May 28, 2016; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; A detailed view of New York Yankees hat and right fielder Carlos Beltran (not pictured) glove against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
May 28, 2016; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; A detailed view of New York Yankees hat and right fielder Carlos Beltran (not pictured) glove against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /
The New York Yankees acquired LHP Justus Sheffield from the Cleveland Indians in a deadline deal. What kind of pitcher did they get?
Who Is He?
Sheffield was drafted by the Cleveland Indians with the 31st pick of the 1st round of the 2014 draft out of high school in Tennessee. The Indians sent Sheffield to their Arizona Rookie League team, where he made 8 appearances, 4 of them starts, throwing 20 1/3 innings with a 4.87 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, and 9/29 BB/K ratio.
The Indians sent Sheffield to their low-A affiliate at Lake County in the Midwest League in 2015. He spent the entire season there, making 26 starts, throwing 127 2/3 innings with a 3.31 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, and 38/138 BB/K ratio. Baseball America ranked Sheffield as their #81 prospect in the game.
Sheffield started his 2016 season with high-A Lynchburg in the Carolina League, and he made 19 starts there, throwing 95 1/3 innings, posting a 3.59 ERA and 1.37 WHIP with a 40/93 BB/K ratio. Since the trade to the New York Yankees, he has been assigned to Tampa in the high-A Florida State League, where he’s made 3 starts, throwing 17 1/3 innings, posting a 1.04 ERA and 0.81 WHIP with a 4/17 BB/K ratio. In midseason rankings, Baseball America moved Sheffield up to their #69 prospect and MLB.com ranked Sheffield at #88 in their midseason list.
Size/Stature/Delivery Sheffield is generously listed at 5’10”, though he may actually be more around 5’8-5’9. He’s also quite lean, so his listed 195 pounds looks generous as well.
He works from the center of the rubber in the games I’ve seen, though I’ve been told that he’s had games working from just off-center since coming to the Yankees. He has a nice easy motion, but you can see from the apex of that motion the effort that comes into generating the mid-90s top end velocity that comes from such a small frame. He torques his hip hard back toward second base as well as his shoulder before exploding everything in one incredible motion toward home plate. He finishes with a high leg kick, which is likely due to the amount of force generated that he needs to simply come down from.
In watching Sheffield, the first thing you notice is that he repeats very well, and he moves very quickly. Whether he’s in the motion or the stretch, he moves quickly to the plate, and he drives hard to the plate. His struggles of command and/or control that I noted were typically due to that very fast explosion toward the plate leaving his arm slot (normally a high 3/4) dragging just a touch behind. That leaves him trying to generate the movement with just his arm rather than his legs, and it doesn’t go well for him. Pitches Sheffield features a 3-pitch mix with a fastball that runs from 90-94 MPH. The fastball features excellent movement that I noted to move glove side and with some sink. He tended to get more lateral movement than vertical movement from the stretch, but that was plenty effective on the pitch if he located it low in the zone. The pitch is not a pitch that runs 95+, however, so when he misses his spot, it’s a fastball that can be hit hard. He locates the fastball extremely well, though, seemingly missing only when he gets more movement than even he expected.
His primary breaking pitch is a slider that he runs between 84-87 MPH. He gets tremendously good depth on the pitch. The pitch, when used low in the zone, has a sharp downward plane that can really be a heavy ball for the hitter to attempt to drive. When it’s up in the zone, the pitch can get a little “loopy”. His best showings on the pitch had movement in on a lefty hitter as it got the depth, which is unusual movement for a pitcher to get from his slider.
Out of his stretch, Sheffield tends to loop the slider a lot more than out of his wind up. He threw the pitch to both-handed hitters without worry, and the hard break he gets has hitters swinging over the top of it constantly. The pitch at its best is Sheffield’s best swing-and-miss pitch.
His change up is his third pitch, and in my viewing, it ran 81-85 MPH. Many worried of the pitch early on in his career, and he’s been tagged as a potential reliever both due to his change being quite a bit behind both his fastball and slider. He’s done a lot of work on the pitch, and what I appreciate in watching the pitch is that he has great arm deception on the pitch, but he gets a different break on the change than the fastball, so it can create a lot of swing and miss. The biggest issue that Sheffield has in the change is controlling that new-found movement. If he can find the ability to do that, he can really make some big strides.
Though they use different fastballs, in stature and “stuff”, Sheffield and Brandon Finnegan have very similar profiles. Interestingly, while many struggle to see Sheffield fitting a starter’s profile due to his size and pitch profile, Finnegan got his start in the majors as a reliever with the Kansas City Royals.
Finnegan’s 5’11”, 185-pound stature is also quite similar to Sheffield. Finnegan worked that 2014 draft season out of the bullpen with the big league club. Finnegan started the 2015 season in the Royals bullpen, but the team decided to make the move to work Finnegan back as a starter and sent him to the minor leagues to build up his arm strength. He was traded to the Reds before he could return to the Royals as a starter.
This season, Finnegan has made 25 starts and thrown 141 2/3 innings so far, and while he’s struggled with his control at times, he’s gained composure as the season has progressed, and in his last 5 starts, Finnegan has put up 30 1/3 innings of a 2.08 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP, going at least 6 innings in all but one start.
Sheffield has shown this year that he’s not a guy destined for the bullpen, and the ranking sites are starting to take notice. I do believe the Yankees will be careful with his progression due to his size, wanting to ensure they keep him healthy along the way, especially since he’s already had some injury questions. They’ll likely stick him in AA next season, but then again, if he really pushes their hand with a tremendous performance, he could end up being in the majors as soon as 2017.
