MLB.com | Tyler Maun: Boy, has Anthony Volpe heated up as the summer arrived. Volpe’s slow start after being anointed as the team’s No. 1 prospect and a top-10 prospect in all of baseball was a concern for some, but Volpe’s bat has come alive in sync with Somerset’s success of late. His latest feat was a walk-off homer in the 10th inning that secured a first-half division title, his 10th home run of the year. Volpe is just one of two prospects in all of baseball to have 10 homers and 25 stolen bases this year, so the hype is certainly holding up for the young shortstop. Even before play began yesterday, he had a 144 wRC+ in June.

As Bleacher Report theorized, the Yankees’ best deadline asset and most coveted/likely trade piece is … little-known prospect Juan Carela?

Yankees top prospect Juan Carela could be key to 2022 trade deadline

No offense — and Carela seems great — but isn’t he more likely to be a third piece/someone’s attempted steal rather than the centerpiece of any big trade? Shouldn’t the “most likely deadline chip” be a guaranteed departure rather than a shot in the dark?

Bleacher’s thoughts are as follows:

Breakout prospects are often at the top of other teams’ target lists when trade season rolls around. Carela fits the bill in the Yankees system this year with a 2.31 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and 68 strikeouts in 50.2 innings at Single-A. The 20-year-old began the year ranked outside the top 30 prospects in the organization, according to Baseball America.

While Carela could theoretically be the linchpin to a deal — the critical additional piece who decides whether something goes through or not — calling the right-hander their “most likely trade chip” when players like Medina/Peraza are so obviously front of mind (not to mention Gallo) seems disingenuous.

Plus, for the purposes of clicks, wouldn’t Gallo have been a more incendiary option?

For those unfamiliar with Carela, the 20-year-old right-hander has now upped his strikeout totals to 76 in 54.2 innings pitched this season at Low-A Tampa. Though he’s blazing through the system, he still qualifies as a project.

In other words, he’s the kind of chip the Yankees might have to kick in to overpay for a target they’d rather not surrender cash for, like the Anthony Rizzo package last summer. He’s far from their likeliest chip to be dealt, though.

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NJ.com | Bridget Hyland: Ken Waldichuk has been seriously impressive this season. After dominating Double-A to start the season, Waldichuk was promoted to Triple-A after just 28.2 innings and has continued his run of excellent pitching. In 30 Triple-A innings pitched so far, he’s posted a 2.70 ERA, 3.44 FIP, and 33.1 percent strikeout rate.

Despite all this success, the 24-year-old lefty might not be part of the Yankees’ future — not because he doesn’t have the stuff to cut it at the major league level, though, but rather because he might be a very big trade chip this July. Waldichuk was recently identified by The Athletic as the Yankees’ most intriguing player to watch at the deadline this year, as his fastball, combined with his ridiculous strikeout rate and run of exceptional performance dating back to last year, might make him a useful piece of the trade deadline puzzle.

Dominguez made his professional debut just over a year ago. To some, he has not lived up to the hype, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a top prospect.

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In the months leading up to the opening of the 2019-20 international free agency period, word started to leak out that the Yankees were a lock to land Jasson Dominguez, a generational talent nicknamed “The Martian” for his out-of-this-world talents. They completed the deal and signed three years ago yesterday.

Names like Mickey Mantle and Mike Trout were thrown around as comparisons, but the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season delayed Dominguez’s professional debut for a full calendar year. That debut would eventually happen on June 28, 2021 in the Florida Complex League. Now just a year past his professional debut in Rookie ball, check in on what Dominguez is as a player.

The hype did not stop at reporters and scouts getting a very small look at Dominguez. Current Yankees minor league hitting coordinator Joe Migliaccio said in an April 2021 interview, “When you think about ‘This guy has power, that guy has power,’ he doesn’t necessarily have power when you compare him to Jasson Dominguez.” The results from behind the scenes sounded promising and Dominguez was a fixture on Top 100 Prospects list before ever playing a game.

Dominguez routinely lights up Statcast with hard hit balls well over 100 mph. The triple in the video below was clocked at 108.2 mph and that exit velo allowed the low line drive to get past both outfielders leading to extra bases. His ability to make hard contact is mitigated by a very high groundball rate, which has been over 50 percent the last two seasons.

The high groundball rate is not a problem that is unique to Dominguez, as numerous Yankees prospects have battled it in recent years, but then seen their slugging percentages climb once those grounders turn into line drives. This season, catching prospect Anthony Seigler has seen his groundball rate drop by almost 20 percent from last season and his offensive numbers have climbed across the board, showing that there is a recent example of success in the system.

Something that was supposed to set Dominguez apart from other hard-hitting 16-year-old prospects was his hit tool. This tool has not fully lived up to expectations, but it is also still evaluated strongly among scouts. Dominguez struck out 31.3 percent of the time during his first year in Low-A and has lowered that to 28.2 percent this year through the end of play on Friday. The 30-percent mark is often used by evaluators as a point where they have a lot of concern about a player’s ability to contribute at the higher levels. Both Baseball America and MLB.com still rate Dominguez as a 55-grade hitter, which is above average.

Of the players in the Florida State League, Dominguez ranks ninth among qualified hitters in OPS. Seven of the players ahead of him are at least 21 years old. For his career, he has posted a 119 wRC+ and has done so while being between two and three years younger than the average offensive player at his given level.

