Lots of Pitching Down on the Farm

This week's Ask BA features a question on the New York Yankees farm system.

The Yankees have a bunch of minor league pitchers having good years who didn't make BA's Yankees Top 10 Prospects list: Shaeffer Hall, Hector Noesi, David Phelps, Graham Stoneburner and Adam Warren, to name a few. Can you size these guys up in terms of potential and address whether they might make the next Top 10 list?

Dick Mullaney
Glastonbury, Conn.

It has been a good year for pitchers in the Yankees system. Seven-figure bonus babies Andrew Brackman and Dellin Betances are showing signs of life, and the pitchers whom Dick mentions have taken impressive steps forward. Of that latter group, Stoneburner is the best prospect and has the best chance of cracking our offseason Top 10.

A 14th-rounder out of Clemson a year ago, Stoneburner signed for $675,000. His 92-95 mph fastball has been no surprise because he always has shown arm strength, but he has done a nice job of tightening his slider and repeating his delivery.

The other pitchers are prospects but probably not Top 10 guys. Noesi is having a tremendous year, going 11-3, 2.21 with a 104-17 K-BB ratio in 102 innings between high Class A and Double-A, but his numbers are better than his pure stuff. He doesn't have a true plus pitch, though he mixes four offerings and commands them well.

Hall, who's all finesse, and Phelps, who relies mainly on a 92-95 mph fastball, project as relievers in the major leagues. With better stuff than Hall and a deeper repertoire than Phelps, Warren has a more realistic chance to become a big league starter, but I think he'll wind up as a middle reliever.

Damon Oppenheimer Up for Diamondbacks GM?

via @FrankiePiliere: Hearing the Yankees' scouting director, Damon Oppenheimer, will get serious consideration for DBacks GM job

Let's hope he doesn't want the job. He has done an excellent job for the Yankees and it would seriously hurt to lose him. Less critical to Yankees management, it has also been rumored that Kevin Towers could leave to take this job. This is all the result of the Diamondbacks making a somewhat hasty decision. I'll let Bob Nightengale explain:

The Arizona Diamondbacks, believing the team has grossly underachieved, fired general manager Josh Byrnes and manager A.J. Hinch on Thursday night.

They promoted bench coach Kirk Gibson to be the interim manager. Jerry DiPoto, the vice president of player personnel, will be the interim GM.

Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick and President Derrick Hall have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with the baseball operations department. Yet it was unclear whether the Diamondbacks would be willing to eat their large contracts. Byrnes had a contract through 2015 and Hinch, who was hired on May 7, 2009, without any managerial experience, had one through 2012.

"I appreciate the commitment and dedication that Josh and A.J. demonstrated during their tenures,'' Kendrick said in a statement. "Their dismissal is a significant decision, but one that we find necessary in order to achieve a direction of winning consistently on the field again. We have a number of talented players, but obviously, see great room for improvement. We look forward to bringing permanence to these two baseball leadership roles.''

A.J. Hinch was saddled with not just the worst bullpen in baseball but one of the worst in years. He was inexperienced but he was also in a leadership position on several major league teams. He was Byrnes' guy and if he wanted to stick with him that should have been the prerogative of a GM doing an excellent job in most respects.

Touching Base with the Yankees Farm System

Just to get things started I'm going to post a few links to some cool interviews with the Yankees brass.

Nardi! Again!
Mike Ashmore recently spoke to Pitching Coordinator Nardi Contreras. Contreras was in Trenton with much of the front office for Andrew Brackman's most recent start. Mike was able to get his impressions on several of the Thunder's promising prospects.

One-On-One With Mark Newman
Mike also spoke with the New York Yankees Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations, Mark Newman. They spoke about the state of the farm as a whole and which prospects should be arriving in Trenton soon. This nicely enough happened just a couple weeks after Sensei John Kreese of NoMaas.org spoke to Newman about his role with the Yankees and mechanics of running a farm system.