Examining the New York Yankees’ Minor Leagues – Introduction
by James Vlietstra
February 9, 2021
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After a slow start to the hot stove season, The New York Yankees have made several high profile deals and their offseason is just about complete. Ultimately, there was a typical amount of roster juggling and turnover. The moves will be evaluated based on the success of this season and ones to come. The health of the players will be the deciding factor whether or not this off-season will be viewed favorably or as an utter failure.
One aspect of the team we will begin to examine further is their depth in the minor leagues.
The 2019 Minor League season came to a conclusion in the middle of September. That’s almost 17 months ago, or well over 500 days. A lot has changed since the last game was played. At that point, the Yankees had nine minor league affiliates. Now, four of those teams are no longer part of the organization.
Major League Baseball has allowed each organization four full-season affiliates. The short season leagues have been replaced with various alternatives, including a showcase league for pending draft picks. Presumably the Gulf Coast League and Dominican Summer League will still be running, but I have not seen confirmation of that. Playing time for developing players is going to be at a premium.
In this series, I plan to introduce you to some of the Yankees prospects. I will also discuss some of the offseason transactions and how they will translate to the field.
I look forward to sharing this in-depth analysis over the coming weeks.
Of note, it is possible that some of the players I will be mentioning are no longer part of the organization. It’s not always easy to get information on minor league players, especially since so much has changed since they last played. I have done a great deal of research, but this, at times, van be an inexact science. In this series, I will also offer up an educated guess as to which players end up at which affiliate – again, ahead of Spring Training, this is a far from exact science.
As spring training gets closer and closer, the excitement level for a new season increases. This is especially the case after this past year. It is even more so on cold, snowy winter days in the tristate area.
Hopefully you enjoy this series as much as I have putting it together.
We will begin tomorrow with the catchers.
