Late 2024 Yankees Top 30 Prospects: 25-21
The Minor League season is coming to a close (or in the case of rookie-level through Double-A, the regular season has already ended), so it’s time for us to renew our Top 30 prospects. Some players that you like may have been left out because this is a purely subjective ranking. Everyone will have their opinions on players, and that’s fine. I have also left off some players like Ben Rice, Oswald Peraza, etc., because they have “graduated”. For example, Rice and Peraza have played in more than 30 games; Will Warren and Yoendrys Gómez have been left off because they have pitched more than 10 innings. They may still be considered “rookies”, of which the official definition is as follows: “130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues. 45 total days on an active Major League roster during the Championship Season (excluding time on the Injured List).”
The acronym OFP you’ll see below is an “overall future projection” as to how the prospect is projected to turn out. It’s difficult to say how one player will pan out; there are superstar looking prospects that fizzle out before they get to the Majors, and there are very quiet prospects that aren’t really on anyone’s radar that surprise you when they make the Major Leagues.
Today, we continue with our 21st through 25th ranked prospects in the Yankees farm system.
25: RHP Harrison Cohen – ETA: 2026; OFP: 40; Risk: Low
Cohen was an undrafted free agent selected out of George Washington in 2022, and ever since he debuted in 2023 has been dominant. Even in a brief 3-1/3 inning stint in AA Somerset, Cohen didn’t allow any runs and threw an above-average 8.1 K/9 but walked too many batters at a 5.40 BB/9. This year, Cohen is throwing his usual excellent 10+ K/9 and had an insane 0.47 BB/9 for an ERA of 0.93 in 2024. Some injuries sidelined him for much of the 2024 season, so there may be some future concern there, but the injury didn’t seem to affect his throwing abilities, obviously.
Cohen has something in common with Mariano Rivera in that he’s a bullpen piece and only throws a fastball (a four-seamer, specifically) and a cutter. He also has a change-up and slider that Yankees PD is playing with, but they’re thrown so infrequently that it’s almost worth saying he doesn’t have them in his arsenal. The fastball is mid-90s with a max of 96 and the cutter sits in the mid/upper-80s with a max of 89 MPH.
24: RHP Cam Schlittler – ETA: 2026; OFP: 40; Risk: Low
Schlittler has had a decent year between High-A and Double-A, maintaining a K/9 of 11 or greater, in part because of a plus slider and above-average fastball that both induce a lot of whiffs. Schlittler is one of the many excellent middle-of-the-draft picks (7th round, 2022; $205,000 bonus) the Yankees have selected over the last few years.
If there was anything to be concerned about with Schlittler, it’s his BABIP. When a batter makes contact, it’s at a nearly 40% rate (.390) in Double-A Somerset. He was down to .264 in High-A, a career low rate. His ERA has been floating around the 3.80-4.20 mark throughout the season. Most of his contact was against that fastball.
The fastball (mid-90s, max 96) has a lot of sweep to it and runs away from his throwing arm across the plate but doesn’t have enough movement to justify calling it a slider or sweeper. The slider (upper-80s) has more of a tail at the end like a cutter would. Schlittler has a below-average curveball (low-80s) that he uses infrequently and has poor command. Command overall is average, and an improvement in command and control would move him significantly up the ranking.
23: RHP Clayton Beeter – ETA: 2026; OFP: 40; Risk: Low
Part of the return in the trade with the Dodgers for Joey Gallo (one-for-one), Beeter has been exceptional in Triple-A this season, throwing an ERA of 2.53 in 32 IP, despite missing significant time to injury. The injuries and missed time he’s experienced in the past 18 months drops him down the list significantly. If he can stay healthy, Beeter can play a large role with the organization, if he’s not used as a trade chip for another player.
It’s a little curious why the Yankees have him sitting in the Minors with stats like he’s putting up. A 12.44 K/9 in Triple-A is exceptional, and that’s likely why the Yankees have been slowly moving him to the bullpen and using him in the back end of games. In his first game with AAA Scranton this season, Beeter threw an even split of a four-seam fastball and slider mix. The fastball sat mid-90s with a max of 98 MPH and the slider sat mid/upper-80s with a max of 90 MPH.
