RHP Matt Wotherspoon, RHP J.R. Graham, RHP Mark Montgomery, UTIL Jose Rosario, and OF Mark Payton were all bumped up from Double-A Trenton to Triple-A Scranton, reports Matt Kardos. They’ll fill-in for the September call-ups.
LHP Justus Sheffield, RHP Matt Marsh, and RHP Eric Ruth were promoted from High-A Tampa to Trenton, the team announced. The Sheffield move was reported Wednesday, but now it’s official.
RHP Domingo German was activated off the High-A DL and both OF Tito Polo and LHP Stephen Tarpley have officially been added to the Tampa roster, the team announced. Polo and Tarpley came over as the players to be named later in the Ivan Nova trade a few days ago.
Holder, meanwhile, claimed the top spot in the final Prospect Hot Sheet of the regular season. That’s what happens when you strike out 12 batters during a four-inning postseason-clinching save. Quite a week for Holder.
And finally, 2B Nick Solak made Baseball America’s Prospect Team of the Month for August, so congrats to him.
Good news: OF Clint Frazier (hamstring) is “ready to go,” Triple-A Scranton manager Al Pedrique told Shane Hennigan. Frazier could play in the regular season finale tomorrow as a tune-up for the playoffs.
RHP Eric Ruth and LHP Daniel Camarena were bumped up from Double-A Trenton to Triple-A Scranton, reports Matt Kardos. They’ll cover for RHP Bryan Mitchell and LHP James Pazos, who were called up yesterday. LHP Caleb Frare was moved up from High-A Tampa to Trenton and LHP Evan Rutckyj (elbow) was activated off the Double-A DL to fill the roster spots.
RHP Chance Adams earned a spot on Baseball America’s 2016 Minor League All-Star Team. He held hitters to a .169 batting average, second lowest by a qualified minor league starter since 1993. Adams had a 2.33 ERA (2.96 FIP) and a 29.1% strikeout rate in 127.1 total innings this summer, his first as a starter.
SS Gleyber Torres was included in today’s Prospect Report after picking up two doubles in Tampa’s Game One win yesterday. The second double drove in the game-winning run.
The better of the two prospects the New York Yankees acquired from the Mariners for Ben Gamel, Jio Orozco is a very polished pitcher for his age.
It wasn’t easy to see the Yankees trade International League Player of the Year Ben Gamel to the Seattle Mariners at the end of August, especially since the return was two teenage pitchers in Rookie ball no one had ever heard of. Gamel looked ready to help New York right now, whereas the pair of prospects they received, Jio Orozco and Juan De Paula, are a few years off from the show, if they ever made it.
Still, it’s clear something had to give with the Yankees log-jam of outfielders in the upper-minors, and the two young arms they landed each show some promise. Orozco in particular looks pretty advanced for a 19-year-old.
The Mariners managed to land Orozco in the 14th round of the 2015 June amateur draft because of a commitment to Arizona. Rick Randall of SeattleClubhouse speculates that a personal connection to Seattle’s minor league field coordinator Jack Howell allowed the Ms to grab him much later in the draft than he ordinarily would have been selected considering his abilities. Baseball America had him ranked in their top 200 list of draft prospects that year.
Fresh out of high school, the Mariners assigned Orozco to the Arizona League, where he pitched to a 2.95 ERA and struck out 10.1 batters per nine through 21.1 innings of work.
In 2016, he returned for a second go-round in the league. His strikeout numbers jumped to 11.7 K/9, but he has struggled with his control at times, walking three per nine innings through 48.1 IP.
Orozco showed enough in his second professional season that MLB Pipeline had him ranked 19th in the admittedly thin Mariners system prior to the trade. Here’s what they had to say about his arsenal:
His fluid arm action and clean delivery allow him to pitch to both sides of the plate with his 91-94 mph fastball, while his extension through the ball gives it some sinking action. Orozco’s curveball has above-average potential, thrown from an over-the-top slot with good arm speed, creating a 12-to-6 shape with depth, and he also shows good feel for a changeup, giving him the chance for three average-or-better offerings … Beyond the stuff, Orozco’s overall feel for pitching sets him apart from most pitchers his age.
At 6’1 210 lbs, Orozco is much more physically mature than the average 19-year-old. Combine with three quality pitches and you have a guy that could climb the minor league ladder fairly quickly.
Notably, MLB Pipeline doesn’t have Orozco listed among the Yankees updated top 30 prospects, but that may say more about the powerhouse farm system than about Orozco’s abilities. New York’s minor leagues are simply stacked at the moment, but Orozco isn’t far off from establishing himself among the club’s best pitching prospects.
