NY minor league prospect news (2016 edition)

jon abbey

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Sorry to keep repeating myself, but Garcia homered for the fourth straight game tonight, now at 10 in 72 ABs.
 

jon abbey

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Jorge Mateo is back from his two week suspension today, and hit his 6th HR in a matinee.
 

jon abbey

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Someone pointed out that NY's top four teams (Scranton, Trenton, Tampa, Charleston) all lead their respective leagues in team ERA, that's impressive.
 

jon abbey

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Also Tyler Austin would be leading the International League in OPS by a lot if he had enough PAs to qualify, 1.070 OPS now in 179 PAs.
 

jon abbey

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JA, what's your take on Judge at this point?
I saw a mention of him a week or so back and went and looked at his stats on baseball reference and while they're good they're not as good as I thought they might be.
He had a bad start to the year but seemed to put it all together in June. His OPS by month:

April: .779
May: .598
June: 1.163

He's a huge guy (6'7") so he will likely always have strikeout issues, but he's solid defensively with a great arm and seemed to be ready to get his shot at the end of June. Then he messed up his knee a bit running to first and has been out a couple of weeks, but is starting to run and throw again and is expected back in the next few days.

Basically overall I think he is pretty much on track and ready to get his chance if and when NY opens up RF for him, be it in August or next season. Of course you never know if a guy can make it in the bigs until he does, but Judge seems a solid bet, if not a sure thing.
 

jon abbey

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Torres is going to Tampa where he will presumably be the main SS, which is the only position he's played professionally so far. Mateo is also there and he has been playing some 2B this year in addition to SS, so that may be his main position until one of them gets promoted to AA. It'll be a good test for Mateo to see how he reacts to the increased positional competition, don't forget he was suspended recently for supposedly complaining about not being promoted to AA yet.
 

jon abbey

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Torres debuting in the NY organization tonight in Tampa, he is hitting 3rd and playing SS, while Mateo is leading off and playing 2B.
 

jon abbey

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Baseball America updated their 10 youngest players in each league today, NY's Pulaski prospects fill the Appalachian League list:

Appalachian League (Player Team Birthdate)

Vladimir Guerrero Bluefield Blue Jays 1999-03-162
Oswaldo Cabrera Pulaski Yankees 1999-03-013
Jonathan Arauz Greeneville Astros 1998-08-034
Adrian Rondon Princeton Rays 1998-07-075
Wilkerman Garcia Pulaski Yankees 1998-04-016
Isranel Wilson Danville Braves 1998-03-067
Dermis Garcia Pulaski Yankees 1998-01-078
Resly Linares Princeton Rays 1997-12-119
Miguelangel Sierra Greeneville Astros 1997-12-0210
Estevan Florial Pulaski Yankees 1997-11-25

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/list-youngest-players-league/#6WfYxQetcVzIGxos.99
 

jon abbey

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Tyler Austin with another HR, his IL-dominating OPS is 1.079 now (189 PAs). He was a top 100 overall prospect in 2013 when he was 21, he hurt his wrist, had a couple of terrible years and was widely forgotten about, and he wasn't doing anything special in AA this year either (his fourth straight year in AA, yikes). Then NY had the wave of 1B injuries and he got called up to AAA on June 4 and has been crushing for two months now.

http://www.pinstripealley.com/2016/7/17/12206300/yankees-prospects-tyler-austin-first-base-greg-bird
 

jon abbey

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17 year old Oswaldo Cabrera, a Venezuelan SS, has been putting up video game numbers in the DSL and GCL (he is 45 for 101 across the two leagues, .446 BA) and just got promoted to Pulaski, where he can join Rutherford and Florial and Dermis Garcia and Wilkerman Garcia in a lineup filled with some incredible potential.
The BA youngest player in each league lists that I posted above made me realize that even though Blake Rutherford signed out of high school and was just drafted last month, he is somehow the oldest of these five at a few months over 19 (5/2/97).
 

terrynever

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Took in the Scranton-PawSox game tonight. Not many big league prospects on the field for this one. Gary Sanchez had the night off. Judge still isn't ready. Mason Williams is a slap hitter who went hitless in 4 trips. Seems like shoulder surgery may have sapped whatever power he had. Batting leadoff, he swung at every first pitch. He hardly walks at all, and he is still skinny. But he can run.

PawSox won 1-0 in about 2 hours, 15 minutes. Best part was the PawSox HOF induction before the game. Rice, Boggs and the late Ben Mondor. Rice was funny and genuine in his short speech, paying homage to Mondor. Boggs delivered a pep talk about hard work and perseverance, telling players in both dugouts to never give up. Boggs still dyes his hair.

Dwight Evans wore a PawSox uniform. He is aging like Tom Selleck and still moves gracefully. Joe Morgan also spoke, recalling those days in the late 1970s when Mondor and Mike Tamburro began to clean up the old stadium, almost by themselves, dong all the dirty work. Mondor made his money renovating old mills and then selling them so he knew about hard work.
 

jon abbey

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Blake Rutherford has gone 9-11 in the last 3 games, back to back 4-5s, and then a hit yesterday in the first inning and he was pulled because he was feeling sick. Prospect-following NY fans were scared for a couple of hours, but no worries, back in the lineup today, I wonder if he will be promoted a second time this season...
 

jon abbey

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Tyler Austin with a go-ahead three run HR in the 7th against Pawtucket just now, IL-leading OPS at 1.095 now.
 

