The Yankees season ended far sooner than all those involved would have hoped, but that does not mean the season was a total loss. One of the most encouraging developments of the last year was the emergence of Cam Schlittler, Ben Rice, and Will Warren from relatively unheralded prospect status into legitimate contributors at the major league level. Success of homegrown players is always one of the most gratifying accomplishments for an organization, but development cannot be allowed to stall upon graduation to the majors.

Therefore, I would like to propose one adjustment for each young talent that I believe can elevate each to potential stardom, or at least cement each’s status as a big league stalwart.

Schlittler arrived in the majors well ahead of schedule, pressed into rotation service by Clarke Schmidt’s season-ending Tommy John surgery. He experienced a meteoric rise up the organizational prospect depth chart in the span of a year after adding significant velocity to his fastball, his four-seamer going from a pitch in the low-to-mid 90s to one that routinely touched triple digits. He burst onto the national scene with his season-saving performance in the do-or-die Game 3 of the AL Wild Card Series, setting several franchise and MLB records with his eight scoreless innings and 12 strikeouts.

The top-end velocity and his command of the fastball gives him a pretty high floor as a major league starter; the next step is refining the other elements of his arsenal to make that leap to potential ace material. He started the year throwing a sweeper, but quickly scrapped the pitch for a repertoire of four-seamer, sinker, cutter, and curveball. That cutter is the pitch that intrigues me the most as there is evidence to suggest that it is actually two distinct pitches that Statcast lumps all into the cutter bin.

He’s got a true cut fastball that sits around 95-96 and drops about 20 inches on its path to home plate.

Then there’s a cutter that more closely resembles a traditional gyro slider, thrown around 90-91 and with over 32 inches of downward movement.

I’d argue that the first is actually a cutter whereas the slower pitch is a slider, and he should work over the offseason to further separate the two into discrete pitches. Cut fastballs tend to benefit from a platoon advantage against opposite-handed batters relative to four-seamers and sinkers and could become his primary fastball option against lefties just as it has for Clarke Schmidt over the last two seasons. The slider version on the other hand has the potential to give him a wipeout swing and miss pitch against righties. The curveball is better suited against lefties, meaning at times Schlittler had only his heater to strike righties out (admittedly still a pretty good option). If he can hone his command of the slider-cutter low and glove-side against same-handed batters, we could have the second coming of prime Gerrit Cole.

Rice’s arrival occurred a year before Schlittler’s, the lefty slugger announcing himself with a three home run game against the Red Sox in 2024. His rookie season petered out after that zenith, but he showed enough promise to force himself into the Yankees’ plans for 2025. What followed was an astonishing leap in power not dissimilar to the jump in velocity of Schlittler’s fastball. Rice added over ten pounds of muscle over the winter, resulting in a two mph increase in bat speed and three mph increase in average exit velocity. This along with a consistent ability to square up the baseball on contact and superb plate discipline meant that Rice placed among the game’s truly elite in quality of contact, finishing in the 92nd percentile or better in exit velo, hard-hit rate, barrel rate, and expected wOBA.

His development path mirrors Schlittler’s in many respects, emerging from relative obscurity on the farm to carve out an every day role on the major league team. Rice’s contact quality and zone knowledge already make him a cornerstone of the offense, but we’re only just scratching the surface of his capabilities, Rice the majors’ second-most unlucky hitter when you consider the gap between expected and actual wOBA. So many of his hard-hit balls were either grounders or line drives converted into outs, and you just wonder how much more damage he would have done had he achieved a few more degrees of launch angle.

The adjustment I would propose for this is to try and catch the ball a little farther out in front of the plate. Currently, his average point of impact occurs about two-and-a-half inches behind the front of home plate vs. the MLB average intercept point of three inches in front of home plate. Impacting the ball farther out in front naturally increases attack angle, so it’s a way to add launch angle without altering one’s swing mechanics to add loft. The tradeoff is that the hitter is required to start his swing earlier to achieve earlier contact, giving less time to diagnose pitch type. That is why this is the one adjustment of the three that I am most hesitant to propose — part of what makes Rice so good is that he doesn’t chase out of the zone, helped by his approach of letting the ball travel deeper in the zone. You would probably see an uptick in chase and strikeouts with my proposed adjustment, but if the result is a hitter who can mash 30-40 home runs per year, that might be a compromise worth making.

Will Warren’s final involvement in the Yankees season would understandably skew opinions of his season as a whole, the rookie memorably giving up six runs on four homers that included a grand slam in relief of Max Fried in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Blue Jays. However, that single moment should not overshadow a rookie campaign that contained more good than bad for the 26-year-old righty. He finished first among all qualified rookie pitchers in starts (33), innings pitched (162.1) and strikeouts (171), playing a huge role as a starter every fifth day deputizing for the injured Gerrit Cole.

As we saw in the ALDS, his biggest issue is the home run ball, particularly against lefties. His fastball pairing of four-seamer and sinker isn’t the problem — he finished in the 95th percentile in fastball run value — it’s the lack of a reliable out pitch against opposite-handed batters. The sweeper suffers a platoon disadvantage due to the lift it generates, and he never really appeared confident throwing the curveball that he reincorporated into his arsenal over the offseason.

I would suggest that he take a page out of Max Fried’s and Carlos Rodón’s books and work this winter on turning the changeup into a weapon that he can trust. He’s got a good foundation with the pitch — it breaks about three-and-a-half more inches downward that the league-average changeup thrown at the same velocity and was the only of his five offerings to return a sub-.200 batting average and sub-.310 wOBA against. Fried and Rodón leaned heavily on the changeup against opposite-handed batters to turn their regular seasons around in the final stretch and can mentor their young rotation-mate on the proper cues, sequencing, and mindset when throwing the pitch. Warren may not have the same ceiling as Schlittler, but I believe he’s done enough already to nail down a regular spot in the rotation, even after the likes of Cole and Rodón return from their respective surgery rehabs.