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The Arizona Fall League comes to an end this week. There is a game tonight, one final league game tomorrow, and then the Championship game on Saturday. The Yankee participants happen to be on one of the worst teams in the league, so they won’t be playing over the weekend. Let’s take one final look at how the Yankees prospects fared over the last six weeks.
Position Players
Overall, the position players were pretty awful throughout the AFL. Steven Sensley, Thairo Estrada, and Estevan Florial all got off to ice cold starts. Estrada and Florial, of course, missed a great deal of time with injuries in 2018. All-in-all, it is good to see that they are healthy. It would have been fun to see one of them really take off and put on a show, like Tyler Nevin with his 1.113 OPS.
Florial picked it up a bit over the last few weeks, but still has managed just 12 hits through 68 at-bats. He’s batting just .176/.273/.265 with two games to go. Sensley was hitting better towards the start of the season, and has dropped off. The first baseman has just one more hit under his belt, and collected 24 strikeouts through 70 at-bats. Finally, there’s Estrada. He ended up being the only position player of the three who could string together back-to-back multi-hit games. The shortstop is slashing .250/.296/.276.
Pitchers
I can’t help but thinking that this was a rather odd assortment of pitchers for the Yankees to send to the AFL. No flashy names, just a bunch of right-handed relievers. For the most part, they didn’t do much better than the position players. There’s still a chance that Jordan Foley makes another appearance, but as of now he surrendered one or more runs during all six of his AFL outings. Walks have been an issue, though the strikeouts are there (16 BB, 19 K, 15.2 IP).
Kyle Zurak tossed 3.2 scoreless innings over his past three games, and that only lowered his ERA to 11.57. That’s how his time in Arizona has gone. Opponents are batting .381 against him. Woof. Meanwhile, Hobie Harris has been about average. Through 15 innings, he issued seven walks, notched 16 strikeouts, and surrendered seven earned runs.
Matt Wivinis ended up being one of the better pitchers in the league, though. Over 11.2 innings, he only gave up six hits, issued six walks, and surrendered two earned runs. He’s set to finish the AFL with a 1.54 ERA (if he doesn’t pitch again), and 1.03 WHIP. The Glendale Desert Dogs didn’t present much of a challenge, but opponents hit just .150 against Wivinis.