NJ.com | Brendan Kuty: A 20-year-old righty from the Dominican Republic is starting to garner some serious attention for the Low-A Tampa Tarpons. Juan Carela has been exceptional so far this year, pitching to a 2.36 ERA with 43 strikeouts in 34.1 innings pitched. He has also improved his command monumentally, dropping his walks per nine from eight to just 2.9 this season. Carela was signed by the Yankees in 2018 and has reworked his mechanics since joining the team. He features a swing-and-miss slider, which he recently reshaped, and sits in the mid-90s with his fastball, though he has the potential to tap into more once he develops. As of right now he’s the team’s 29th ranked prospect, but keep your eyes on Carela. You’ll likely be hearing a lot about him very soon.

Long-range roster management will help Yanks decide trade chips

by: Dan Kelly —SB Nation: Pinstripe Alley

Forthcoming Rule-5 eligibility and minor league options play a role in determining prospects to market.

As the MLB season enters June, each team’s strengths and weaknesses come into focus and trade rumors begin to pick up steam. For every player that a team is looking to add to the major league roster, there will be various packages of prospects heading back the other way.

When the Yankees do business, many of those prospects are players who will need to be protected in the upcoming Rule 5 Draft, or may be running out of minor league option years with no clear place waiting for them in the major leagues. In July 2021, when it seemed like the Yankees were about to make a move on the market, we used these factors to help determine who they might choose to deal. Sure enough, Ezequiel Duran, Glenn Otto, Janson Junk, and Diego Castillo all found themselves on new teams by August.

First, let’s take a look at the players who will be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft following the season. Two recent stories of player development success for the Yankees are a couple Top-10 organization prospects: Hayden Wesneski and Ken Waldichuk. The two pitchers were taken in back-to-back rounds of the 2019 draft. Despite losing a year to the cancelled 2020 campaign they are both currently at the Triple-A level and pitching well.

Wesneski and Waldichuk will both command 40-man roster spots in November. However, they are also likely among the first prospects that the Yankees will be asked about in any trade scenario — especially for an impact player.

It was just announced on Wednesday that they will be joined at the Triple-A level by Jhony Brito, who has excelled in the early goings for Double-A Somerset. The right-hander has long been known for his elite control, but seems to have added some velocity to his fastball this season topping out around 98 mph while retaining much of his well known strike throwing ability. Brito would have been eligible for the last Rule 5 Draft, but it was cancelled due to the owners’ lockout-induced timing of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement signed this spring.

Another player who may soon make the jump to Triple-A is Randy Vasquez. Known for his high spin rate curve ball, Vasquez jumped from Low-A to Double-A last season, performing well at every stop along the way and even ranked No. 3 on Baseball Prospectus’ top Yankees prospects at the start of 2022. An under-the-radar international free agent when he signed with the team, he is now routinely listed among the Yankees’ top 30 prospects.

Since being drafted in the supplemental first round of 2019, T.J. Sikkema has been sidetracked by the cancelled 2020 season and then several injuries, which cost him the entire 2021 campaign. He has returned to action with High-A Hudson Valley and is showing the form that made him a high draft pick. It is likely that he will have thrown under 100 professional innings by the end of the season, but the Yankees will have to use the information that they have to make a long-term decision on Sikkema.

Several other players on the High-A roster will also be Rule-5 eligible following the season and are playing well. Matt Sauer was a second-round pick in 2017 out of high school and has overcome his own lost time to injuries tp post an 11.3 K/9 and just 2.4 BB/9 for the Renegades in 2022. Just last night, he carried a no-hitter into the seventh and finished with seven innings of one-hit shutout ball. Sauer is likely to finish the season with Double-A Somerset and fits the profile of the type of pitcher that is hunted for in the Rule 5.

The breakout campaign of Austin Wells could also put the Yankees in an interesting spot with two of their other catching prospects, Anthony Seigler and Josh Breaux. The pair of catchers were taken in back-to-back rounds by the Yankees in the 2018 draft and are currently playing in High-A and Double-A, respectively. Seigler, who has battled numerous injuries, is playing the best baseball of his career right now, while Breaux’s defensive reviews have improved and he is also displaying big time power when he connects.

Although uncommon, teams will sometimes grab players who are nowhere near MLB-ready and stash them at the back of their roster or bullpen. A few arms who might fit that demographic are Tyrone Yulie and Juan Carela. Carela appears to be the more polished pitcher at this point, but Yulie has the stuff that lights up the radar gun, frequently flirting with triple digits.

Players needing to be added to the 40-man roster after the end of the season are one category of players likely to be traded, but another includes those who are almost out of minor league options. There is a trio of arms that Yankees fans have long had high hopes for but may be running out of time. Deivi García, Luis Gil and Luis Medina are all currently in their last years of having minor league options.

Since his tremendous 2018-19 campaigns, García has struggled at the upper levels of the system. He just headed to the IL but should he return it is possible that the Yankees will include him in a package to a team hoping to revitalize him into the strikeout machine he was for a two-year stretch. Luis Medina has also tantalized scouts and fans alike with his potential, but the control has just never gotten all the way there.

Luis Gil has made it to the major leagues and pitched well for the Yankees at the highest level, but the team knows that he will be out through the middle of next season after requiring Tommy John surgery last month. With no minor league landing spot for him next season, and also no clearly defined role with the big-league club, Gil could become a tradable asset to a team that can more easily fit him into their rotation or bullpen when he returns.