Vice President of Player Development Gary Denbo told Brendan Kuty of NJ Advance Mediathat he anticipates A-Rod to start serving as an instructor for the organization’s top prospects at the Florida Instructional League starting September 19 in Tampa.
Despite batting an even .200 in his final 65 games in pinstripes, Rodriguez won two gold gloves, 10 silver slugger awards, three American League MVPs, and was a 14-time All-Star.
With a career total of 696 home runs and 3,115 hits, imagine the impact A-Rod have by just being around the team’s upcoming talent, let alone teach them his ways.
In this edition of ESNY’s New York Yankees Prospect Profile, we take a look at middle infielder Tyler Wade.
After Tyler Wadewas drafted by the New York Yankees in the fourth round of the 2013 MLB Draft out of Murrieta Valley High School in Murrieta, California, he decided to forgo college and to pursue a career in pinstripes.
Wade stands out mostly for his speed and his great glove, but the bat is not as corrupt as the general perception assumes as he lacks power but comprises a solid contact approach from the left side of the plate.
The power has not been seen much for Wade since it is not a major tool in his arsenal, he bats around .250-.280 consistently and relies heavily on his impeccable speed as well as his great fielding.
Take a look at what scouts have to say about the rest of Wade’s skills:
Wade made his debut with the Yankees organization the same year he was drafted, 2013. He spent 46 games with the Gulf Coast Yankees where he batted .309 and stole 11 bases before being called up to the Staten Island Yankees by season’s end.
He would begin the 2014 season with the Yankees’ Single-A affiliate Charleston River Dogs where he batted .272 with 22 stolen bases in 129 games.
Thanks to that magnanimous season, the Yankees began to apprehend the talent that they had in the young shortstop.
Wade would start the 2015 season with the Tampa Yankees, where he would hit .280 in 98 games with a stellar 31 stolen bases in just 46 attempts.
With that, his spectacular performance gave the organization no choice but to promote him at the midseason mark to their Double-A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder.
In 29 games with Trenton, the 20-year old would see his fair share of struggles and found adjusting to the new level quite troublesome.
In 113 at-bats, Wade maintained a dismal on-base percentage of .224 as he struck out 24 times compared to just 23 hits. However, he did not let these struggles get the best of him.
Destined for improvement, Wade came into the 2016 determined en route to producing a .259/.352/.349 slash line with a .701 OPS and even a career-high in home runs (five).
No, those numbers don’t jump off the page but it is promising that the kid was capable of making proper adjustments to succeed at the Double-A level during just one offseason.
It is also well known that Wade will most likely have to make another adjustment, and play the second base position full-time due to Yankees’ top shortstop prospects flourishing throughout the farm.
“I feel myself sticking at short as I go up,” Wade told Pinstriped Prospects. “As the year went on we wanted to work at second just to be familiar with both sides of the field.”
The New York Yankees are in the midst of a surprising push in search of a postseason berth. Meanwhile, the organization's top five affiliates qualified for their league's postseason play.
Who knows if the Yankees will be able to clinch a playoff spot, but the excitement in New York has not been this high in a long time, and the main reason is the handful of prospects brought up after the trade deadline. Maybe more impressively, even with the call-ups, the Yankees have created one of the best farm systems in the game.
The point is, they should be able to continue to grow from within and/or utilize some prospects as trade assets to obtain major league players to fill needs this offseason.
This week we highlight the final regular season statistics for players listed as the Yankees' top prospects (and not on the major league club) by MLBPipeline.com, along with the final regular season records from each affiliate. If a club is in the playoffs, we'll provide the status of their series.
Affiliate Roundup
Note: Team records and statistics are for the 2016 regular season (players who played multiple levels are combined and noted). Prospect rankings via MLBPipeline.com
Dominican Summer League North - DSL Yankees 1
Record: 33-36, 3rd place, 17 GB
Dominican Summer League San Pedro - DSL Yankees 2
Record: 27-42, 7th place, 23 GB
Rookie - Gulf Coast League Northeast - GSL Yankees East
Record: 19-36, last place, 8.5 GB
Rookie - Gulf Coast League Northwest - GSL Yankees West
Hoy Jun Park, SS/2B, Yankees No. 22 prospect - 502 PA, .225/.336/.329, 29 XBH, 32 SB
Advanced A - Florida State League North Division - Tampa Yankees
First-half Record: 41-25, first place - First half champions
Second-half Record: 35-31, 4th place, 8 GB
Playoffs: Tampa defeated Dunedin two games to one in a three-game series to win the Florida State League North Division Championship. Tampa will now play for the FSL Championship.
