By Andy Singer
March 9th, 2025
I have been eating, breathing, and sleeping baseball for as long as I have conscious memories. If my life allowed it, I would probably spend most of my days at a ballpark in some capacity. For years, I have heard that Spring Training is one of the most fun baseball experiences a diehard fan can have. Despite this, I have never made it down to Florida for Yankee Spring Training...until last weekend. Now, this was not necessarily a well-planned baseball excursion. At the end of last year, I scheduled a work trip to Tampa, FL for meetings and to attend a conference in the first week of March. Immediately, seeing a Yankee Spring Training game came to mind, but I didn't really do anything about it until a week prior to my trip. Luckily, the Yankees were at home for the one bit of free time I had on Saturday, March 1st. I considered it a bonus that the Yanks were playing the Astros, so I quickly booked tickets...and switched my flight out of Newark to 6:20 AM to make sure that I'd make the game even with a slight delay.
So, my tired body made it to a Spring Training game, and I now understand why people love Spring Training. I got to the ballpark just shy of two hours before game time. Had I realized that I'd have such easy access to the back fields and all manner of other sights, I would have made a point of racing over there sooner. In short, though the tickets were absurdly expensive for this time of year, Spring Training is an awesome experience. I will absolutely be back, and next time it will be a pure pleasure trip as opposed to squeezing baseball into my work schedule.
George M. Steinbrenner Field is a great place to watch a game, and there really isn't a bad seat in the house. After spending time milling around the back field and the main ballpark, I grabbed my hot dogs and a beer, and settled into my seat to watch the game. Because I'm me, I didn't just blindly enjoy my surroundings and banter with surrounding fans (an interesting mix of Astros and Yankees fans and a YES Network cameraman, a story best told over a drink or a meal), but I picked seats that would give me a really good look at pitchers and hitters alike. Without further ado, here are some of my thoughts about individual players and roster construction after watching this game, which ended in a 9-3 drubbing of the Astros.
I wrote a detailed scouting report on Yankee prospect, Cam Schlittler, just prior to my trip to Tampa. The starting pitcher for March 1st was listed as TBD even the night prior to my flight, so I really didn't know who was going to make the start for the Yanks. I can't express the delight I felt when I realized that it was Cam Schlittler long tossing in the outfield preparing to start the game. I was also thrilled that I'd get another look at Ben Rice behind the plate, since I hadn't watched him catch in person since the end of the 2023 season. It was a fascinating battery to watch, with real implications for the future of the Yankees.
So, how did my look at Schlittler compare to my scouting report done purely off of video, you might ask? Quite similarly, and that's a good thing. In-person, I don't think Schlittler was quite working with his mid-season fastball, but the ball just jumped out of his hand. He worked it around the zone, most effectively when he kept it up in the zone. Schlittler has the ability to command his fastball better than most well-regarded pitchers in the Yankees' farm system, and I think it'll show even better when his arm strength is fully built up this Spring. Schlittler effectively set big league caliber hitters up with his fastball, and hitters really took bad looking swings against both his slider and curveball, both of which produced whiffs throughout his outing. I was really hoping that he'd uncork that splitter I've heard about, but he didn't throw one against the Astros. Schlittler's mechanics are smooth, though he's a bit upright and really is missing an opportunity by not extending a bit further down the mound given his long length and height, though standing tall really does make that fastball come at hitters from a more imposing angle. Schlittler ran out of gas in the 3rd inning, but it was an early Spring outing, so that's forgivable. I really like Schlittler, and think he's an option in the big leagues either later this season or next season...which is good, since openings seem to increase by the day since last week.
I took a rideshare ride to the ballpark. As we were driving up to the drop-off point just in front of the stadium, a ball came flying past the front of the car after a loud crack of the bat from the back field. Upon further investigation, I realized it was Ben Rice who had launched the ball dozens of feet beyond the right field fence. I marveled to my colleague at the game that Rice must have hit the ball 440 feet to dead right field. Of course, I was exaggerated when I used Google to measure the approximate distance of the blast - it was just 429 feet on a fly, roughly. In the game, Rice's swing looked really dialed in, closer to how good it looked in 2023, just with more pop and bat control. Rice has put on at least 10 pounds of muscle, and he's putting it to good use. Rice hit a laser over the fence in RF at 113+ MPH off the bat, the highest exit velocity he's hit off the bat as a pro. Rice looked like a productive MLB power bat, and I think he deserves a good shot to begin the season.
I used to say that there was no way Austin Wells would be able to catch long-term at the MLB level, and he proved me wrong by improving at every level defensively. Rice is worse behind the plate, and I'm not seeing much meaningful improvement. Rice allowed an easy ball to scoot by him, his receiving is a bit rough, and I'm just not sure he's agile enough out of the crouch to catch basestealers. However, he works well with pitchers and he's not so awful that he can't catch at least part-time to begin his career. I'm not sure I want Rice as the only backup catcher on the roster, but splitting time behind the plate, at first base, and DH appears to be in his future.