The Yankees are in first place and have the best record in baseball, yet the team has room for improvement. With two months until the trade deadline it is certain that they Yankees will spin some deals as they attempt to best position this team to win their first World Series in over a decade. When that deal is being negotiated, the long-range management of the rosters will play a role in who the Yankees choose to include in any deal.

Yankees have a pitching prospect shooting up the charts, dominating Triple-A

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With the New York Yankees dealing with injury concerns in their bullpen, it is always nice to hear about minor-league prospects shooting up the system and dominating at the Triple-A level with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

One of the team’s top pitching prospects, Hayden Wesneski, has been dominating in Scranton, recording a 3.52 ERA over 46 innings pitched. He was beaten up a bit in his most recent start, but prior to that, he hosted a 2.23 ERA and hadn’t given up more than two earned runs in five consecutive starts.

Wesneski has blazing velocity, touching nearly triple digits with his fastball and featuring great break on his offspeed pitches.

“I think the biggest attribute he has is that he’s not scared,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said, via NJ.com. “He’s going to go right after hitters. Other than his outing the other day, I think he’s done a good job so far.”

The Yankees gave Wesneski a chance during spring training to feature with the bigs, and he showed some top-end quality that could impact the Yankees’ top team down the road.

“I really liked his confidence and his attack plan when he came over for us,” the pitching coach said. “We threw him out there as a starter against Pittsburgh in spring training and it was the first time we really got a look at him. He’s comfortable. He’s authentic to who he is and he went right after them.”

To be a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball, you need to be fearless. When a player launches a home run off of you, you have to put it to the back of your mind and move forward as if it never happened. That is what separates good from great pitchers; the mistakes don’t compound.

Wesneski is still a while away from making his MLB debut, it could happen later on this season:

While we shouldn’t expect to see Hayden feature with the Yankees anytime soon, next year may be his first opportunity to either help in a bullpen role or supplement deficiencies at the back end of the starting rotation.

This year, Luis Gil and JP Sears have gotten the opportunities to mitigate fatigue in the rotation. With Gil suffering a significant UCL injury that will require Tommy John surgery, Sears seems to be the next man in line. However, if Wesneski continues to perform at this level, I wouldn’t be surprised if manager Aaron Boone gave him a crack later on in the season if the Yankees have a playoff spot locked up.

MLB Pipeline: Righty Will Warren is the newest member of the #Yankees' Top 30 Prospects list after Ron Marinaccio's graduation. Grades, scouting report and more on the '21 eighth-round Draft choice: t.co/P66GemOxDI t.co/Y1QYwmVjib

This surprise Yankees prospect could earn second-half call-up in 2022

If you’re a prospect, what’s the position you’d like to play in the Yankees system that could most easily lead to a long-term opportunity? Shortstop, of course. There’s a reason the Bombers have stockpiled so many of them in recent years.

But what about short-term? That’s very much a different answer; the Yankees have too many infielders for too few spots, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa has been more than capable. Though his ceiling remains limited, he’s been an effective bat-on-ball spark plug; any promoted shortstop will likely be around for injury insurance purposes only/to linger like Marwin Gonzalez.

Short-term, any warm body in the outfield seems far more viable. Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks have heated up of late, but they’ve still spent the majority of 2022 as liabilities. Giancarlo Stanton recently suffered an ankle injury, and looked iffy in the outfield when the team dared to try him out there once again.

Considering Miguel Andújar has agitated for a trade and Estevan Florial has struggled sporadically, the Yankees could really use some upper-level outfield options for the second half, pending a trade deadline acquisition. Though he’s not on the 40-man roster, the red-hot Elijah Dunham could easily be that slot-filler.

Dunham fell to the Yankees thanks to the exceedingly short 2020 MLB Draft, allowing a pool of likely-drafted players to become UDFAs and sift between offers themselves.

The slugging outfielder and the Yankees organization have been a match made in heaven since they signed their accord, and Dunham has shaken off a slow start this season to look much more like the evolutionary version of the player who tore up the Arizona Fall League last October.

Yankees top prospect Elijah Dunham could get second-half call-up

The 24-year-old Dunham began his encore campaign somewhat stuck in the mud, much like his fellow Double-A Somerset Patriot Anthony Volpe. Towards the end of May, the consensus top-10 prospect began to turn things around and match his OPS to his already-sterling stolen base totals.

Dunham, though, was way ahead of him. On the season, the lefty-swinging outfielder is triple-slashing .252/.320/.472, but in the month of May, he boosted his totals with a .280/.340/.539 line (before, ahem, tailing off somewhat thus far through one-third of June).

There is always room for a lefty-swinging outfielder with an elite hit tool at New Yankee Stadium, and that need will only become more glaring if Gallo/Hicks stall again or the team loses a core outfielder to the IL. Tensions are high with Andújar, who might not be motivated to contribute even if his name ever does get called.

It’ll take some shuffling to make Dunham available, but his name makes as much sense as any if the performance gap widens in August and Sept.

Dunham entered 2022 on a mission to prove his performance in the postseason All-Star Arizona Fall League was no fluke, bulking up in the interest of enhancing his natural power.

It’s clear Dunham has responded to the challenge while forcing upper management to consider his future. One red-hot month of June or July could really cement his case.