New York Yankees stars Justus Sheffield, Domingo Acevedo, and Dillon Tate nicknamification

The Paw-Paw Patch

Down there all three New York Yankees starting stud hopefuls are performing like it. It’s hard to say which one is doing worst, so I’ll start with the one who has had the fewest starts: Domingo Acevedo. While he has had only two starts due to a blister issue, the incredibly early returns are encouraging.

But with Domingo Acevedo, the encouragement comes from a strange source.

Typically one of the first stats you look for in a minor league pitcher is a roughly one-to-one strikeouts to innings pitched ratio. The idea is if you cannot overpower that many hitters in the minors, you might get destroyed by more powerful ones in the majors.

So his eight SO in ten innings is unremarkable. That’s especially true when you consider Domingo Acevedo’s main weapon is his blistering fastball. But what Domingo Acevedo needs is to control the zone and continue to develop his off-speed stuff; so far, so good.

In his very limited sample size, both his ERA (2.61) and WHIP (1.16) are ever so slightly below his career averages (2.81/1.19). That’s better news than it seems. Domingo Acevedo has relied on his fastball during much of his career. Throwing 100-mph against 19-year-olds always helps depress an ERA.

But he’s throwing a lot more soft stuff now. The reason he started the season in Trenton instead of being prepared to pitch in the New York Yankees pen was for just this reason.

And so the fact that he is having success with secondary pitches still in need of work is very promising. More tangible results can be seen in his giving up just five hits in 10.1 innings pitched. His walks are up (7), but his numbers are overall down.

He will make another start soon and will be depressing batters in Scranton not long after.