Evil Empire Yankees Blog

One of the common sentiments among Yankees fans since the end of the season has been the desire to sign Todd Frazier this offseason to keep him in pinstripes. Believe it or not, the two alternatives of this decision form a complex and difficult conundrum for the Yankees and actually could shape the entire offseason strategy for the front office. Time to elaborate. It starts with simple question. Do we want to bring Todd Frazier back? Or not? The answer actually has far reaching implications. This is possibly the most difficult question to answer of all. There are many pertinent considerations. Frazier is a bit of a hometown hero, dating back to the little league world series in 1998 when he was the star of his team. They won the Little League World Series that year. Fast forward 13 years and Frazier made his professional baseball debut with the Reds. He has had a solid career over seven years. He has hit .245/.321/.459/.779 with 175 homeruns. This past season he hit .213/.

As a relatively young, coordinated, athletic man who played baseball growing up and continues to play softball now, I have never felt unsafe at any baseball game, regardless of the netting. How often, however, do you see people sitting along the first and third baseline that are not lucky enough to feel so safe? It’s all too often. The recent events with the young girl who was hit in the head by a batted ball off the bat of Todd Frazier and was subsequently hospitalized called this to everyone’s attention. I don’t mean to speculate, but as an Emergency Medicine physician, I know that you don’t get hospitalized for over a week for a concussion, regardless of age. Unfortunately, something more happened to this girl, and I just hope and pray that it does not affect her in the long term. That would be a tragedy. Selfishly, putting up nets would do nothing for me personally. In fact, going to games would become slightly less enjoyable from those first and third baseline seats.

Several players in the Yankees' system are no longer eligible for the top 50 prospects list, but are still young enough to deserve mention in the discussion. These are the players who have already played in the major leagues in some capacity. They are still a huge indication of the success and health of the farm system, and here is where we will discuss that. When you combine this list with the top 50 prospects, it is staggering how much talent this farm system has produced. To take it a step further, when you consider some of the guys who are not on this list, but are products of the Yankees' farm system, it's even more staggering. Guys like Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, Austin Romine, Dellin Betances, and Tyler Austin have all made an impact at varying levels to the major league team. Here is a list of the guys who have had limited exposure to the majors still, or were rookies this year. 1. Aaron Judge – RF, 6-foot-7, 282-po

Here's a list of the guys who didn't make the cut for the top 50, but depending who you ask probably could have. There's a bunch of guys on this list who would have been in the top 50 most other years. Unfortunately I can only put 50 guys in the top 50. Many of these players will end up being in the top 50 by the middle of next season for sure. Some will even end up being top prospects. 51. Tim Lynch – 1B, 6-foot-3, 220-pounds, LHB, 24-years-old – Lynch put himself on the map this season with an incredible performance in 57 games of High-A baseball. He hit .310/.368/.573/.940 with 13 homeruns, 15 doubles and a triple in those 57 games. Lynch is an extremely patient hitter, and doesn’t strike out a ton for a guy with his level of power. He’s got a lot of competition for innings and at bats in Double-A and Triple-A next season (Ford, Gittens), but if he keeps hitting like this it’s not gonna matter. The power is most certainly there, but he will need to sustain it at the

This is an all-time best prospect ranking list for me. Even with all of the trades and graduations this season, the system is brimming with talent. Better yet, the farm is already infusing the major league team with future cornerstones. Dellin Betances, Luis Severino, Tommy Kahnle, Chad Green, Jordan Montgomery, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, and Clint Frazier are all current or potential future stars (and have played enough time in the majors to disqualify them from my list). Guys like Domingo German, Luis Cessa, Giovanny Gallegos, Tyler Wade, Jonathan Holder, Nick Rumbelow, Ben Heller, and Garrett Cooper are also young players who have already made their debut and all have the talent to potentially be major future contributors on the team. Since they have already made their debuts, I will make a separate list on where those players would have ranked (excluding Betances, Severino, Kahnle, Judge, and Sanchez because they all had significant major league time before this season). The y