Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of Major League Baseball fans. All year long, we ask questions of Yankees fans and the most connected fans across the country. Register here to participate in weekly email surveys.
Baseball is almost in full swing as spring training has been going on for a few weeks now and players are getting their legs under it. The Yankees have a lot of players looking to get the coaches’ attention throughout camp, as that’s the biggest spotlight they’ll get before the minor league season begins and the top prospects get to work on their path to the majors. The Yankees have a number of promising weapons in the pipeline, and they took center stage as the B teams hit the road for a number of these exhibitions. So naturally, we wanted to know which ones caught your attention.
Until now, according to your vote, the star of the staff has been, in the vast majority, Carlos Lagrange. The soon-to-be 23-year-old has flashed heaters consistently at 100 mph, even hitting 103 mph on the radar in his two spring training games, and that’s boosting the confidence of some of the clubhouse executives that this kid could be something special in the near future. Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole both commented about how impressed they are with Lagrange’s stuff and the potential he has to be a top of the rotation arm type, and after a season in which Lagrange moved to Double-A and posted a 3.22 ERA with 104 strikeouts in just 78.1 innings at that level, there’s a lot to be excited about with him.
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Elmer Rodriguez came in a distant second here, but there’s also a lot of excitement about his potential. Ranked in the back half of the top 100 prospect lists for major media outlets like Baseball America, MLB Pipeline and Baseball Prospectus (and ranked slightly higher than Lagrange is on average between the three), Rodriguez was acquired from Boston for catcher Carlos Narvaez last year and has worked his way through the system. He pitched to a sub-3 ERA in High-A and Double-A in 145 innings, even getting a taste of Triple-A Scranton to finish his year.
Ben Hess comes in third here, and that’s reasonable given how much further Hess is than the other two in terms of development – Hess only has one professional season under his belt – but there’s already a fair amount of results that seem to be generating excitement. Hess debuted in High-A and has already reached Double-A midway through the year while continuing to put up zeros. The organization currently has a lot of talent coming up through the ranks of the farm system, and soon fans will be able to see some of them break through instead of just imagining how they might adapt.
We also had a side story on hand, with the news that the Yankees were retiring CC Sabathia’s No. 52 jersey and putting it at Monument Park for the rest of time. The majority of you found it a fitting honor for the now Hall of Famer who went to Cooperstown in a Yankee cap, as Sabathia arrived in New York and immediately anchored the pitching staff as the ace of a World Series championship team. CC ended up hitting incredible milestones late in his career, including his 3,000th strikeout and 250th career win in his final season, and that, combined with his dominant first four seasons as a Yankee, combined with his ability to retool in his later years in addition to simply being the central figure in the clubhouse throughout his tenure in the Bronx gave him a more than enough resume to earn his Monument Park plaque. Sabathia knows and appreciates the weight of the consecration, calling the Yankees’ decision “one of the greatest honors of my life.”
Addressing some MLB-wide topics, the ABS system was first introduced at the MLB level during last year’s All-Star Game and is now getting a broader look at its spring debut, earning rave reviews. Applicable only by the catcher, pitcher or batter, challenge calls are quick enough to not interrupt the flow of the game too much and lessen the severity of an umpire on a bad night – as long as you still have your challenges.
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So far, teams have been enthusiastic about using this feature, issuing challenges early and often, which often leads to them running out of challenges if they take on dubious ones. Austin Wells made a series of tough calls that weren’t overturned early in the spring, but the Yankees as a whole were pretty successful in positioning themselves otherwise. Whether this will help offenses more than pitching remains to be seen, but the weight of keeping a rally alive by a batter successfully contesting a call may seem greater than a pitcher getting away with it by similar means and thus create the feeling that it helps batters more. This hurts the catcher’s ability to frame the ball and “steal” strikes as often, especially if teams save their challenges for later innings when a significant at-bat depends on the right call, which is purely a benefit to the hitters. We’ve all seen the umpire who manages to miss a strike straight down the middle here and there, so pitchers will no doubt be pushing the button for themselves as well.
The results of this survey are sponsored by FanDuel.
