Corresponding Aaron Judge roster move teaches Yankees another harsh lesson about prospects

Aaron Judge is back in the Bronx, and even if his first game was a shortened affair that saw him go 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, just seeing him back in action is enough to give New York Yankees fans good feelings. However, the corresponding move to bring him back to the active roster does have a sad consequence.

In order to re-add Judge to the 40-man roster, the Yankees had to DFA someone, and that ended up being former top prospect Chase Hampton. Hampton has been out of the spotlight for a while, but back in 2023, he joined Ben Rice as the winners of the organization's Kevin Lawn Award, given to the top position player and pitcher in the system annually.

At that time, Hampton was a 21-year-old who was in his first professional season, splitting the year almost evenly between Hudson Valley and Somerset, posting a combined 3.63 ERA, 33.1% strikeout rate, and 8.4% walk rate. The right-hander from Texas Tech seemed to be a fast riser in addition to having immense potential.

Hampton instead threw just 18 2/3 innings in 2024 as a flexor strain and a groin injury wiped away most of his season. Then, during spring training in 2025, he tore his UCL, requiring Tommy John surgery. He had already been dealing with and managing three partial tears in the ligament, but this time it was torn completely.

“I was kind of hoping it was torn, honestly. I mean, I was dealing with it for a while. I’ve had three partial tears in it, so I was just hoping that it was time to have [the surgery]. So before I even found out, I was kind of at peace with it,” Hampton said just four days after going under the knife. 

There was hope that after his long road to recovery, Hampton could pick up where he left off in 2023 and reestablish himself as another promising arm in New York's vaunted pitching pipeline. Instead, he's spent time in Tampa, Hudson Valley, and Somerset this year, throwing a total of 55 innings while struggling mightily with his command and posting a gruesome 8.18 ERA.

Chase Hampton's story is proof that the Yankees need to start trading away top prospects to fuel their run of contention

At his peak, Hampton, now 25, placed in top 100 lists from Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and MLB Pipeline, ranging between No. 56 and No. 92 in the rankings. A young right-hander with a fastball that could hit 99 as a starter and tremendous strikeout stuff would've been a very valuable commodity on the trade market.

Instead, the Yankees decided to hold onto him, and now his value is essentially nothing. Watching a formerly well-regarded prospect's value turn to dust is nothing new for the club, though in Hampton's case, this wasn't the case of a talented youngster flaming out in the upper minors. Instead, it's a warning sign of the even more sinister outcomes that the injury bug can bring.

Simply put, New York would be better off trading the vast majority of these guys away in order to feed the big league roster and keep the run of contention going. Brian Cashman often takes a different approach, emptying out the midsection of his system while holding his top chips.

This means that the returns he's generating are muted and ineffective, and it takes more of these lottery tickets to get a deal done. It hits especially hard when the veteran he traded for severely underwhelms while one of those mid-level youngsters blossoms into a star.

The hit rate on the blue-chippers isn't all that much higher than the mid-tier guys, yet the veterans they can attract are near-guaranteed to make a much larger impact. You can live with giving up a future star when you get a present-day one back, especially if that acquisition leads to a parade down the Canyon of Heroes.

As for Hampton, there's a pretty good chance that he passes through and remains in the Yankees' organization. It's also too early to write his future off entirely, but the climb back up to the top is a steep one.

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