Yankees pitching prospect you’re not paying attention to is a strikeout machine

A lot of attention has been paid to the New York Yankees‘ pitching prospects, given how talented the farm system is at the moment.

Deivi Garcia. Clarke Schmidt. Luis Medina. Alexander Vizcaino. Yoendrys Gomez. Luis Gil. TJ Sikkema. Beck Way. It’s a talented bunch.

But perhaps we’ve been overlooking one? Specifically No. 28 on MLB.com’s rankings of the Bombers top 30 prospects, Glenn Otto?

Yup, perhaps we all have been. Our bad. Won’t happen again.

You might’ve caught your first glimpse of Otto during spring training this year when he was throwing live batting practice and went up and in to Aaron Judge, which had fans … not so happy.

But now that he’s pitching against non-Yankees stars? Life is good. He’s absolutely plowing.

Yankees prospect Glenn Otto is dominating the minor-league competition.

The 25-year-old right-hander recorded 16 outs on Thursday night and 14 were strikeouts. FOURTEEN. He’s now whiffed 28 batters in 16.2 innings across three starts for Double-A Somerset.

Otto was among the prospects who missed all of 2020 due to the pandemic. His last appearance before the beginning of this month came in 2019, when he made his way up from the Rookie League, then to High-A, and then to the Arizona Fall League. Cumulatively, he went 3-3 with a 3.23 ERA, 1.50 WHIP and 74 strikeouts in 61.1 innings. That was across 17 games (14 starts).

Then, in the Arizona Fall League, which is a collection of every MLB team’s top-six prospects they choose to represent the organization, the right-hander went 3-1 with a 1.88 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 26 strikeouts in six starts (24 total innings).

His upper-90s fastball is accompanied by a devastating breaking ball and a changeup that he’s still working on. His curve needs a bit of refinement as well, as it’s been described as inconsistent despite how good it looks when his command is on.

Now, it’ll be important for Otto to get a full season under his belt. His 2017 campaign only featured nine games because that was the year he was drafted. The following year, he logged only two games before a blood clot in his shoulder ended his season. His 2019 slate was his longest yet (17 games), but then he lost all of 2020, as did many others.

But at this very moment, Otto picked a fortuitous time to make his rounds on social media. The Yankees will likely need bullpen help later in the year as they hope to preserve arms down the stretch and in the postseason. A few more promising outings could get Otto the bump to Triple-A … and then he could be a candidate to get the call when rosters expand in September.

… Or maybe he’ll be part of a trade package at the deadline.

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