To land Frankie Montas, Lou Trivino, Andrew Benintendi and Scott Effross at last year’s trade deadline, the Yankees used seven pitching prospects (and infielder Cooper Bowman).
To bring in proven talent at this year’s trade deadline, the Yankees likely again would rely heavily upon a pitching pipeline that never seems to clog.
No matter how many pitching prospects the Yankees cycle through, there always seems to be another minor league rotation revelation or a dominant bullpen piece waiting in the wings.
Some, such as Michael King and Ron Marinaccio, develop into helpful pieces in The Bronx. Some, such as Oakland’s JP Sears, grow with the Yankees before being cashed in and getting their major league chances elsewhere.
This year is no different, and the Yankees’ pitching pipeline is humming.
Entering play Thursday, Double-A Somerset’s staff led the Eastern League in strikeouts (868). High-A Hudson Valley also led its league in strikeouts, and was tied for first in team ERA (3.45). System-wide, Yankees pitching prospects had struck out 10.5 hitters per nine innings, the best of any organization.
For this week’s newsletter, we took a trip to Heritage Financial Park, in Wappingers Falls, to chat with a few of the Hudson Valley standouts who might help the Yankees in The Bronx in the future or might help the Yankees’ trade talks in the present.
Here are a few prospects who are on the Yankees’ radar and surely on other clubs’ radars:
Drew Thorpe: Entering minor league action Thursday, only five prospects in the game had struck out more hitters than Thorpe (111). In his first professional season, the righty has been as impressive as any starter in the system, quickly showing why the Yankees grabbed him out of Cal Poly in the second round of last year’s draft.
Thorpe is 9-1 with a 2.27 ERA in 91 ⅓ innings, utilizing a deep, five-pitch arsenal to keep hitters off balance. In seven starts since June 4, Thorpe has allowed four total runs (for a 0.76 ERA). Thorpe throws a fastball, two sliders (one with more sweep, one with more velocity), a new cutter and his go-to changeup that generates whiff after whiff.
“It’s a good changeup because it stays on the same plane,” said Hudson Valley manager (and former Yankees reliever) Sergio Santos. “Some changeups have depth and movement; his almost keeps going the same way. It gives the illusion that there’s a parachute behind it, where it literally just slows down and continues its course.”
Ranked sixth in the system by MLB Pipeline, Thorpe takes pride in keeping hitters guessing rather than using gas to put them away — but he wouldn’t mind more tank in the gas. His fastball sits in the low 90s, but he said his velocity has ticked up “a mile, a mile and a half” since his final collegiate year.
The Yankees’ pitching minds are known for adding extra power to their prospects, and Thorpe is an eager pupil.
“Velo is not not quite where I want it to be yet, but we’re still working on it,” said the 22-year-old righty, who describes himself as a quiet guy who golfs in his free time. “But I’ve always been a lower-velo guy, so I kind of learned how to pitch and learned how to do it the other way. I think that’s one thing that’ll be helpful as the velo continues to climb.”
Brendan Beck: The most important thing to Beck and the Yankees is that he feels OK.
That he is excelling already is a nice bonus.
Beck, a second-round pick in 2021, required Tommy John surgery a few months after he was drafted, which knocked him out until this season. He made his professional debut in June, and has made four starts with Hudson Valley, building up to four innings in his most recent start Wednesday.
In 14 ⅔ minor league innings, the righty has allowed one run (0.61 ERA) on just seven hits and three walks.
The results are there, but Beck is far happier with the feeling of being a healthy pitcher again.
“Honestly, getting back on the mound itself was almost a bigger hurdle than just being in the moment on the mound, competing,” said Beck, ranked No. 23 in the Yankees’ system, according to MLB Pipeline. “I feel like once I was on the mound, it felt exactly the same as it did before.”
He has returned with velocity that has “ebbed and flowed,” he said, and is understandably a tick down as he regains strength. And he has returned with all four of his pitches — fastball, curveball, slider and changeup — all reliable.
Beck, 24, gained a reputation as a strike-thrower at Stanford, and is a rare developing prospect without a dire need for better control.
“I’m just kind of a command specialist,” said Beck, who cited his older brother, Giants pitcher Tristan Beck, as his biggest pitching influence. “I feel like I can throw four pitches for strikes at any time. I don’t really feel like I’m ever backed into a corner with a certain pitch. So I think for me, just expect quick tempo, a lot of strikes, using the defense quite a bit.”
