Yankees minor league baseball begins today with a prospect preview

Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

Scranton is the only one of these four teams that will start its season on Friday, but it holds the most big league ready talent.

One thing that unites all the levels of the system is promising pitching. But, in the biggest sign of talent drain, it is the starting pitching at this level that has the lowest ceiling. And as some of these players are so well known, I will not spend as much time on them.

Take for instance RHP Chance Adams. What more needs to be said? He dominated the minors for the second straight season: 2.45 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and only 104 hits in 150 IP.

But he never got so much as a sniff from a Yankees club that was at times desperate for pitching. He stumbled in the spring and is again in Scranton, where he has nothing to prove.

So, is he just a little command and control away from getting his first opportunity to start in the majors? Or is he a reliever? Or is he nothing at all?

It’s all been said before. So, for future players with a similarly well-worn story, I will be far briefer.

Promises, Promises

However, Adams does bring us to one big mark most teams, including the Yankees, look for in a future starter: A high strikeout-to-innings pitched ratio. Only Brian Cashman and the player development staff know what they see that denigrates Adams, but one stat that jumps off the page is his 135 SO in 150 IP.

Previously he was able to better one strikeout per inning, although never overwhelmingly so. But last year against the best competition he has faced he sank below that.

One possible read of that is a pitcher who is dominating less with his pure stuff as he faces better batters, and that his ground balls and pop-ups will be turned into hits and home runs in The MLB.

Either way, it is a stat I looked at a lot when evaluating pitchers with otherwise similar numbers. That, and age at each level. If you are 25 and only at High-A Tampa, you are probably not really in any long-term plans.

Now back to Scranton.