Things also seem to be trending in the right direction for Dominguez after a slow start to the season. In the 54 games from April 24th through July 1st, Dominguez hit .275/.403/.477, which is good for a 155 wRC+. He also continued to lower his strikeout rate slightly to 26.3 percent in that stretch, while his walk rate has climbed in the right direction up to 16.9 percent.

The pre-signing reports on Dominguez credited him with double-plus speed that would allow him to be an above-average center fielder for a long time. Upon seeing Dominguez in action, scouts have downgraded his speed, fielding, and arm tools, as they did not match the hype from 2019. There is no reason to panic, as all of the tools were previous graded as either plus or even elite double-plus tools and they have just been downgraded to average or slightly above average depending on the source. There is a lot of speculation that Dominguez will now end up as a corner outfielder or an average center fielder as opposed to a plus defender in the middle of the field. Should he pan out in the role, that is still a very valuable prospect.

Will Dominguez ever be Mike Trout or Mickey Mantle? The short answer is no, and he was never going to be. It is time to leave the words of 2019 behind Jasson Dominguez and let his play on the field define his own path. Without the unrealistic hype, Yankees fans would be universally thrilled by this exciting prospect who has improved over the last 12 months while playing at an advanced level for his age.

If Dominguez continues to hit as he has over the last two months, he will certainly finish his 19-year-old season at the High-A level, where the average offensive player is currently 22.6 years old. That is absolutely a prospect worth following, even if he isn’t the perfect player he was once portrayed to be.

The weaknesses of the Yankees farm system heading into the MLB draft

by: Dan Kelly —SB Nation: Pinstripe Alley

The Major League Baseball draft is unlike many other major drafts in that even the best players selected are not expected to contribute at the major league level for years. Drafting for a major league need is not something that teams do, but clubs will often use picks early in the draft to target positions or skillsets that the team is weak at across their system. The Yankees have commonly done this over recent years, and their trends in this department could give us a hint at what they are looking to do in the upcoming draft.

There are a number of recent examples for the Yankees drafting to a specific need. In 2017, the Yankees used 10 of their first 11 picks on pitching, including in the first three rounds of the draft. They also used over slot money in the 18th round to sign Garrett Whitlock.

The very next year the team used their top two picks on Anthony Seigler and Josh Breaux as their farm system was lacking impact catching depth at the time. While the team had to go back to the Well, specifically Austin Wells in 2020, to continue address the issue, the Yankees very soon will have those three catchers at the three highest levels of the farm system.

In 2019, the Yankees addressed multiple needs of the farm system. They used three of their first six picks on left-handed pitching, taking T.J. Sikkema, Jake Agnos and Ken Waldichuk. They also grabbed Edgar Barclay a little later in that draft, and now have three left-handers from one draft listed among their top-30 prospects by MLB.com. There are several interesting left-handed arms in this year’s draft including Brandon Barriera and Connor Prielipp, and Cooper Hjerpe, all projected to be available to the Yankees.

Starting in that same draft, the Yankees also focused on bringing left-handed bats into the system. Since 2019, the Yankees have selected six position players in the third round or higher, five of them left-handed. It is also of note that they have used two of those bats in trades, and one was released due to off-field circumstances. I expect the Yankees to continue targeting left-handed hitters, with players like Jacob Melton, Brock Jones, Sterlin Thompson and a few other potentially on the board when the Yankees pick.

So where does the Yankee system stand heading into this draft? The Yankees have aggressively built up the middle over the past few years, and that’s reflected on most of their top prospect rankings. The strongest position in the system is shortstop, with pitching, catching and centerfield also well represented on the list.

This does not mean that the Yankees will not continue to add to their strengths. The high attrition rate due to injury at both the catching and pitching positions means that the team could always be looking to add more depth there.

Shortstop is considered to be at the top of the defensive spectrum due to the athletic ability required to play the position at a high level professionally. Players drafted or signed internationally as shortstops are playing almost every position at the major league level on a daily basis.

The only corner outfielder currently on the Yankees’ top-prospect list is current Double-A player Elijah Dunham. While many centerfielders have the positional versatility to move to a corner, not all of them have the arm strength to man the right field position. There are scouting reports that feel that both Everson Pereira and Jasson Dominguez will be better suited for a corner outfield position in the future, but both players are still taking the vast majority of their daily reps in centerfield.

The Yankees are also not very deep on the corners of the infield. Currently only Anthony Garcia, who is playing first base for Low-A Tampa, is listed among the Yankees’ top-30 prospects by Baseball America. The team used a fifth-round pick on Tyler Hardman last year, who became the highest corner infielder selected by the team since they used a first-round pick on Eric Jagielo back in 2013.

Hardman has picked up his play over the last six weeks, and the former Big-12 conference batting champ could sneak onto some top prospect list by the end of the season. Still, the Yankees do not have highly-rated depth at the corners in their system and could look to add players with more of a corner profile moving forward.

The Yankees are drafting 25th overall in the 2022 draft that is less than two weeks away. While they certainly have a number of contingency plans, they are very much at the mercy of the 23 teams that are selecting ahead of them. Depending on how the chips fall, the Yankees may continue building up the middle as they have with the first-round picks of Seigler, Volpe, Wells and Sweeney, or with those players in place they could seek to improve the weaker spots of the minor league system.