NEWSLETTER
Most of the discourse around Cody Bellinger and the Yankees has been about whether the Cubs would eat any salary to facilitate a trade. Much less has been dedicated to what the Cubs might actually get in return from the Yankees for a guy who is a very good and useful player!
Thank you to Pat Ragazzo for at least giving us a name to discuss:
Ragazzo reports that Will Warren is a name that has come up in talks, though that may not be what the deal looks like, exclusively. It’s just a name to discuss.
He’s an interesting one, though. Depending on whom you ask, Warren has been ranked as high as a top-100 overall prospect in baseball in the last two years, or as low as a guy in the 5-10 range of the Yankees’ mid-tier system. Either way, not a bad prospect, but the outlook can really vary.
An 8th rounder in 2021, Warren shot up rapidly through the Yankees’ system, reaching Triple-A in 2023. He pitched mostly at that level in 2024, though he did get a cup of coffee with the big league team. In short, his results this past year were rough, though the peripherals are quite strong:
He strikes a lot of guys out, doesn’t walk many, and appears to have gotten hit quite hard. If there weren’t any warts, he wouldn’t be available. The upside is there, though, and you can kind of mentally put in him a similar place as guys like Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks, though maybe with a small bit more prospect pedigree? Maybe depends on whom you ask? Pretty similar in terms of how you’d think of them as prospects, though, even if very different types of pitchers.
The Cubs certainly want as much starting depth as they can possibly get, and Warren – like many of the other young pitchers for the Cubs – still has minor league options remaining.
Warren ranks as around the 5th or 6th prospect in the Yankees’ system right now, and here’s a bit from Baseball America’s scouting report:
“Warren works with a varied arsenal that includes four- and two-seam fastballs, as well as a cutter, slider, changeup and curveball. Both fastballs are thrown around 94 mph and occasionally bump a tick higher. He changed the grip on his four-seamer this season in an attempt to give it more life. Warren???s sweeping slider is also a potential plus pitch, and it pairs well with his two-seamer to form an excellent east-west attack. He rounds out his repertoire with a fringy changeup in the high 80s. Warren added a cutter in 2023 to help him attack lefthanded hitters more effectively. His cutter and curveball were thrown a combined 5% of the time. The Yankees want Warren to continue to learn the best ways to deploy his mix, and part of the reason behind his promotion to Triple-A was to show him that more advanced hitters are less prone to chasing pitches than those at the lower levels. Those hitters, plus a stricter strike zone enforced by the automated ball-strike system, led to a slightly elevated walk rate and about a 2% lower strike rate. Warren has plenty of weapons. Now, he needs to learn the best ways to use them.”
