi Garcia with another strong outing, 5 2 1 0 1 9, 86 pitches. Good chance he gets another spot start for NY soon.