Thus far, Beck has been as advertised. He won’t blow a ton of hitters away, but he will get plenty of hitters out.
“He’s a guy who knows how to pitch. His location is excellent,” Santos said. “He gets himself in such good positions. He’s in control. Very intellectual pitcher. And a competitor, too, when he gets out on the mound. He doesn’t want to give up any hits.”
Jack Neely: Thorpe and Beck might try to outthink you. Neely will try to outmuscle you.
And he usually does.
“Just go in and kill them,” Neely said of opposing hitters. “That’s my job.”
The hard-throwing righty is an imposing, back-of-the-bullpen arm with a hard, upper-90s fastball that he throws at the top of the zone and a hard, upper-80s slider that he throws at the bottom. He messed with a changeup in college — he finished his career at Ohio State — but the Yankees boiled his arsenal back down to two pitches that miss a ton of bats.
Through 26 games out of the bullpen, Neely has pitched to a 2.68 ERA with 64 strikeouts in 40 ⅓ innings. He has stretched out, pitching as many as 2 ⅓ innings in a game this season, and his stuff has not suffered: In his most recent seven-out effort, on July 2, he struck out all seven batters he faced.
It is not difficult to envision Neely, a 6-foot-8, mustachioed monster with a big smile, in The Bronx among the next crop of bullpen weapons.
“He’s fun to watch. He’s got an electric fastball, and he’s got that slider,” said Santos, himself a former fastball-slider reliever. “He’s literally coming to me, to [pitching coach] Preston [Claiborne], like: ‘Hey, what did you guys do? What happened here?’
“He’s curious enough to want to get all this information to make himself the best possible pitcher.”
Neely, 23, credited Claiborne with his new slider, which required “10 or 15” grip tweaks in spring training to figure out. He said last year the pitch sometimes would be 80 mph. This year, it’s up to 89 mph.
“That’s the kill pitch, for sure,” said Neely, a Texas native, hunter and fisherman. “That’s the one. I love it.”
🎙 Join us on Monday, July 24, for a live episode of the New York Post baseball podcast The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman previewing next week’s Subway Series. This special event is free for all in attendance. Doors open at 5 p.m. at The Ainsworth (45 East 33rd St.) with the program starting at 6.
Easy does it
New Yankees hitting coach Sean Casey, upon being hired, said he saw “tension” in Yankees at-bats.
Yankee Stadium can be a stressful place, where excellence is demanded and anything else is booed. It can be a difficult environment, particularly to call-ups who have never been jeered before.
For High-A prospects, Santos has made it a goal to strike a balance between a serious and fun clubhouse. He understands pressure exists, but does not want it to overwhelm.
After an early-season loss — “We got blown out by like 13 runs,” Santos said — he entered a quiet clubhouse.
“I think they thought I was going to yell or get mad,” Santos said. “And I basically said, ‘Listen, the longer you play this game, the more you’re going to realize this s–t kind of happens. It’s part of the game.’
“I said, ‘What we’re not going to do is be a team that if we win, music’s on in the clubhouse, everybody’s having fun, when we lose, everybody’s by their locker and nobody’s talking.”
He asked for the music in the clubhouse to be turned back on.
Want to catch a game? The Yankees schedule with links to buy tickets can be found here.
An offer he couldn’t refuse
This year’s first-round Yankees pick, George Lombard Jr., called it both a “difficult” decision and a “no-brainer” to turn down Vanderbilt and turn pro.
Lombard, the son of the former journeyman big league outfielder, is a shortstop from Gulliver Prep School in Florida who conducted a Zoom call this week from Tampa, where he has been getting to know fellow prospects and officials around the Yankees’ complex.
Being drafted by the Yankees “was as perfect as the situation could have gotten,” said Lombard, who became the second Yankees top pick (with Anthony Volpe) in four years to bypass Vanderbilt.
Lombard heard from Volpe, who sent a congratulatory text. Here’s Lombard’s scouting report, courtesy of Lombard:
“Shortstop. Fundamentally sound. Athletic overall player. Savvy baseball player. Good baseball instincts,” Lombard said. “Always play and compete to the best of my abilities. Love to win, and that’s basically my biggest focus on the field is just winning ballgames. So I guess if you watch me, I guess [that is] what you would notice — that competitiveness, that willingness to win.”
