Yankees News: Slade Heathcott Promoted to Yankees

Jacoby Ellsbury left Tuesdays game in the fourth inning after tweaking his knee while swinging during an at-bat. Being the warrior that he is, he remained in the game to run, and eventually scored the first run of the ballgame for the Yankees on a Chris Young single. However, the all-star center fielder was removed shortly after.

After the game, the Yankees confirmed what no fan wanted to hear; that Jacoby Ellsbury was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained right knee.

However, the famous Alexander Graham Bell once said that “When one door closes, another opens.”

With Ellsbury out of commission, the Yankees have signed and promoted 24-year old minor league cast-off Slade Heathcott from Triple A Scranton Wilkes-Barre to their 25-man major league roster.

Heathcott has been in the Yankees’ system since 2009 when he was selected 29th overall in the first round of the 2009 MLB Draft. However, the young outfielder has since traveled a bumpy road down in the minors, undergoing major surgery on his shoulder and knee and nearly cut from the entire organization.

However, the Yankees decided to roll the die just one more time on Heathcott and bring him into spring training this season as a non-roster invitee, and boy has that decision paid dividends. In 36 games this season at Triple-A, Slade Heathcott looks to have finally put all the pieces together, and is batting .280/.331/.353 with 12 walks and 17 RBI . He mostly played center field in spring training, and has played a majority of his games this season (22) there as well.

Heathcott, a career .269 hitter with 21 homers and 143 RBI in seven minor league seasons will finally get his chance to shine up in the Bronx. It still remains to be seen if he will make his major league debut on Wednesday night in Washington D.C., so we’ll just have to wait and see. This season Heathcott is hitting .294 off righties, so my guess is they Yankees will platoon him with Chris Young, who is absolutely crushing left-handed pitching this season. The Nationals will have a righty in Jordan Zimmerman on the hill Wednesday night, so things certainly look promising for the 24-year old Texarkana, Texas native.

Stay tuned!

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