Drew Thorpe’s pitching rise has Yankees hesitant to include him in a Juan Soto trade
The early indications of Juan Soto trade talks include the Padres predictably asking for pitching and the Yankees predictably being selective.
The Yankees, who have excelled in recent years at maximizing the organization’s arms, do not want to give up the wrong ones.
The Post’s Jon Heyman has reported the club is trying not to part with Michael King, who went from terrific reliever to a promising starter at the end of last season, and Drew Thorpe.
Who’s Drew Thorpe?
In his first professional season, the righty prospect might have been the best pitcher in all of minor league baseball.
The 23-year-old led the minor leagues in strikeouts with 182 in 139 ¹/₃ innings.
Among minor league pitchers who made at least 20 starts, his 2.52 ERA was the third best, his 0.98 WHIP the second best and his .199 batting average against the third best.
Thorpe bulldozed opposing hitters for 18 starts with High-A Hudson Valley (with whom he pitched to a 2.81 ERA) before posting even better numbers in his final five starts with Double-A Somerset (1.48 ERA). He was named the Pitching Prospect of the Year — not the Yankees’ best organizational pitcher, but the entire minor leagues’ — by MiLB.com
Just a year and a half ago, Thorpe was a second-round pick out of Cal Poly, the 61st-overall selection in a draft in which the Yankees grabbed outfielder Spencer Jones in the first round.
In an era when pitchers throw harder than ever, Thorpe does not break radar guns.
He quickly has risen in prospect rankings because of a deep, five-pitch arsenal that includes an elite changeup.
“One of those guys [against whom] you might be comfortable in the box,” his Hudson Valley manager, Sergio Santos, said midseason, “but you walk away going 0-for-4 with a couple of groundouts, a punchout and a pop-up.”
Hitters might be comfortable because Thorpe’s fastball sits in the low-90s, so he does not blow many away. Instead, Thorpe thrives with a changeup he called his “bread and butter” along with his fastball, two sliders — a sweeping one and a harder, gyro version — along with a cutter that the Yankees teach many of their pitching prospects.
Thorpe has a go-to pitch, but he also has plenty to choose from.
“It’s definitely easier — I always have something to go to,” Thorpe said in July. “I can mix and match a little bit more as you get later into games. Seeing guys multiple times, it helps.”
In his last 15 starts of the season, Thorpe completed at least seven innings seven times thanks to the mix and thanks to his changeup, which has been dominant for most of his life.
He tweaked his grip on the offering coming out of high school, ditching a two-seam type, and began using one that more mimicked his fastball.
It is designed to look just like his low-90s fastball out of his hand, but it has vertical, diving action and slows into the low-80s. His changeup helped him strike out 284 hitters in 223 collegiate innings, and professional hitters have been unable to touch it, either.
“It gives the illusion that there’s a parachute behind it,” Santos said.
The harder Thorpe can throw, the better his offspeed will play. His velocity — while not a particular strength — ticked up in his first professional season.The path to a Yankees-Juan Soto trade is a complicated one — but not impossible been for the gains to continue, and the Yankees, under director of pitching Sam Briend, have shown an ability to add velocity to pitchers.
“Velo is not quite where I want it to be yet, but we’re still working on it,” said Thorpe, who is listed at 6-foot-4 and 212 pounds.
If the Yankees refuse to dangle Thorpe and King, they have other pitching options to attempt to entice San Diego.
Clarke Schmidt cannot become a free agent until after the 2027 season.
Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez showed potential in their debut seasons.
There will be interest in prospects such as Chase Hampton, Will Warren, Richard Fitts, Clayton Beeter and Brock Selvidge.
The Padres, holding one of the best bats in the game, surely will be picky in any trade return.
The Yankees’ system has struggled to develop bats but has had plenty of success with arms, which should help their efforts to try to pry Soto away.
“They got it down to a science,” Santos said of Briend’s team of pitching minds. “We’ll keep churning them out as long as we can.
