New York Yankees News: Jeff Degano Makes Staten Island Yankees Debut

Yesterday evening New York Yankees second round draft pick (57th overall) Jeff Degano made his minor league debut with the Staten Island Yankees after perviously pitching in six games in the Gulf Coast League. Degano gave up two earned runs on a walk and four hits over just 2.1 innings pitched for the ‘Baby Bombers’. He struck out two-of-the-13 batters he faced, and the Yankees strictly cut him off after 45 pitches.

The Staten Island Yankees eventually went on to beat the Vermont Lake Monsters 10-8, but heres a deeper look into Degano’s first minor league start.

Degano started things off smoothly in the top of the first with back-to-back outs on a pop-out to third base off the bat of Trace Loehr and a swinging strikeout to Richie Martin. Next, he allowed back-to-back singles to Seth Brown and Chris Iriart. With two outs and runners on the corners, the Surrey, British Columbia native was able to get Seong-min Kim to line out sharply to left field to end the inning. It took Degano 21 pitches to get out of the inning.

Degano took a 1-0 lead into the second inning, and quickly served up a ground rule double to Brett Siddall. Up next was Steven Pallares, who lined a single past Ryan Krill at first base, moving Sidall over to third. Again with runners on the corners, this time with no outs, Degano was able to strike Jordan Devencenzi out looking for out number one. Degano was able to get the next batter, Jesus Lopez to ground back to the mound, but instead of holding the runner at third, Degano threw to first and Sidall scored on the play. It was certainly a mental error on Degano’s part, but let’s hope he can learn from it as he progresses his professional career. It’s better to make these mistakes down in the minors now instead of later on in his career. Anyway, after hitting the next batter, Degano was able to get Richie Martin to ground out to end the inning.

Degano came out to pitch in the top of the third and got Seth Brown to line out to left, but walked the next batter he faced. He was than replaced by Yoel Espinal, who immediately gave up a triple that plated the runner Degano allowed to reach base via the walk, giving Degano two earned runs on the night.

As a starter, Degano is now 0-4 with a 5.54 ERA and a pitching slash line of .327/.397/.455. He has given up an incredibly high six stolen bases, which is alarming considering Degano is a left-handed pitcher. Right handed hitters are batting .333 off him while lefties are hitting .308, which isn’t too encouraging, but the sample size is still small.

The Yankees signed the southpaw to a $650,000 signing bonus, which is significantly less than the $1,074,400 bonus slot value for the 57th overall draft selection.

Degano, who was previously a member of the Indiana State University Sycamores from 2013-2015, was one of the most dominant pitchers in college baseball this past season, but it’s important to note that he missed a majority of 2013 and the entire 2014 baseball seasons while recovering from the ever-so popular tommy john surgery.

The 22-year-old finished the 2015 NCAA season with an 8-3 record and a 2.26 ERA. He tied a school record striking by fanning 126 batters in 99.0 innings and also posted an impressive 126/28 K/BB ratio. His 126 strikeouts was the fourth most in all of Division 1 Baseball in 2015.

His fastball sits in the low-to-mid 90’s, but according to many scouts, his most effective pitch is his slurve ball that sits in the 78-82 mph range. He also features a change up, but needs a ton of work developing it.

If I had to give an honest assessment of Jeff Degano’s minor league performance to date, it would be underwhelming to say the least. Hopefully he can turn things around soon, but the key thing to remember is that Degano is just 22-years old, and has plenty of time to develop.

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