Yankees minor league baseball begins today with a prospect preview
By Cory Claus
Coming Soon to a Yankees Stadium Near You
Like Adams and others, there is little to say about Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar.
They are not only the Yankees numbers one and four ranked players but also in MLB’s top 100 (Torres sixth, Andujar 65th). Miguel is up right now but figures to be back in Scranton on Monday, when Aaron Hicks returns.
Clint Frazier is also likely to return to Triple-A very soon. He missed all of Spring Training and will likely get some time in Tampa at the training facility before being assigned to Scranton.
There is a chance that the Yankees’ snake-bitten outfield will require his services before he makes it to Pennsylvania, but he still must be considered here as a prospect. Those three make up most of the MLB-possible talent at Triple-A, with one small exception.
A Big Bat at First
Recently returned 1B Mike Ford is back from the Mariners and might be the emergency depth the Yankees need. The Rule Five pick was snatched by Seattle but is now one of at least two players back in the system. Here’s how Sam Dykstra at MiLB.com described him:
"Fully healthy last season, the New Jersey native took off, mostly at Trenton, where he hit .272/.410/.451 with 13 homers in 101 games. He walked 76 times while striking out only 56 times. His .410 on-base percentage ranked second among all 157 qualified Double-A hitters, while his 141 wRC+ ended up 10th. Ford continued to show the impressive strike-zone discipline that had aided his climb through the pinstriped ranks. His rate of 1.31 walks per strikeouts ranked third among Minor Leaguers with at least 400 plate appearances. His 144 wRC+ across both stops put him with such notable names as Fernando Tatis Jr. (145) and Estevan Florial (145) and above the likes of Scott Kingery (143) and Kyle Tucker (141) on the MiLB leaderboard."
Fine Fruit
In a later article, Mr. Dykstra predicted Ford to hit the most home runs in the entire organization. Power plays and so might Mike Ford in the majors this year. As a side note, Mr. Dykstra does an excellent job scouting players and I will turn to him again.
Without question, though, Ford is below the first three. Torres has a definite impact bat while Andujar makes a big league promise with every swing. Frazier remains the least likely of the three to turn into a major league player, but that is still an exciting group.
If Torres turns into a star, Andujar into a regular, and Frazier washes out; the Yankees system will have produced an impressive bumper crop.
The next two levels combined would be hard pressed to produce at the same level, but there is at least one blue-chip prospect lurking. But before we get to him, though, we go next to New Jersey.