January’s arrival can imply just one factor round these elements: it is time to rank minor-league prospects. Each crew throughout the majors is promoting hope to their followers: some are promoting it in a extra speedy vogue, within the type of energetic offseasons stuffed with free-agent signings and commerce acquisitions. Others, in the meantime, are promoting it within the personage of prospects who may make the distinction over the approaching years.
CBS Sports activities will spend the following month inspecting the highest three prospects in every group. Our definition of “prospect” is easy: does that participant have rookie eligibility remaining for the 2025 season? If that’s the case, they are a prospect; if not, that is most likely why your favourite younger participant is absent from the proceedings.
As at all times, these lists are shaped following conversations with scouts, analysts, participant improvement specialists, and different expertise evaluators across the trade. There is a honest quantity of firsthand analysis, statistical evaluation, and historic analysis blended in, too. Plus a heaping of non-public bias — all of us have sure traits and profiles that we desire over others; there is no sense pretending in any other case.
Take into account that there is no one proper reply with these types of issues. Moreover, these are merely our opinions, that means they don’t have any precise bearing on the longer term. We already printed our rating of the highest 25 prospects in the entire minors.
With all that out of the way in which, let’s get to rating the highest three prospects within the New York Yankees system.
1. Jasson Domínguez, OF
Prime 25 rating: No. 21
The brief hook: Bodily middle-of-the-rotation prospect
Domínguez is, with out rival, essentially the most well-known particular person on this listing. He is been nationally related since first signing with the Yankees as a 16-year-old and, as a reward, receiving the burden of unreasonable comparisons. The following years have lowered the amount on the hype machine, however that does not imply he is a bust. Relatively, Domínguez initiatives as a starting-caliber outfielder who can present energy and velocity — notably when there is a right-handed pitcher on the bump. Although he switch-hits, he is at all times carried out higher from the left aspect; it is the place he has a finer command of the strike zone and the barrel alike. Domínguez’s plate self-discipline and explosiveness ought to allow him to document his first full big-league season in 2025. MLB ETA: Already debuted
The brief hook: Promising shortstop prospect
Lombard, New York’s first-round choose in 2023, is a well-rounded infield prospect who has the requisite athletic traits to stay at shortstop for the lengthy haul. There’s potential on the plate, too. He has a mature method past his years (he’ll flip 20 in June), and he is already proven he can frequently make arduous line-drive contact. On the destructive aspect, Lombard does not but function a lot over-the-wall energy, homering all of fives occasions in 123 skilled video games. He is susceptible to whiffing inside the zone, too, which may trigger his bat to play beneath projections. In a super world, Lombard options all common or higher instruments at maturation, giving him an actual probability to carve out a profession as a beginning center infielder. MLB ETA: Summer time 2027
The brief hook: Change-hitting center infielder with pop
Arias, who acquired a $4 million signing bonus as an beginner, skilled his first style {of professional} baseball exterior of the advanced league final season. He spent the yr in Tampa, the place he cut up defensive obligations with the aforementioned Lombard throughout their shared time there. We take into account Arias to be the inferior prospect proper now as a result of he is just a little older (he turned 20 in September) and lots riskier. He is extra susceptible to chasing and whiffing, with that mixture leading to some laughable swing-and-miss charges on breaking balls. Arias was additionally a switch-hitter in identify solely, with all of his house runs and most of his harm coming as a lefty. He does have extra present-day over-the-fence functionality than Lombard, however he’ll want to enhance his bat-to-ball abilities to proceed to profit from it. MLB ETA: Summer time 2028