jon abbey

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11 HRs in 109 ABs now for Dermis Garcia, he evidently just homered "off the light tower" which sounds impressive. :)
 

jon abbey

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Blake Rutherford has gone 9-11 in the last 3 games, back to back 4-5s, and then a hit yesterday in the first inning and he was pulled because he was feeling sick. Prospect-following NY fans were scared for a couple of hours, but no worries, back in the lineup today, I wonder if he will be promoted a second time this season...
2 for 4 tonight, now at .443 for Pulaski, 27 for 61 (1.190 OPS).
 

jon abbey

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Kyle Higashioka promoted to AAA, which likely means Sanchez is up to stay. Higashioka has had a real breakthrough season at 26, OPSing .940 in 300 PAs between AA and AAA, good for him.
 

jon abbey

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Dustin Fowler is maybe the highest rated NY prospect we don't talk about much, #13 for them on the current list and another 21 year old holding his own in AA (in addition to Andujar and Adams). He has been in AA all season, OPS by month:

April: .704
May: .628
June: 800
July: .877

He is caught behind Ellsbury's contract and the logjam of talented AAA OFers, but he might be the best CF defender of all, and if he hits like that, worth keeping an eye on before the Blake Rutherford express (hopefully) arrives (if he can stay in CF).

http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=641583#/career/R/hitting/2016/ALL
 

jon abbey

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That will basically put him out until 2018, do they still need to keep him on the 40 man roster or risk losing him?
 
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jon abbey

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Dietrich Enns is a slow-throwing lefty starter who was a 19th round pick in 2012, and whose continued dominant results up through AAA have him at #27 on NY's prospect list. Five more shutout innings tonight, his numbers are hard to believe. In 58.2 innings in 2015 over two levels, he allowed a whopping total of 4 ERs, a 0.61 ERA. He's followed that up this year with a sub-2 ERA in both AA and AAA, 117 innings combined now, no runs allowed in 10 of his 20 starts.

http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=608650#/career/R/pitching/2016/ALL
 

terrynever

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Tyler Austin played RF tonight, 3 more hits, batting .320 for the season, with power. Judge was the DH. He had 2 hits. They should both come up soon.
 

jon abbey

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Tyler Austin played RF tonight, 3 more hits, batting .320 for the season, with power.
1.067 OPS in AAA, 213 PAs.

Also, check out his spray chart, good luck shifting on him. He is not a switch hitter (RHH), that all fields power is impressive:

 

jon abbey

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Newly acquired Ben Heller with the five out save in AAA tonight, bailing out Shreve. He needs to be on the 40 man roster this winter, he will be up on Sept 1 if not sooner.
 

jon abbey

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Justus Sheffield with a pretty dominant debut for Tampa in high A, 6 2 1 1 1 11. Gleyber Torres hit his first NY HR to support him, welcome boys.

Pulaski had their game on Wednesday rained out, then their doubleheader on Thursday rained out, then their doubleheader today rained out. Blake Rutherford must be going super stir crazy.
 

jon abbey

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Oh, and for the record, Justus Sheffield is NO RELATION TO GARY. This is reported wrong about half of the time, but there is most definitely no familial connection, unfortunately (big Sheff fan here).
 

jon abbey

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Lucas Giolito starting against Scranton now, facing one of the toughest minor league lineups around, top six all could be in the bigs now: Gamel, Frazier, Judge, Ike Davis, Austin and Parmelee.
 

jon abbey

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My man Chance Adams with six more scoreless innings tonight on just 69 pitches. He's out now, they must be keeping an eye on his innings. He's at about 115 now after pitching in relief in his first pro season last year.
 

jon abbey

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Clint Frazier goes deep off Giolito for his first NY HR, in a matchup of one guy who was rumored for Miller and one guy who actually got traded for him.

Giolito is lucky to only be down 3-2 in the 4th, he has allowed 10 baserunners and is up to 93 pitches through 3 2/3.
 

jon abbey

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Aaron Judge with a grand slam off Nats megaprospect Reynaldo Lopez, get him up here already.

Also 23 year old 6'6" LHP Jordan Montgomery with another great outing in that game, 6 3 0 0 1 5. He doesn't get talked about much but is having a very strong season, he started 2015 in low A but has been promoted three times in two seasons, pitching very well at every level.
 

jon abbey

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MLBN has a show tonight at 11 PM on the top 50 prospects, NY has 5 guys between 22-36, so you can see some footage of all of them if interested.
 

jon abbey

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Domingo Acevedo back from his back strain with a 57 pitch outing in high A, 4 4 1 1 2 4. Acevedo is one of NY's top handful of pitching prospects, major upside but has trouble staying healthy. He was being promoted to AA a few weeks ago when he strained his back, so maybe he'll be promoted once he gets his pitch count up again.
 

jon abbey

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Ugly day for Yankee minor league teams, but worth noting that while Bryan Mitchell got the start in AA on his rehab (hit hard again), Chance Adams came in to pitch the 5th-8th and was dominant yet again, 4 0 0 0 2 7 (the other Trenton pitchers combined for a 5 6 5 4 3 7 line, before and after Adams).

Adams is having a remarkable season, even more when you factor in that it's only his first year as a starter. He was a 2015 5th round draft pick, a reliever in college and last year, and NY converted him in the offseason. He is up to 123 innings now, I wonder if/when they will shut him down.

http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?player_id=664856#/career/R/pitching/2016/ALL
 

jon abbey

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Also I don't think I've mentioned him here yet, but 2016 2nd rounder Nick Solak has been hitting up a storm for short season Staten Island, 388/.450/.531 in his last 25 games.
 

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