Red Sox steal prospect from Yankees in Rule 5 Draft on Thursday

The Yankees lost a number of prospects in the Rule 5 Draft and one went to Boston.

You can only protect so many players ahead of the Rule 5 Draft, so when the New York Yankees were only able to add four to their 40-man roster a couple of weeks ago, general manager Brian Cashman made sure nobody was going to touch Roansy Contreras, Alexander Vizcaino, Yoendrys Gomez and Oswald Peraza.

However, that didn’t mean the Bombers were going to be completely fine heading into Thursday’s draft. They ended up losing a number of players, but none are considered significant departures.

Then again, it is annoying when your most hated rival in the Boston Red Sox manages to swipe a solid pitching prospect from you, regardless if you need that asset or not. Though Garrett Whitlock had no path to the MLB roster anytime soon, we’d just rather him not play for the Sox.

Whitlock, 24, is a promising arm and reached Double-A in 2019. With the Trenton Thunder, he logged a 3.07 ERA and 1.29 WHIP across 13 starts after cruising through Single-A Charleston. How odd is it that Whitlock followed suit and left the organization after those two affiliates did just a few weeks ago due to the minor league shakeup?

Nonetheless, with Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt, Luis Gil and others ahead of Whitlock, this loss was to be expected. As for the others? Trevor Stephan, another pitcher, went to the Indians and Kyle Holder, the once-promising shortstop prospect, is now with the Phillies. Those were the biggest guys that went.

In all honesty, the Yankees should be flattered other organizations value the talent they possess in the farm system. That’s the silver lining here.

But as for New York’s losses, perhaps the Indians work their magic with Stephan, because he’s gotten knocked around ever since getting the bump to High-A and Double-A. In 29 starts with the Thunder across 2018 and 2019, the righty owns a 4.79 ERA and 1.42 WHIP.

Holder? Same deal. After an impressive showing in the Arizona Fall League back in 2017, he’s largely regressed, showing hardly any progression once he reached Double-A, where he’s slashed .261/.328/.388 with 58 runs scored, 10 home runs, 50 RBI and seven stolen bases in 144 games. We’re sure the fact he was limited to 48 games in 2018 didn’t help out his cause.

Though he played in some intrasquad games at Yankee Stadium in July, it wasn’t enough for the Yankees to use a roster spot on him. Plus, they have a number of middle infielders ahead of him in their prospect rankings.

We wish nothing but the best for these guys in their next baseball chapter.

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