There’s not a ton you can learn about a player in three or fewer innings, which is the case with all three of our report card subjects here. We can make educated guesses while also factoring in scouting reports and minor-league performance, but after 2019, we still don’t know if any of them can perform at the major-league level.
What we do know is that these three have likely filled in one of the boxes on their career goals, and that’s pretty cool. With that in mind, let’s check in on three young pitchers who got their first taste of the bigs in 2019.
Mike King
Grade: Incomplete
2019 Statistics: 2.0 IP, 0.00 ERA, 2.21 FIP, 0.0 K/9, 0.0 BB/9, 0.0 HR/9, 0.0 fWAR
2020 Contract Status: Pre-arbitration eligible
King is arguably the most intriguing prospect of the three, as he was coming off a 2018 where he put up a 1.79 ERA across three minor league levels. His 2019 wasn’t as strong, as he missed large chunk of it dealing with an elbow injury.
However, he worked his way back through the minors on some rehab assignments and had his contact purchased by the Yankees on September 19th. Eight days after that, he was summoned to make his major league debut in the final series of the regular season against the Rangers.
With the Yankees up 11-2 in the seventh, King came in and tossed a 1-2-3 inning on 14 pitches. He came back out for the eighth, but allowed a runner to reach on his error to start the inning. He allowed two other singles in the inning, one of which scored a run, albeit an unearned one.
Unless the Yankees make no pitching moves in the offseason, it’s unlikely that he’ll get a spot in the rotation to start 2020, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see him in some role at some point next year.
Brady Lail
Grade: Incomplete
2019 Statistics: 2.2 IP, 10.13 ERA, 7.71 FIP, 6.8 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 3.4 HR/9, -0.1 fWAR
2020 Contract Status: Free agent
Lail was a rotation regular in the upper levels of the Yankees’ system for years. He made his Triple-A debut all the way back in 2015, and had spent large chunks of his last five seasons there. Lail technically was a minor-league free agent going into 2019 when the Yankees brought him back and eventually gave him his major-league debut.
On August 12th, Lail made his first ever appearance in the bigs in the second game of a doubleheader against the Orioles. He induced an inning-ending double play to start and followed that up with a perfect inning. He came back out for one more, where Baltimore picked up three runs on two hits and a walk off him. However, the Yankees still won because it was a Yankees-Orioles game from 2019.
He was sent back down before being DFA’ed to make room for Ryan Dull. Lail cleared waivers and returned to the Yankees’ minor-league system, where he finished the rest of the 2019 season. It remains to be seen if he returns to the organization for 2020.
Adonis Rosa
Grade: Incomplete
2019 Statistics: 2.0 IP, 4.50 ERA, 7.71 FIP, 9.0 K/9, 0.9 BB/9, 4.5 HR/9, 0.0 fWAR
2020 Contract Status: Pre-arbitration eligible
Rosa’s major-league debut came the day after Lail’s. With the Yankees up 8-2 in the eighth (again, the Orioles), he retired six of the seven batters he faced to finish off a win. However, the other was a home run by Renato Nunez.
He ended up being just another member of the shuttle as Rosa was optioned back to the minors the next day, where he finished off the season. Seeing as how he was arguably the most anonymous player on the 2019 Yankees, who knows what next year has in store for him.