Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz was acquired from the Red Sox when the Yankees traded catcher Carlos Narvaez, who had a Major League-ready glove and some serious thump but lacked a clear path to making the roster. It was a smart deal for Brian Cashman, who correctly recognized the need to replenish a farm system that had been seriously weakened through trades and graduations over the past two seasons.
The right-hander saw a spike in velocity last season, hitting 99 MPH on the radar gun and sitting closer to 95-96 MPH with his heater, and he’s been impressive early-on in camp. Throwing in the team’s intrasqaud game at their Minor League Complex right across Raymond James Stadium, Cruz looked impressive in his outing thanks to a combination of blistering fastballs and excellent secondary weapons.
Not only did he look sharp, but word around the Complex was that Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz was getting strong reviews internally, and there’s some real momentum building for what could be a breakout 2025 campaign.
Why the Yankees Are Pumped About Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz
Entering his age-21 season, Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz would be getting ready for his first full pro season if he opted to go to college instead of going straight from high school to the pros. In that time where he was too young to drink but old enough to blow heaters by people much older than him, he’s built up his fastball velocity to a point where he’s able to reach 99 MPH, and Yankees’ people are buzzing about what he could become.
He experienced this velocity jump in 2024, where he posted a 2.91 ERA with 102 strikeouts across 89.2 innings pitched, and his ability to both miss bats and keep the ball on the ground is impressive. Cruz doesn’t have tons of vertical ride on his heater, but he does have a super high release height that allows him to generate some tough looks for hitters to handle. With the Red Sox he had a fastball, sweeper, curveball, and splitter in his repertoire, and the Yankees seem to be refining those secondaries a lot more, which was initially reported by Smith Brickner of Baseball Prospectus.
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Cutters and sliders boast much higher swing rates league-wide, and throwing one of those two pitches would be a great way to help Cruz avoid walks and get some strikeouts. The video above doesn’t clearly show what offspeed pitch he throws, but there were multiple firm breaking balls he threw over the course of the afternoon, so I wonder if he added one those two pitches (I’d bet on a cutter). With some more swings out of zone, we could see lower walk rates, higher strikeout rates, and overall better run prevention, which is the formula for a pitcher remaining in a rotation role.
The fact that Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz is pitching in his first full season at the legal drinking age in the United States speaks to how raw of a pitcher he is, and his mechanics have only become more and more repeatable as he’s matured. I heard a lot of excitement around what he could be in 2025, and there are some fairly aggressive rankings of him out there with FanGraphs having him as the organization’s sixth-best prospect and Baseball America ranking him at 17.
Pitching has become the Yankees’ specialty in recent years, and if they want to replenish the pitching depth in their organization they’ll need young arms like Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz to step up. He’s likely to open the year in High-A as a Hudson Valley Renegade, but when the Yankees like a pitcher they can move up quickly through the farm system. It should also be noted that Cruz is eligible for the Rule 5 Draft at the conclusion of the 2025 season, so if he reaches Double-A and has a successful year there as well, he could be in-line to make his MLB debut in 2026 at the ripe age of 22.
The Yankees love this guy, they love what they’ve seen from him in Spring thus far, and I got to see some seriously nasty pitches from the Puerto Rican native yesterday.