Does Dillon Tate Still Have Frontline Starter Potential?

New York Yankees pitching prospect Dillon Tate is expected to continue working out of the bullpen in the upcoming Arizona Fall League. Will he ever fulfill his front-of-the-rotation potential?

The New York Yankees have had tremendous success in getting unexpected velocity spikes out of their pitching prospects in recent years. We’ve seen it at all levels of the system, most notably with guys like James Kaprielian, Chance Adams, and Chad Green, who all saw their heaters improve a few ticks after joining the organization.

The front office was likely banking on that particular expertise when they traded for struggling Texas Rangers righthander Dillon Tate, the fourth overall selection in the 2015 June amateur draft, at the trade deadline.

Tate came into the season ranked as the 36th best prospect in baseball according to MLB.com and 69th by Baseball America. Prior to being drafted, he was seen as a potential number two starter, if not a true ace. Prior to the 2015 draft, MLB.com had ranked him as the number two overall talent available, listing former Oakland Athletics ace Dave Stewart as a good comparable.

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The 22-year-old has had inconsistent mechanics and a high-effort delivery since college, so it wasn’t a complete shock when he was having trouble maintaining his velocity consistently early this season. Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball reported in August that Tate blamed the Rangers’ workout regimen for his velocity drop.

Whatever the cause, Tate was pitching in the low-90’s and even upper-80’s for the first few months of the season before the trade and the results were pretty miserable. He had a 5.12 ERA in 65 IP (16 GS) for the Low-A Hickory Crawdads in the Sally League.

After coming over to the Yankees, Tate began pitching out of the bullpen for Low-A Charleston, working closely with minor league pitching coordinator Danny Borrell. There were definite signs of progress, as Tate began working in the mid-90’s again, pitching to a 3.12 ERA in 17.1 frames.

Tate is expected to continue pitching out of the pen for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League over the next month. He made his AFL debut in Tuesday’s 9-6 win, striking out three batters and allowing one earned run in his two innings of work. Most importantly though, Josh Norris of Baseball America tweeted that Tate hit 97 mph with his fastball and was regularly working 94-96.

At this point it isn’t clear whether the team has any plans to move Tate back to the rotation if they are successful in restoring his mechanics. As with Luis Severino, the longer he works in the pen and the more success he has, the harder it is going to be to move him back to his old role.

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The Yankees have infinitely more information then me on Tate’s limitations, but the potential upside is so great with keeping him a starter that it seems like every effort should be made. The system is stuffed with potential quality relief arms, but I can count on one hand the number of pitchers New York has they could realistically project as front-of-the-rotation guys.