2024 Was a Disaster Year for the Yankee Farm System

by EJ Fagan

December 2024

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.

Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.

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The Yankees farm system is in an odd place. The 2025 may have more truly young players than Luis Gil and Austin Wells just placed 1st and 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting. Anthony Volpe has solidified himself as at least solid glove-first major league shortstop. Jasson Dominguez and maybe even Caleb Durbin are poised to start on Opening Day next year. The Yankees haven’t had so many pre-arb players in my lifetime.

At the same time, the Yankee farm system is as weak as it’s been since at least the mid-2000s. There aren’t a lot of reinforcements coming to help the team after Dominguez and Durbin other than post-hype guys like Oswald Peraza and Ben Rice.

Some of the weakness comes from the Yankees trading a ton of prospects away. They’ve sold a ton of prospects since 2021 in big and small deals. However, a brief glance at all of those sold prospects doesn’t reveal a ton of major league success. The most successful traded Yankee prospect is probably JP Sears, who is pretty much just an innings eater for a bad Athletics team. Maybe they’ll miss Agustin Ramirez or Trey Sweeney.

Rather, the Yankees have been falling on their face with amateur scouting and player development. They’ve been solid with a few first round picks and super-expensive international free agents, but have almost nothing to show from the 2021-2023 draft classes after 2024.

So what happened in the 2024 season? Let’s talk about it, including a few bright spots.

Spencer Jones Struck Out A Ton

There’s a lot to like about Spencer Jones. He’s a true plus center fielder. He has huge exit velocity and power potential. He’s been consistently healthy and above average at the plate since he was drafted. He’s 23 and in Double-A. He seems like a good, smart dude. He’s still a high ceiling prospect who would shock no one if he broke out big last year.

But, Jones took a major step back in 2024. He set the Yankees minor league strikeout record with 200 (!) in 482 plate appearances, or 37%. Jones was already a fringe contact hitter with 28.5% in 2023, but 37% is just unplayable. He’s not going to make more contact in Triple-A and the majors without significant changes. I think there’s some hope that Jones could be a faster Adam Dunn in the majors, but even he had a career 29% strikeout rate.

The good news is that players can change. Aaron Judge struck out a ton, though was less than 37%, in the upper minors and during his rookie season. Jones rightfully earns comparisons to Judge thanks to his size and athleticism. Maybe Jones should have a chat with Judge’s hitting coach.

The Toolsy Shortstops Flopped

George Lombard Jr. and Roderick Arias were the next generation of top Yankee hitting prospects. While both are still very much prospects, they are coming off awful 2024 seasons. Arias had a .728 OPS while Lombard posted a limp .672 OPS.

If you squint, you could say that both were 19 year-olds playing their first full seasons in affiliated ball. Arias sort of held his own as one of the younger hitters in Low-A. But really, these guys should be hitting better than that. They were supposed to be top-100 prospects this year.

All the Top Pitchers Got Injured

I was excited to see what Chase Hampton, Brendan Beck, Henry LaLane, Carlos LaGrange, Chalniel Arias, Sabier Marte, and a bunch of other Yankees pitchers with great stuff could do in the minors in 2024. They were all injured. In fact, precisely one (1!) pitcher on the Fangraphs top 36 prospects had a successful 2024 season - Luis Gil.

A handful of lower ceiling guys did break out (more on that below), but the vaunted Yankee pitching player development engine is in a shambles right now. The Yankees sure seem to agree given how extreme they went on drafting college pitchers this year.

I think it’s real telling that lower stuff guys from big college programs like Zach Messinger, Ben Shields and Drew Thorpe are the rare success stories in the Yankee farm system. They are finding a ton of raw athletic talent but getting almost nothing out of them. Are they burning out pitchers by trying to max them out too much? Lots of other teams manage to churn out a steady stream of solid major league pitchers every year. The Yankees are great at taking older, established journeyman like Jake Cousins and getting something out of them, but it’s a full graveyard for 18 year-olds.

A Few Bright Spots

I don’t really understand it, but the Yankees are banging out catchers who can hit: Austin Wells, Carlos Narvaez, Agustin Ramirez and Ben Rice are all familiar names, but more are coming. Maybe the Yankees just prefer to try and teach their bat-first prospects to catcher rather than stick them at 1st base.

Jesus Rodriguez probably had the best hitting season of anyone below Triple-A. He hit .332/.412/.507 with a 12% strikeout rate as a 22 year-old in High-A, before hitting a bit average in a short Double-A stint to end the season. Scouting reports on Rodriguez are pretty light, but what few I can find indicate that the bat is real and he might stick behind the plate. He’s been pretty low profile until now.

J.C. Escarra has been even lower profile. The Yankees pulled him out of the independent leagues before 2024, and all he did was hit .302/.403/.527 with a 12% strikeout rate at Triple-A. He played some first and third in addition to his natural catcher. I can’t find a real scouting report on the 29 year-old, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing what he can do in Spring Training.

The round out the catchers: Rafael Flores was awesome, although with a lot more swing and miss. He rocketed up from being an undrafted free agent to hitting .274/.359/.519 at Double-A, albeit with a 27% strikeout rate. It seems like he’s a solid catcher too, but I’m skeptical that a 6’4” guy can catch in the majors for long. He split time between catcher and 1st base in both 2023 and 2024, but I wouldn’t read too much into that given how many catchers are roaming around the Yankees system. They all have to share playing time.

I’ve already written a ton about these guys, so I’ll just mention: Oswald Peraza’s second half, Jasson Dominguez’s stellar performances when healthy, Caleb Durbin’s impressive Triple-A and Fall League batting lines.

On pitching, the Yankees got solid innings out of starters Ben Shields and Zach Messinger. Both are low-90s pitchability guys. They’ve had a bad record turning those guys into major league starters recently, but you never know who the next Jordan Montgomery will be.

What I’m Looking For in Offseason Scouting Reports

We’re about to get a lot of new information on the Yankee farm system. Baseball America and Baseball Prospect will release their top-10 lists in early December. Fangraphs and The Athletic should follow at some point as well. These lists give a solid picture of what scouts and coaches from outside the organization think of the Yankee system, plus give us a few new names to dream on.

Here are the questions that I’ll be hoping to get answers to when I read these lists and scouting reports:

• What happened to Spencer Jones’ swing? Did he try to make radical changes and fail?

• Cam Schlitter struck out a ton of guys in 2024. Who is he? I see literally zero scouting information on him.

• Is Jesus Rodriguez a real catcher?

• Did Oswald Peraza fix his swing in the second half?

• Is there any hope for Arias or Lombard as hitters?

• Has Brando Mayea shown any signs of even below average major league power?

• Can Everson Peirera ever make enough contact against major league pitching?

• Is Ben Rice a Quad-A hitter or someone with real potential in the majors?

• Does anyone really believe in Caleb Durbin?