Yankees 2014 international signing class starts coming into view

Insert Your Own Caption; I’m Going with, “I don’t care if you don’t believe me, the fish was this big.”

Dermis Garcia was the consensus number one international prospect in 2014, and now he might be showing the Yankees why. The Yankees targeted D. Garcia first for good reasons:

"“Big” is the operative word when discussing Garcia. The 6-foot-2,182-pound shortstop has a big frame, big raw power and a big arm. Some scouts believe he has the best power and the best arm in the entire class of international prospects this year. Evaluators like Garcia’s bat speed and his easy power. Some believe he’s going to have a plus arm in the future, and he’s been compared to Twins prospect Miguel Sano, a teenage Alex Rodriguez and a young Shawon Dunston. Garcia is not the fastest baserunner, but he’s a smart baseball player and will not run into any outs on the bases."

But, as this scouting report makes clear, Dermis was also raw:

"Garcia has exceptional bat speed and strength that create raw power which earns top-of-the-scale grade from some evaluators. He’s as raw as he is powerful, however, as he has a long way to go with recognizing pitches, handling offspeed offerings and making consistent contact. He topped the Appy League with 79 strikeouts and a 34 percent whiff rate while also ranking second-to-last with a .206 batting average. A classic boom-or-bust type, Garcia will have to deliver on his prodigious power potential to have a big league career."

I Assume We’re all Hoping for Boom, Right?

So the Yankees should not have been dismayed or dissuaded when he hit just .206/.326/.454 last year. It started to look like another lost year when he, like Wilky, started slowly batting just .238 in June. But he started hitting, climbing as high as .278 just two days ago.

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A two-day slump has brought his average down to .258, but his OBP and SLG are still stellar for a nineteen-year-old (.381/.474). That average also comes along with five home runs and a triple. Those are still not overwhelming but remember that Dermis is on a sharp learning curve.

And now it looks like he is just starting to accelerate.

Garcia is rounding into a complete player. He did not have a successful stolen base attempt in his first two years; this year he has five without being caught once. Add all of that, and his 18 RBI’s and 17 runs scored, to his power potential and Dermis looks like a player on the come.

You Might Live in New Jersey

He will probably be coming to a ballpark near you, and soon. How near I can’t tell yet; it’s still too soon for most of them. But Dermis and the gang still have time to show their talents are equal to their potential.

Next: Scranton is Restocked and Ready to Help the Yankees

My money is on Dermis and Freicer to be real players. And there is time for Juan Deleon and Wilkerman Garcia to join them perhaps. Behind them are Diego Castillo and Hoy Jun Park…as long as Park stops playing shortstop. Danienger has a lot to prove, and there is already another international class to contend with.

But, as the parameters for international drafts were changed in the latest CBO, there will never be another draft like the one the Yankees had in 2014. Cashman threw a lot of darts that year. By 2019, we should know which darts will hit the target, and which will hit the wall.