Yankees 2014 international signing class starts coming into view

Coming into View

Finally, we get to the unadulterated good news. Well, we have almost gotten there. And that’s because first on this list is someone who was almost on the previous list: Wilkerman Garcia, or Wilky (as I assume Girardi would call him).

SS Wilky was only the 14th ranked prospect before the draft but quickly leap-frogged higher picks such as Amundaray and Park once he flashed his bat, hitting .299/.414/.362 in his first year.

That catapulted him in the rankings. Even though a shoulder injury in last year’s spring training allowed Wilky to hit only .198/.255/.284, the promise he showed still carries him in the minds of the evaluators.

And it affects his listing here. He is currently the fifteenth ranked prospect, only one behind Estevan Florial. Remember that Florial was one of only two Yankees chosen to play in the Futures Game and has many believing he is a better prospect than Blake Rutherford.

And Wilkerman Garcia is considered to be the next best player in the Yankees system.

A Pivotal Season

That positive feedback is better than his numbers deserve. The hope was that he would fully recover from his injury and be the hitter the Yankees saw in 2015; that has not happened so far. Wilky is hitting .248/.291/.294, but he is a streaky hitter and has gone up significantly from his sub-.200 beginning to the season.

Par example, in his last ten games, Wilkerman has only collected eight hits for a .195 average. But five of those hits have come in the last four games, during which time he is batting over .300. He is a player with a lot of talent who might be figuring it out right now. No real judgment can be made until he posts his final numbers for the year.

That would normally land him in the maybe category. But his ranking and stellar write-up are enough to push him to the winner’s circle, that he shares with…