Yankees clearly don’t know what they have in Justus Sheffield
The Yankees still don’t know whether or not Justus Sheffield will make their playoff roster. He could turn into the team’s secret weapon in October.
There’s no bigger New York Yankees mystery at the moment than Justus Sheffield. Fans are excited to see the organization’s No. 1 prospect make it up to the majors, but he still hasn’t thrown a single pitch in the Bronx. Still, team officials insist he has a chance to make the team’s postseason roster.
Aaron Boone was directly asked whether or not Sheffield would stick with the team when the playoffs begin, but he declined to give any real information. Instead, the Yankees manager simply told reporters that “we’ll see.” Given how the organization has handled the talented left-hander this season that answer really shouldn’t be a surprise.
The Yankees have had numerous opportunities to throw Sheffield into their starting rotation this year. It could have happened as early as June when Jordan Montgomery learned he needed Tommy John surgery. When Domingo German, hit the skids it gave the organization another chance to bring up their top prospect. Ostensibly, the Yankees elected to keep Sheffield in the minors to allow him to develop in a lower pressure environment.
Even if Sheffield wasn’t ready at that point, there were even more opportunities to bring him up later in the year. The organization’s decision to transition him into a bullpen role for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre made it clear they wanted him to impact the major league club this season. Still, Sheffield didn’t get his call to the big leagues until Sept. 16. That’s a full two weeks after teams had the option to bring up anyone on the 40-man roster.
In fairness to the Yankees, Sheffield wasn’t originally on the 40-man roster. Calling him up required another roster move. However, all the team did was send Clint Frazier to the 60-day disabled list to make room. Yankees officials have known for weeks that Frazier wasn’t going to play again this season.
That means the organization clearly left him in the minors so he could continue to hone his craft. The concerns about his command are real. Sheffield gets a lot of outs, but it frequently takes him a lot of pitches to get to that result. If he gets behind major league hitters in the same fashion that he did in AAA, he’s going to get punished.
That doesn’t mean the Yankees are down on Sheffield. The fact that they called him up at all makes it clear they are big time believers in his potential. They are determined to leave the window for him to succeed this season open as long as possible. That’s a testament to the kind of filthy stuff he flashes.
The obvious truth here is that the Yankees don’t really know what Sheffield is capable of giving the team at the moment. It’s very rare for a player who’s never thrown a single major league pitch to still be in contention for a playoff spot so late in the year. Sheffield only has a chance to pitch in the postseason because his ceiling is so high.
It’s far from a certainty he can get the job this year, though. His potential outcomes this month have a huge amount of variance. Sheffield is just as likely to go out and get shelled as he is to dominate major league hitters.
The only way the Yankees are really going to find out what they have in Sheffield is to put him on the mound and watch him go to work. That’s when they will discover whether or not their top prospect will be the franchise’s secret weapon in October.