g-ice
aka #DiamondNightmare
Would be more excited if it wasn't for that rotation. 
fukk Stroman then, now, and forever.
fukk Stroman then, now, and forever.
Soto or Nowhere: The Official 2024 New York Yankees Off-Season Thread
- Thread starter tremonthustler1
- Start date
Doctor Wily
CapcomSwag
If spring training invite 'Oddanier Mosqueda' some how pitches more than 10 innings this season then its pretty safe to say that Boone/Cashman will once again have the injury bug excuses lined up.
AJtheOne
Nets/Giants/Yankees
I’m looking forward to this season
got a good feeling brehs
got a good feeling brehs
holidayinn21
:SmugMoneyMike:
Effross and Trevino already hurt. This is the shyt that Cole was talking about.
It can't just be "bad luck" every year. They have to fix this
It can't just be "bad luck" every year. They have to fix this
Tres Leches
Empire Business
i dont know about the pitching depth this year 
Mantis Toboggan M.D.
Drink wolf cola
They need another arm. Stroman threw 150 innings last year, Cortes threw 61, and the less said about Rodon the better. Go get Monty and one more lefty who can play the infield and they’re set for the year.i dont know about the pitching depth this year
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
I think some fans (not necessarily you) confuse depth with getting better arms than Rodon/Cortes/Schmidt so we don't need to see them.i dont know about the pitching depth this year
A better team would continue to let Schmidt take the mound and work with him. Now, they could use some arms in the minors who can help, but I think Gil will be healthy, we might see Warren or Beeter and I think Luke Weaver does have an opportunity to resuscitate his career under Blake.
2024 Top 100 Prospects
Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin present their 2024 Top 100 list, with reports for each player.
15. Spencer Jones, CF, NYY
A former two-way player, here Jones is projected to develop in center field and shorten up his swing to get to his enormous power. He might also be a top five prospect a year from now.
As a SoCal high schooler, Jones was a big-ceilinged, late-first round prospect as both a hitter and a pitcher, but a surgery senior year to repair a fracture in his elbow was a blow to his draft stock and he ended up heading to Vanderbilt, where he re-injured his elbow as a freshman and required Tommy John surgery. Jones then focused solely on hitting. After an understandably rusty sophomore year in which it looked like the game was too fast for him, Jones moved from first base to right field and became a full-time starter in his junior draft season. He tweaked his swing throughout the spring and began to look more comfortable with the pace and difficulty of SEC baseball, as well as his gigantic body. The Yankees took him late in the first round and put Jones in center field, and he reached Double-A Somerset in a power- and strikeout-laden first full pro season.
Jones has enormous potential, with eventual 40-homer power in the tank, and I think over time he’s going to be able to shorten up and still get to enormous pop. His previous two-way prospect status, the pandemic, his college injuries, and Jones’ outlier size are all “tip of the iceberg” traits that suggest late development. The hit tool is the key variable here. There is probably going to be an initial adjustment period against big league stuff, but the two-way Jones’ stride length helps him galavant around center field with promise. He has rep-based projection there because he hasn’t done it for very long, but at his size, it’s entirely possible that he’ll get too big and slow to stay there by the time his feel for the position improves to the big league standard. Even though his swing has been simplified, there is always going to be a ton of swing-and-miss here because of Jones’ lever length. His 2023 whiff rates were only about one standard deviation worse than what’s typical of a big league center fielder, with an overwhelming majority of his misses coming at the top of the strike zone and against backfoot breaking balls. He needs to be able to lift the ball more to actualize all of that power, which might mean further simplifying his cut.
I don’t expect any of this will come together in a hurry, and Jones is still more of a risky developmental prospect with a huge ceiling than he is ready for the big leagues. But as far as ceilings go, in this case we’re talking about St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Jones is on a post-2025 40-man timeline and has only had a cup of coffee at Double-A. He could feasibly spend most of the next two seasons at Somerset and Scranton because, again, there are clearly things he needs to work on at this stage. So much of this depends on whether or not the Yankees are contending, but for now I’d expect a late-2025 call-up (preserving all of his option years), with the huge impact not arriving in a consistent fashion until 2027 or so.
