While a 6.00 ERA isn’t great, Eric Reyzelman has shown throughout Yankees‘ Spring Training that his swing-and-miss stuff is legit, tallying three-straight punch outs in his perfect outing against the Red Sox yesterday. He has struck out 50% of the batters he’s faced in camp, displaying a powerful heater that whistles through the top of the zone with good vertical movement to go with a changeup that gets both depth and run.
The pitch that is the most fearsome of them all is perhaps his vicious sweeper, a pitch that averages over 20 inches of lateral movement. He’s a gifted reliever who has battled back after a slew of injuries that delayed his rise through the Yankees’ organization, and 2025 could be the season where he carves out a permanent role in the bullpen.
Why Eric Reyzelman Is Generating Tons of Buzz Inside the Yankees’ Organization
A reliever at LSU, Eric Reyzelman was selected in the fifth round of the 2022 MLB Draft and was considered a prospect who could fly through the organization due to the position he played and his overpowering heater. It was a fastball he threw over 90% of the time, but to become a big-league pitcher in any capacity, you have to utilize secondary pitches, and the Yankees are perhaps the best organization in baseball when it comes to helping pitchers develop a slider.
Injuries would hold Reyzelman back and prevent him from making any real alterations to his repertoire, but in his first somewhat healthy season in 2024, we saw the work he put in finally pay off. To pair with the aforementioned power fastball, Eric Reyzelman began throwing a nasty breaking ball that was much slower than his fastball and had tons of movement.
Slider, sweeper, or curveball, the label doesn’t change that this is one of the nastiest breaking balls in the Yankees’ organization, generating over 50 inches of vertical drop with ~20 inches of lateral movement. This pitch is devastating to both righties and lefties, and it helped keep hitters from sitting on his fastball and swinging early in a count to get a pitch they can handle easily.
His usage of the pitch in Spring Training has understandably been limited, as we’re still in that time of year when pitchers are getting comfortable spinning secondary pitches in and out of the zone, but it was wicked yesterday.
Yankees bullpen prospect Eric Reyzelman threw a sweeper with 22.7 INCHES of horizontal sweep to get a third-straight K in the ninth inning 🤢🌪️ pic.twitter.com/LMnUTxJoXy
— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) March 18, 2025
Averaging over 2,800 RPMs of spin, his sweeper was hard for Boston hitters to pick up because it was 15 MPH slower than his fastball and had tons of movement. Stuff+ models love the high-spinning action of this breaking ball, and Reyzelman’s long arms and low release only further play up the nastiness of this weapon. What he didn’t show yesterday was his new changeup from last season, which rounds out his arsenal and gives hitters a third pitch to worry about at all times.
This is where ERA can be misleading; while Reyzelman has had a 6.00 ERA and would be seen as a pitcher far from ready for the big leagues, I see someone striking out half the batters they’ve faced without allowing a single home run. Of pitchers thus far in Spring Training who have faced 20 or more batters, Reyzelman is seventh in K-BB%, and while results this time of year are meaningless, I find that far more encouraging than if he had a good ERA with a bad K-BB%.
In the Minor Leagues, we saw a similar level of dominance in that category, and while I’ve thrown out a lot of pitch shape talk today, the best predictor of future success remains K-BB%. Reyzelman held a 28.6% K-BB% across three levels of Minor League Baseball last season, which is well above the average for a reliever, and that’s a product of his incredibly high strikeout rate.
Despite just 11.2 IP under his belt entering the year, he would finish the 2024 season as one of the best strikeout artists in any farm system.
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The right-hander has the stuff to dominate at the Major League level, but the Yankees should give him a bit more time in the Minor Leagues to iron out his command. He can miss pretty badly in and out of the zone, making him prone to high walk rates and damage contact if he doesn’t improve in that regard by the time he’s promoted. What’s encouraged me thus far this Spring is that Reyzelman has thrown a lot of strikes, but throwing in-zone can still result in costly misses.
His lack of pro experience could explain the lack of consistency in his mechanics at times, as his release point can vary pretty wildly from outing to outing. This isn’t to downplay my projection of him as a set-up man for a contender, but rather a valid criticism to remind fans that Reyzelman isn’t a finished product and isn’t being stashed away in the Minor Leagues unnecessarily.
If he has a higher walk rate than the MLB average it can be offset by a high strikeout rate, which is why I believe he’ll get his command to the point where he’ll have success in the Bronx. The Yankees have a strong bullpen but injuries have already eaten into their depth chart there, leading me to believe there’s a lane for him to get promoted this year. Eric Reyzelman is also eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, and if he’s healthy he’ll 100% get plucked by someone if not protected.
This means placing him on the Yankees’ 40-man roster in November, so I would be stunned if roster manipulation plays a big role in their decision-making if Reyzelman proves to be MLB-ready in the summer. Matt Blake referred to him as someone close to making an impact in the Majors, so I’ll take his word on that and assume the Yankees are seriously considering bringing him to the Major Leagues in 2025.
While the farm system has taken a step back after a flurry of trades and injuries over the past year, they’re positioned to graduate some fun prospects who can make an immediate impact in 2025. Will Warren, Jasson Dominguez, Yoendrys Gomez, and Clayton Beeter are among the names I expect to see lose their prospect status by the end of the season, and they could become mainstays on the roster depending on how they perform.
The hope is that Eric Reyzelman can join that group, one that is self-admittedly loaded with bullpen arms and not much offensive support. With the injuries the Yankees have had though, perhaps they needed a youthful injection in their pitching staff, and the former LSU Tiger might have the most explosive profile of the group.