Beeter’s biggest challenge right now, and the reason aside from injury why he’s ranked so low, is that his command is average if not below-average for where he is in the system right now. In the aforementioned outing, he threw 24 pitches, with 15 of them hitting the strike zone. That said, hitters swung at half of his pitches, with only two of those pitches landing outside of the strike zone.
If Beeter worked on his command and stayed healthy, he could move up the ranking next year, if he didn’t already make the Opening Day roster for the Yankees. The shoulder injury is a concern, though, since he was just shut down for a few months. Is it possible Beeter ends up fine and doesn’t need surgery? Yes, of course. Still, keep the injury in the back of your mind when watching his outings this year. It’s also possible that the reason he’s being used in the bullpen is because that allows them to get Beeter some innings without putting unnecessary strain on his shoulder and arm.
22: OF Brendan Jones – ETA: 2026; OFP: 40; Risk: Low
Jones (no, not that one) quickly got off to a hot start once he started playing in Low-A Tampa at the end of July, proving to be one of the better picks of the 2024 Draft. The Yankees didn’t select a lot of bats, but he has proven to have been a solid choice in the limited time he’s played for the organization. Jones has shown in only 24 regular season games that he has the bat, power and arm to play pro baseball.
Jones is a tricky one to project, especially given the limited sample size. Some prospects can have really hot first few weeks as a pro player, especially in the lower levels, and fizzle out once they get to Double-A and Triple-A. It should be expected to see him spend a majority of the 2025 season in High-A, or at least the first half, unless he blows the socks off of Yankees PD management in Spring Training. It is entirely possible to see Jones start in Double-A, depending on what depth looks like going into 2025. Like many outfield prospects, the depth and logjam in the outfield (Spencer Jones, Jasson Dominguez, Everson Pereira, etc.) will likely hinder promotion speed throughout the system. It’s also possible that Jones starts the 2025 season in Low-A Tampa.
All of Jones’ scouting scores are above-average (55) or better, and he’s got 80-grade speed (3.80 seconds or better as a RHB). Based on the trend he was on in the short time he played with the Yankees org. In 2024, he was on pace to hit 20 home runs, and stole 18 bases in 104 PA and has yet to have been caught stealing.
To be honest, he probably deserves to be higher on the list, but I’m holding out to see what next year looks like. If he keeps this pace up, and hits closer to .300, Jones could land in the Top 10.
21: LHP Geoffrey Gilbert – ETA: 2026; OFP: 40; Risk: Low
Despite throwing only 7 innings and landing on the injured list at the end of April, Gilbert shows a lot of promise in the bullpen. Gilbert allowed only 1 hit and 1 walk in his short stint with High-A this season, with an incredible .043 OBP and 0.43 WHIP. In his last 5 appearances of 2023 with Low-A Tampa (7 IP, 1 ER), he threw a 1.29 ERA, allowing 1 hit and 4 walks, good for a 0.71 WHIP.
Gilbert leans on a four-pitch arsenal: four-seamer, changeup, slider and sinker. Gilbert doesn’t have a ton of velo, which is fine. It’s the command that is a concern, or at least it was last season according to ABS data (all pitch data here is sourced from last season). Using the eye test, Gilbert threw several excellent pitches. In one game, the slider (upper-70s/low-80s) looked like an above-average to plus pitch, and almost resembled the tumble of a curveball. Batters stood in the box confused because they didn’t know what was coming in. The fastball is an average pitch, with velo sitting low to mid-90s, with a max of 94 MPH. Gilbert also has a changeup he used that sat low-80s, and used a slider that sat at 90 MPH. A pitcher with less-than-average velo, say like Nestor Cortes, is not unusual, if they have pitches with a lot of movement like Cortes has with the sweeper slider and his low to mid-90s fastball (almost identical pitch to that of Gilbert). Gilbert is still extremely early in his pro career, with only 56 innings under his belt, so he can still experience lots of improvement.