47. Austin Wells, C, NYY
Wells grew on me pretty substantially during my offseason review. He still has some warts, which I’ll talk about in a second, but his overall offensive ability should provide enough impact for him to break the profound University of Arizona hitter drought the game has experienced since Scott Kingery‘s swoon.
Wells’ swing is beautifully connected from the ground up. The blend of his barrel control and the natural lift in his swing gives him a potent contact and power combination, which will likely make him a valuable hitter even if he ends up being unable to catch. His peak exit velos weren’t incredible in 2023, but Wells was working back from a rib injury that may have sapped his explosiveness. In the past, I’ve been concerned about his inability to make contact with fastballs running up and away from him, but he wasn’t as helpless against them when you put on his tape from late in 2023 tape. Anyone with a swing as uphill as Wells’ is going to swing underneath a lot of fastballs in that location, but he snatches his fair share of them and is dangerous enough in this part of the zone to alleviate some of my past apprehension. More of a problem during his big league stint toward the end of 2023 was Wells’ tendency to chase and swing over the top of changeups. Wells was a steady 11% (or better) walk rate guy in the minors, but he seemed to be pressing during his cup of coffee. I’m inclined to bet that his true skill level is closer to his historical norms.
Even an average hit/power combination would be a big deal if Wells can remain a catcher. Ever since a severe shoulder injury he suffered in high school, Wells has had issues throwing out runners. Runners have had a 82% success rate against him in pro ball (343 total stolen bases in 308 pro games). His pop times are fine (1.90 during his big league trial per Baseball Savant), but his footwork is inconsistent as he leaves his crouch, causing inaccurate throws. This issue needs long-term attention, but Wells has made considerable progress as a receiver and ball-blocker despite his below-average hands and limited lateral mobility, the result of his one-knee style. I’m now more bullish than I’ve ever been about him staying behind the dish. It looks like the Yankees might carry three catchers on their big league roster, which would give them the flexibility to catch Wells when the starting pitcher is good at holding runners and give him some run in left field on other days (he played left a little bit in college). This is a great way to get Wells’ feet wet as a big league defender while also getting his bat into the lineup regularly, but ideally he’ll improve enough as a thrower to simply be the primary catcher for the better part of the next half decade.
53. Jasson Domínguez, CF, NYY
The Zion Williamson of baseball, Domínguez is a bulked-up, switch-hitting toolshed.
Often described on this website as “Baseball’s Zion Williamson,” Domínguez signed for $5.1 million in 2019 as easily the toolsiest player in his signing class, a plus-running center fielder with huge switch-hitting power. In a bodily sense, he was also unlike any amateur prospect most scouts had ever seen. Built at age 16 like a late-20s Mike Trout, nobody was totally sure how Domínguez’s body and physicality would develop as he entered his 20s, and this (plus the internet hype) was what made him similar to Zion. Domínguez’s pro career got off to a delayed start because of the pandemic, which clouded the outlook for his hit tool even more than is typical for a risky amateur prospect like this. After some initial struggles in 2021, especially from a contact standpoint, Domínguez quickly climbed through the minors and reached the big leagues late in 2023 as a 20-year-old. He showed his trademark power during an eight-game stint before his UCL blew out. He had Tommy John late in September and is slated to miss nine or 10 months, which puts him on pace to return in June or July of 2024.
Domínguez’s impact power is the tool that floats his prospect boat. He has incredible strength and bat speed for a hitter his age, and he’s forecast here to slug enough to make up for other ills. Domínguez is not yet an especially comfortable or smooth outfield defender, and he doesn’t have great feel for the barrel from either side of the plate. Which of Domínguez’s skills should we continue to project on? I don’t want to project on his power as much as I normally might for a 20-year-old because his frame is already maxed out. In fact, Domínguez’s bulkiness makes me want to project a near-term regression in foot speed. If Domínguez is going to be an impact player, then his feel for either center field or for contact needs to improve. I think the former is more likely, considering how few reps he’s had there in pro ball. It will be important for Domínguez to stay as lithe and fast as possible during his TJ rehab to give him a better chance of remaining at a premium position, where his rather extreme power-over-hit skill set has the best chance to profile.
NYChase718
Veteran
Michael Stanton's coming for that Acuna 40/70