Over the past year, injuries, graduations, and trades have led to the Yankees‘ farm system dropping hard in rankings, placing pressure on the 2024 MLB Draft class to produce. Having good prospects is important because you want to have cost-controlled talent on your roster even in a contention window, but it also allows you to acquire top-level talent. The Yankees’ farm system allowed them to acquire Juan Soto in 2023, with Drew Thorpe headlining the deal and Michael King being a homegrown product that has since blossomed into an ace.
Ben Hess was selected in the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft, but he wasn’t rated as the 26th-best prospect in that draft class. The Yankees went against the curve by drafting Hess 26th overall, but right now, his stuff and control look much better than many expected coming out of college.
Given the lack of upper-level Minor League rotation depth, Ben Hess doesn’t have much standing in his way if he continues to pitch this way, and the Yankees should be ready to make some aggressive decisions with him.
Ben Hess Looks Ready To Rocket Through the Yankees’ Farm System
The first two starts for Ben Hess have been about as dominant as you could ask for, as across 9.2 innings he hasn’t allowed an earned run, walked just three, and struck out 18 batters. He’s kept the ball on the ground at a high clip with a 56.3% GB% through this small sample of work with the Hudson Valley Renegades. Hess’ repertoire has evolved since getting drafted by the Yankees, as his changeup and slider have seen some notable improvements while his four-seamer has become a disgusting pitch that can rip through lineups with ease.
In his first start with the Renegades in Brooklyn, Ben Hess’ four-seam fastball averaged 21 inches of Induced Vertical Movement from a 5.6-foot release height according to The Call Up Podcast on Just Baseball Media. The average four-seamer released from that height has 15.1 inches of Induced Vertical Break, and even the highest IVB guys below a 5.7-foot release height are ~18 IVB. This would make Hess’ fastball an outlier, but odds are that the windy conditions in Brooklyn and a baseball that rides more than the MLB one would are inflating that 21 IVB number.
We can at least confidently say that Ben Hess’ four-seamer would average more IVB than the average four-seam fastball, and when adjusted for where Hess is releasing the ball, it becomes an even nastier pitch. If his velocity and extension mirror where they were in college, the right-hander could have a true 65-grade offering with this primary heater. The whiffs he gets in-zone are quite incredible, and the secondaries in his arsenal take advantage of his fastball’s dominant traits.
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Yankees’ first-round pick Ben Hess through his first two pro starts:
9.2 IP | 0 ER | 5 H | 3 BB | 18 SO pic.twitter.com/Mq8WTEXtZE
— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) April 17, 2025
His curveball was his best pitch coming out of Alabama, and in this start, he had -16 inches IVB with -18 inches of horizontal break. It generates a ton of movement and can get a ton of whiffs or called strikes because it moves so much and plays so well off of the four-seamer. Hess can attack the top of the zone, and the curveball works well at the bottom of the zone to create tons of vertical separation. It’s a plus-plus breaking ball in my opinion, and if you’re keeping track at home, that’s two pitches I’ve graded as firmly above-average.
The changeup he’s throwing now averaged 20 inches of horizontal movement in that Brooklyn start, which again is inflated by the ball moving more at the High-A level, but it plays well off the fastball. The sharp tailing action and depth paired with the ride he gets on his fastball can create some fun tunnels, as Ben Hess is able to reliably break off offspeed pitches down and away to lefties for whiffs. Pair that with a slider that adds some much-needed lateral movement to his profile, and you’ve got an arsenal that can work in any which way Ben Hess needs it to.
Results don’t stabilize this early into a season, but pitch shapes don’t need a large sample size to stabilize. Based on the repertoire we’ve seen to this point, Ben Hess might be able to get big-league hitters out. With the Yankees’ lack of rotation depth in Triple-A and the Major Leagues, I would be very aggressive with promoting Ben Hess to Double-A as long as the stuff holds up.
Teams have become more and more aggressive with promoting college pitchers through their farm system, and the results are shockingly strong. Paul Skenes is a notable example, but as the first overall pick who developed perhaps the best secondary pitch in the game right now, I don’t think that’s a remotely fair comparison. We should compare Ben Hess to prospects who were similarly rated heading into their pro season, and Spencer Schwellenbach is a recent case that you could compare to the Yankees’ first-rounder.
He recorded 13 starts in Single-A back in 2023, but only took nine total starts at High-A before getting his promotion to Double-A. The Braves are a super-aggressive organization with pitcher promotions, but even the Yankees have displayed that level of aggression in the past. The Yankees promoted Will Warren after just eight starts in Hudson Valley, Chase Hampton after nine starts, and Brock Selvidge after 10 starts, if you include the postseason. Where these paths differ is that Schwellenbach just tore through the competition in two Double-A starts while the other three hit speed bumps.
There’s no way to know how Ben Hess would translate to Double-A until he gets there, but the timeline for that feels a lot shorter than people think. The goal should be to get him throwing with an MLB ball as quickly as possible, something we typically see more of in Double-A than we do in High-A. Richard Fitts, now with the Boston Red Sox, mentioned that at Somerset, the Yankees had him use MLB balls to help him make that adjustment.
When Ben Hess starts throwing with a big-league ball, his IVB won’t be an unbelievable 21 inches, but in that 17-18 range at 92-96 MPH with plus extension? We could be talking about a pitch that just eats MLB hitters alive at the top of the zone, and that sets up the rest of his arsenal later in the count. The strike-throwing abilities are there, the stuff is frontline-caliber, and I’m starting to look at Ben Hess and wonder if he’s better than Carlos Carrasco or Marcus Stroman right now.