📌 Join the BPCrew Chapter in your city and meet up with more Yankees fans! 👉 CLICK HERE

Yankees minor league update- August 17th

1523484

There are only a few weeks remaining in the minor league regular season, and it’s just over two weeks until the September 1st roster expansion date. The Yankees have shown, however, that they are willing to call up prospects earlier, as now Greg Bird has followed fellow top prospect Luis Severino to the major leagues. If you are not yet familiar with Bird, he was covered in a previous Yankees minor league update and was the subject more recent and more detailed prospect primer. Between those two pieces, Bird’s offensive drew comparisons to a late-career Mark Teixeira and Nick Johnson in his prime. Although Bird and many other top prospects are being called up as the season is winding down, there are minor leaguers at lower levels who are still heating up. But let’s start with the professional debut of the Yankees’ first round pick in this year’s draft.

James Kaprielian– P- GCL Yankees2 (Rookie League)- The 16th overall pick in this year’s draft pictured above made his professional debut on Wednesday, reportedly making a relief appearance in which he only went 1/3 of an inning while allowing 4 runs (3 earned) while giving up 1 hit and 2 walks. These numbers are not good, but the right hander was making his first in-game appearance since finishing a season in which he went 10-4 with a 2.03 ERA and 114 strikeouts for UCLA this past spring. Kaprielian’s mechanics have drawn mixed reviews, but he has an athletic 6’4”, 200 lb frame. He has the arsenal to move quickly through the minors, as he already has a fastball that sits in the low 90’s which he uses to get strikes early, a curveball in the high-70’s that is often used as an out pitch, a mid-80’s changeup that is a work in progress, but could also be used as a splitter, and a slider he mixes in occasionally. He still shows signs of a prospect with the ceiling of a mid-rotation starter thanks to the possibility of four solid pitches. His college experience and polished athleticism also mean he can move quickly, with the possibility that he could reasonably make it to the majors within two years.

Jordan Montgomery– SP- Tampa (Class-A Advanced)- Montgomery put up back-to-back dominant starts this week for Tampa, firing 6 innings of one-run ball, scattering six hits, allowing two walks while striking out seven on Monday. He followed that up with a brief, but impressive performance on Sunday, striking out eight in five innings while allowing five hits, one run, and one walk. Montgomery had not been striking out as many batters with Tampa as he had with Charleston (60 K’s in 74 2/3 innings with Tampa vs. 55 K’s in 43 2/3 innings with Charleston), but has been striking out more batters lately. He is currently sitting on a 2.97 ERA and 1.16 WHIP overall this season after Sunday’s start, and his numbers have been backed up by a FIP that has been lower than his ERA at every level so far. The Yankees selected the South Carolina product in the 4th round of last year’s draft as a steady pick considered by scouts as someone with a high floor but a low ceiling, thanks to his solid stuff, good control, and his tendency to induce ground balls. With a fastball hovering around 90 mph, a plus changeup, along with a curveball and a cutter, Montgomery projects as a potential future back-end major league starter right now.

Vicente Conde– SS- Charleston (A)- Conde has put together an impressive stretch with the Yankees’ Class-A affiliate. He hit two home runs Saturday night, giving him four long balls in the last five games. The Florida native has also hit .400 in his last ten games entering Sunday’s contest, including a five game hitting streak. The Yankees have given their 9th round pick from last year a few chances at higher levels, but have found it best to leave him in Charleston for now, where he’s hitting .284 with a .365 OBP, 6 HR’s, 28 RBI, and 7 SB’s in 12 attempts. Now that he has settled in Charleston and the Yankees are taking a slower approach to his development, Conde has found a groove. In his last five games alone, he has 14 RBI. The one thing to note with Conde is that he struggled in 25 games between High-A, AA, and AAA, hitting only .102 at those levels. Even though Conde started the season at High-A and is now down in Low-A, this seems to show that the Yankees might have been rushing the 21 year-old’s development. He would still be younger than the average player in the league if that is where he starts next season, and has the combination of athleticism and tools to move up quickly from there.

Kevin Cornelius– IF- Staten Island (Short-Season A)- Cornelius has put up good numbers this season after missing nearly all of 2014 due to Tommy John surgery. In 150 AB’s entering Sunday, the former 2013 31st round pick is hitting .313 with a .399 OBP and 9 HR’s. Cornelius is certainly flashing his hitting skills this season now that he’s fully recovered, tearing up the Gulf Coast League with a 1.028 OPS and 7 HR’s in 82 at bats. He has since tacked on two more dingers while hitting .324 with an .841 OPS since being called up to Staten Island. The plate discipline is there as well for him, as he has drawn 22 walks to go with 34 strikeouts. His defense has not been too great, as he has made four errors at first base this season, but he has previously been regarded as versatile enough to play all four infield positions. The soon-to-be 23 year-old may need to find a way to play at a position other than first base to maximize the value of his hitting, and if he can stick at a more defensively challenging position than first base, he may have an outside shot of becoming a late-blooming prospect.

Photo via Bronx Pinstripes archives.