Jasson Dominguez looked like he was on a mission: to swing the bat as much as possible to get his cuts in. He made some awful swing decisions, which is very unlike the hitter I saw at AAA last September in Syracuse against the Mets' AAA affiliate. I would bet that he's a guy that just wanted to swing regardless of what the pitcher was giving him in order to get his mechanics in order. Dominguez really stung the ball in the first inning back up the middle, but he just missed in on the bat. According to Statcast, the swing was 77 MPH, which is among the fastest swings on the team. I would bet on Dominguez to hit 20-25 homers right out of the gate this season.
LF is brutal at George M. Steinbrenner Field. I took a walk out there before the game, expecting to report that the Yankees' environmental defense of Dominguez was garbage...but they're not kidding. The sun is blinding out there, and the wind swirls in the entire ballpark. I felt the wind blowing in from RF at my seat...but the flags were blowing out to CF. Dominguez made a really great play up against the wall on a hard shot to LF, a play on which he took a great route and showed great wall awareness. The skillset is there to be a good outfielder; we just need to see how quickly he can get comfortable in LF. Whatever the case, NY can't be tougher than Tampa in LF.
Believe the hype on George Lombard Jr. He's filling out impressively and he carries himself like a big leaguer at all times. I was incredibly impressed by the extra work he did on the back field at 3B. Standing 15 feet away, Lombard has smooth actions, great athleticism, and a plus arm. He's accurate with very real zip...I'd put most of his throws at 85+ MPH. During the game, he looked like a 10 year vet at the hot corner. At the plate, his swing is so simple and mechanically sound, and is geared to produce significant pop, more than his raw power grade would indicate. That said, Lombard hit an absolute bomb to right-center on a fastball up and in. Lombard produced a swing speed on that shot that was in the Dominguez/Judge swing speed territory, a real positive. Teams called off the hook last season to try to pry Lombard away from the Yankees. Prospect rankings unfairly dinged him for middling stats at A/A+ last season, but he was too young for those leagues, and like many prospects like him, could have used some time at rookie/short season ball (which doesn't exist anymore due to the greed of MLB owners). Lombard is primed for a breakout this year, and I think he's the most likely prospect to become a consensus top-50 prospect in baseball.
DJ LeMahieu made his Spring debut. It really makes me sad to say this, because I think DJLM works really hard and I loved watching him play in his prime, but I've never seen less bat speed from a professional ballplayer. He gave everything he had on a pop-up in his 2nd at-bat, and it barely approached MLB average. I really think he's cooked. I hope he proves me wrong.
Aaron Judge also made his season debut, and he looked...like Aaron Judge. Man, he's so impressive in person. We should take more time to just appreciate how good this guy is.
I want to show you two videos of Anthony Volpe's swing. As the resident obsess-er over Volpe's swing, these videos are important. Check them out:
OK, so he fouls one off and he takes an ugly swing on the next. Why am I so interested? Volpe's mechanics were perfectly stable from swing to swing! Mechanically, there's a ton of good there. He's gone back to a lot of the elements in his load and stance I really liked when he was a minor leaguer. He loads on his back leg beautifully, he's closing his body to the pitcher beautifully, and he looks ready to do damage. However, there's still one aspect of Volpe's swing that needs to improve.
Here's what he looks like as he begins his leg lift to load his swing:
As Volpe lifts his leg, the angle of the bat is nearly identical to that of his front, lead shoulder. Perfect, I love it! That not only puts Volpe in a position to swing hard, but it will also give him a shorter bat path. Win-win, right?!? However, here's where the bat is when he finishes his load:
I LOVE the position and height of his hands here, and that was consistent throughout his at-bats. However, the bat drifts upright...I have a hunch that's intentional, as it matches the teaching of a prominent hitting instructor who I will not name here (I'm not looking for a fight, but I have a pretty fundamental difference of opinion on this position). This really lengthens Volpe's bat path unnecessarily, and it also makes it hard to adjust bat path at different levels of the strike zone. This is the single missing piece to unlocking Volpe as a hitter, in my opinion. I think Volpe can be successful with these mechanics, but with a small tweak, he could really be special. Volpe is as close to being the guy I thought he could be since he got the call to the big leagues.
Lastly, I want to highlight something really cool that happened near the end of this game. You have likely never heard the name Cole Gabrielson. I'm a baseball and prospect nut, and I'd never heard of him. He's organizational filler for the Yankees, and he has 3 professional home runs. I would, unfortunately, bet against him ever wearing pinstripes in the regular season. However, in his only at-bat as a body at the end of the game, Cole Gabrielson swatted a grand slam in the 7th inning of a Major League Spring Training game. No matter what else happens in his life, no one can take that grand slam while wearing a Yankee uniform away from Cole Gabrielson. It was such a cool moment, and I'm glad I witnessed it.
