Yankees final farm report: The summer is ending but not the harvest

(12) OF Jake Cave: 24/SWB

.310/.354/.565

If Cave’s story is not known to you, then this is your first time reading about the Yankees farm system. Obviously, you did not take my advice and read those earlier articles.

Cave has put together a great season at Scranton, at any age: .313 with 19 home runs in 348 AB’s. The boy just keeps hitting and hitting and hitting some more. But Cave has two problems.

One is prospect fatigue, while the other is that he had been sub-par since his return from the Reds. Until this year. Cave has either finally fulfilled his potential or is having one great year.

He will get a chance to perform for Girardi and the rest of the Yankees coaching staff in September, and again in spring training. Cave could even win a starting job next spring if Clint Frazier stumbles out of the gate, although he seems more likely to serve as organizational depth.

As with any prospect who is blocked at the major league level, Cave is always on the trade market. But the Yankees might need him next year, and the rest of MLB will probably want to make sure 2017 was no fluke before parting with any significant assets for him.

But by then, he might just prove himself too valuable to trade.

(11) SP Freicer Perez: 21/Charleston

2.88/1.15/107/39

Perez highlights one of the weird things about ranking prospects. Every prospect should really be labeled either serious enough to get a try out with the Yankees, or not. Players can look like AL East division beaters all the way through Triple-A and still fail at the big league level.

So, all that organizations really care about is whether or not the player deserves a chance to be considered for a role. And I know Freicer Perez is in that category, right now. Every stat save one says so.

His ERA and WHIP are 3.01 and 1.19, respectively. He’s thrown 107.2 innings and given up but 89 hits while striking out 101.

Perez, though, is still trying to find length, a baseball observation and not an anatomical one: He has not gotten out of the fifth in his last six starts. Still, if he keeps going, he will one day find himself in Scranton packing for New York.

Life gets Weird Sometimes

What’s weird is where to rank him. Freicer is 21 and at Low-A, but pitchers often develop later than hitters. And some of the other pitchers on this list are younger with more talent.

On the other hand, his age and success make him more likely to work out than younger pitchers in the lower levels.

Does his history make him better than Brian Keller? Should being a starter make him more valuable than Jose Mesa? All that and more is what it means to truly try to evaluate talent.

I will leave it like this. As I type this, I have no idea where I will rank Perez before hitting, Publish. But wherever that ends up being, it will indicate that Freicer Perez is on track for his Yankees tryout.