Top Five Arms Under 25 the Yankees Should Target This Offseason

The New York Yankees are expected to prioritize adding controllable young starting pitchers this offseason. Here are five of the best (possibly) available options.

In his October “State of the Yankees” address, general manager Brian Cashman declared that upgrading the pitching staff would be the front office’s main focus this season.

The pitching is an area of need: starting pitching, middle relief, setup … We re going to certainly have to look at opportunities that present themselves on the pitching market.

We saw in the first half that having an incredible bullpen is only an advantage if they have a lead to protect, and too many Yankees games were basically over by the second or third inning in April. The rotation’s terrible performance in the first month was the primary reason for the 8-14 start that put the Yankees in a whole they were never really able to climb out of.

If anything, New York’s starting pitching looks even shakier than last year. The loss of Nathan Eovaldi removes one of the guys with the best chance to fill the number two starter void behind Masahiro Tanaka. Michael Pineda and Luis Severino both still have the potential to become that pitcher, but neither is more than a lottery ticket at this point.

Promising youngsters like Bryan Mitchell, Luis Cessa, and Chad Green all had their moments in the last two months of the season, but it is hard to imagine any of them becoming anything more than a back-of-the-rotation guy in even the best case scenario.

Beyond the team’s short-term needs, the Yankees also do not have a proven major league starter controlled beyond next year, with Tanaka, Pineda, and CC Sabathia all able to depart as free agents.

New York has an exciting nucleus of position players beginning to coalesce at the major league level, but they haven’t had as much success graduating their top pitching prospects. Because of that, it seems likely that the organization could go after a stud, MLB-ready building block for their rotation this winter. If they do go that route, here are the top five names they could realistically pursue.

Jon Gray

After a rocky start to his big league career, 24-year-old Jon Gray put together a full season as a slightly-above-average MLB starter in 2016, pitching to a 106 ERA+ and 3.61 FIP in 168 innings of work.

The Colorado Rockies have quietly developed a number of promising pitching prospects over the last year. Tyler Anderson, Tyler Chatwood, and Chad Bettis would also make nice targets for the Yankees if the Rox decide to deal from their depth this winter. The real prize here, however, is Gray.

Selected third overall in the 2013 June amateur draft out of the University of Oklahoma, Gray is the type of big (6’4 235 lb.) hard throwing workhorse that the Yankees love. His fastball sits in the mid-90’s but can touch 98. His best secondary offering is a mid-80’s slider, and he will also mix in a curve and a change. The slider is a true swing-and-miss strikeout pitch at its best.

Gray’s control is a work in progress. He walked 8.3% of opposing batters this year, which is right in line with his rate of free passes during his climb through the minors. On the other hand, he was one of the most prolific K artists in baseball last year because of his pure stuff. His 185 strikeouts ranked ninth in the National League, while his 9.911 K/9 was good for sixth.

The Rockies have had such difficulty developing and signing pitchers that they would certainly think twice before dealing a potential ace like Gray. However, the Yankees have arguably the best farm system in baseball and possess the pieces to land anyone if they want them bad enough.

The price would be high, Clint Frazier and Gleyber Torres would probably have to be the starting point, but Gray has the potential to be a true number one if he’s liberated from Coors Field, and he’s controlled cheaply through 2021.

Sean Manaea

Anyone who tells me that the Oakland Athletics have no reason to trade Sean Manaea this winter have not been paying attention to how Billy Beane does business the last few years. Oakland’s GM simply can’t stop himself from wheeling and dealing. With the lack of starting pitching on the market, look for both Manaea and Sonny Gray to both be shopped aggressively and bring back huge returns for the A’s.

Manaea may not have the ace upside of Gray, but he just finished a very solid rookie campaign, pitching to a 3.86 ERA and 4.08 FIP in 144.2 innings, striking out 20.9% of the batters he faced while walking 6.2%.

The 24-year-old has three potential plus offerings: a fastball that average 92.3 mph, a mid-80’s change, and a sweeping swing-and-miss slider. He struggled with his control at times in the minors, but made great strides this season in limiting free passes.

One red flag is Manaea’s injury history. The combination of a serious hip and shoulder injury knocked Manaea out of contention for being the number one overall pick in the 2013 June amateur draft. He fell all the way to the Kansas City Royals at number 34 and immediately went under the knife to fix both issues.

He also missed time with groin and abdominal injuries in 2015 and dealt with a sore back this September. Any pitcher you acquire is going to have some degree of injury risk, but the Yankees should be particularly wary about surrendering multiple top prospects for a guy with a laundry list of issues as long as Manaea’s.

Carlos Rodon

While the Yankees could probably put together the talent to land Chris Sale this offseason, GM Brian Cashman has made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to surrender the four or five top prospects it would require to land the White Sox ace.

Chicago does seem like a good bet to hold a fire sale this winter after yet another disappointing season, so presumably they would be willing to listen on all their big league guys. That being the case, one pitcher the Yankees could target as an alternative to Sale is 23-year-old righthander Carlos Rodon.

Rodon put up his second straight season as a solid middle-of-the rotation starter, but there are clear signs that he is on the verge of breaking out as a number one or number two in the near future. This year, Rodon put up a 4.04 ERA and 4.01 FIP in 165 IP, striking out 23.6% of the batters he faced and walking 7.6%.

Baseball-Reference has Rodon as a 1.6 and 1.5 WAR player the last two seasons, while FanGraphs is a little more bullish at 2.0 and 2.7 WAR. In either case, he’s been right in the ballpark of a league average starter. His 104 and 99 ERA+ marks support that assessment.

It is important to remember that Rodon made his major league debut less than a year after being drafted third overall in the 2014 June amateur draft. He didn’t get the luxury of fine tuning his game in the minor leagues, so it seems likely that Rodon still has considerable room to grow.

The 23-year-old’s mid-90’s fastball and slider are already plus offerings, but the area where Rodon has really been making strides recently is his changeup.

He increased his changeup usage from 8.7% to 10.7% from last year to this year, and began throwing even more down the stretch. It has the makings of a third above average offering, which could be what puts Rodon over the top as a true number one or two starter.

Mike Foltynewicz

The 25-year-old Foltynewicz finally looked like more than a guy with a big fastball this season. After a below replacement level rookie year in 2015, Foltynewicz had a 4.31 ERA and 4.24 FIP in 123.1 IP this year, good for 1.4 WAR according to Baseball-Reference’s metric and 1.3 WAR according to FanGraphs.

Perhaps most encouragingly, Foltynewicz cut his walk rate down to 6.7% in 2016, a career-low as a professional. Keeping the ball in the strike zone has been Folty’s biggest struggle since the Astros took him 19th overall back in 2010.

There have been times when it has looked like the flame-throwing righty would end up in the bullpen a la Dellin Betances if he didn’t make strides with his control, but that no longer seems like as much of a concern.

Aside from his incredible fourseamer, which averaged 95.2 mph this year, Folty’s next best offering is a slider he developed after coming over to Atlanta in 2015, which he threw 21.4% of the time in 2016. He also throws an average change and curve that both have the potential to be plus pitches down the road.

The Yankees reportedly focused on Foltynewicz in the Brian McCann trade talks with Atlanta in the lead up to the August 1st this year. Could that deal still get done this offseason?

Braves fans have been vocally against this trade, but New York has no reason to give away a very good defensive catcher who hits 20 home runs every year. They would need to get a good piece in return, especially if they eat a significant chunk of his contract.