Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz was acquired from the Boston Red Sox when the New York Yankees traded Carlos Narvaez this past winter, and he’s gotten off to a fast start with the Hudson Valley Renegades at the High-A level. After striking out nine batters across 6.2 innings of one-run baseball, Cruz followed it up with an even better performance last night as he didn’t surrender a single run in his 6.2 innings.

With a fastball that tops out at 99 MPH and a deep pitch mix, Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz is displaying better strike-throwing abilities and could find himself in Double-A sooner rather than later. He won’t turn 22 until August, and the Yankees might have a top-100 prospect on their hands right now.

Savvy Trade For Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz Bringing Early Returns For Yankees

When the Yankees landed Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, some prospect publications ranked him favorably in the organization. FanGraphs viewed him as the Yankees’ sixth-best prospect going into the season, with Baseball America ranking him in their top-20, and we’re seeing that perceived upside materialize. The right-hander has upper-echelon velocity for a starting pitcher, sitting in the 95-96 MPH range while dialing it up to 99 MPH, and he throws two distinct fastball shapes.

With a four-seamer at the top of the zone and sinkers for groundball contact, ELC can throw hitters off with his high release height since they struggle to read which fastball they’re getting out of his hand. His sweeping slider has been a reliable strikeout pitch for him against right-handed batters, with his curveball working as the knockout pitch against left-handed batters. The pitch that has me completely bought in on Cruz’s profile is the splitter, a pitch that has good vertical depth and can get some ugly swings over it when he locates it well.

The concerns with his game were rooted in shaky command, as he walked 15.1% of batters faced after being promoted to High-A last year, but early into his tenure with the Yankees, we’ve seen some much-improved command.

The first-pitch strike rate being up allows Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz to get ahead in counts and then throw secondary pitches for whiffs or chases out of the zone. His fastballs are not his best pitches; they’re closer to 50-grade offerings than 60-grade offerings despite the excellent velocity, but that’s not a problem if you throw multiple fastball shapes and have the secondaries to carry the repertoire. ELC has the ability to use his velocity to freeze hitters, resulting in that increase in Called Strike%, but why are metrics like Contact% or Swinging Strike% relevant to command?

Stuff is an important thing to evaluate when projecting a pitcher’s ability to miss bats at the next level, but command is a huge part of this as well. A 96 MPH fastball with good vertical ride is not going to get whiffs over the heart of the plate, but it will at the top of the zone. Where a pitch ends up plays a huge role in its probability of generating a swing-and-miss, so the increase in strikeout rates and whiff rates for ELC is a reflection of his improved ability to throw his pitches in the right parts of the zone.

We’re too early into the season to truly evaluate command, but the early returns are really strong, and if they hold up, ELC could be one of the first arms promoted from Hudson Valley to Somerset. Cam Schlittler and Brendan Beck are likely promotions that could be made from Double-A to Triple-A soon, and that might open up two promotions before we hit summertime. If the command improvements stick from High-A to Double-A, Cruz’s Rule 5 eligibility in the offseason would make him a candidate to be fast-tracked over the next year or two.

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Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz is a young arm who still has growing to do, but he’s also likely to make the Yankees’ 40-man roster if he isn’t traded this winter. I’d be stunned if they left him unprotected in the Rule-5 Draft based on what he’s done over the last two seasons at the Minor League level, and there is still more he could grow into. Had he passed up on the Red Sox to go to Oregon in 2021, ELC would have been eligible for last year’s draft, the same one where pitchers like Ben Hess or Bryce Cunningham were selected.

As things stand right now, he has 30 strikeouts on the season, which leads all of High-A, and he also has the 6th lowest WHIP (0.72) among qualified pitchers at that level. Since being promoted from Single-A last season with the Red Sox, he has a 3.18 ERA across 11 starts with a 51.6% GB% and a 16.6% K-BB%. The Yankees have an extremely talented young arm on their hands, and by trading a catcher who was expendable to them to a team that needed one, they could have ended up with a sneaky pick for a top-100 spot on some national publications.