The season came to an end for High-A and Low-A teams around Minor League Baseball last week, and the Yankees’ affiliates, the Hudson Valley Renegades and Tampa Tarpons, failed to reach the postseason. While both teams fell victim to a similar fate, their seasons were quite different and saw varying levels of talent pass through their stadiums in 2025. The 79-50 Renegades were one of the best teams in High-A all season and fell just short of earning a spot in the postseason at the last possible moment,
while the Tarpons hovered around .500 all year and ended the season at exactly 63-63.
Hudson Valley served as a hotspot for prospect development in the first half of the season, particularly in the pitching department. Their starting rotation to open the year consisted of Ben Hess and Bryce Cunningham (the team’s first two picks in the 2024 MLB Draft), Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz (acquired from the Red Sox in exchange for Carlos Narvaez during the offseason), Carlos Lagrange, and Kyle Carr. All of these pitchers increased their stock as prospects throughout the season, and with the exception of Cunningham, who missed over two months with an injury, are now making starts for Double-A Somerset.
Hess was drafted for the upside suggested by his raw stuff rather than his mediocre results in college, and his performance in his first professional season has thus far made the Yankees look prescient for using their first-round pick on him a year ago. He made 15 starts with the Renegades and posted a 3.51 ERA with a 33.9% strikeout rate and 11.9% walk rate before earning a promotion to Somerset, where his ERA is down to 2.93 in his first six starts at the level.
Rodriguez-Cruz shined at both levels in what turned into a breakout season for the 6-foot-3 right-hander, who looks to have been an excellent offseason acquisition, brought over in a rare trade with the Red Sox. He posted a 2.26 ERA in 14 starts with Hudson Valley and has a 2.56 ERA in 10 starts with Somerset, while striking out 29.5% of batters across the two levels.
Lagrange entered the season as a major project who had been unable to control his pitches consistently, and while walks are still an issue for the 22-year-old, Hudson Valley was where he made major strides towards becoming a prospect with top-of-the-rotation upside. Carr doesn’t possess the elite strikeout potential of these three, but the crafty left-hander was arguably Hudson Valley’s best pitcher this season, posting a 1.96 ERA in 119 innings before earning a promotion at the start of September.
Hess, Rodriguez-Cruz, and Lagrange have all appeared on various top-100 lists this season, and the coaching in Hudson Valley is a major reason why they found so much success in 2025. The Yankees’ top prospect, George Lombard Jr, also started the season as a Renegade, but the level was no match for him as he slashed .329/.495/.488 with a 193 wRC+ in 24 games and was promoted in under a month. Each of these players proved they were too good to stay in Hudson Valley for long, but their early-season dominance led the Renegades to a 26-12 start.
Even the pitchers who replaced the graduates found success in Hudson Valley this season. Xavier Rivas, who started the season down in the Complex league, made 10 mediocre starts for the Tarpons and five excellent ones for the Renegades. He struck out 44 batters in 29 innings with a 1.23 ERA following his promotion, and ended the season with 10, 12, 7, and 10 strikeouts in each of his last four starts. Andrew Landry also saw his ERA decrease from 4.59 to 3.95 after a promotion to High-A, and Cade Smith posted a 2.76 ERA in 32 innings after making his season debut in July. Just about every pitcher Hudson Valley touched turned to gold this year, and they were a major catalyst in an excellent year for the Yankees’ pitching development.
It was a less exciting season for the Low-A Tampa Tarpons, who battled back after a rough start but were only able to land at .500 when it was all said and done. The crop of talent in Tampa wasn’t nearly as promising as it was in Hudson Valley to start the year, and they were unable to get the same results from certain players (like Rivas) who then shined with the Renegades. There were some bright spots, like Brian Sanchez and Parks Harber who popped up on the radar with a 128 and 169 wRC+ in Tampa and served as part of the returns that allowed the Yankees to acquire David Bednar and Camilo Doval, and Marshall Toole, who slashed .305/.406/.479 and was the Tarpons’ best hitter all year.
But in total it was a mediocre season down in Tampa. In particular, it was a disappointing season for Roderick Arias, who once headlined the Yankees’ international free-agent class in 2022. Arias lost a lot of luster in 2024 by striking out 31% of the time with the Tarpons, and he repeated the level in his age-20 season while posting even worse results. He hit just .208 with seven homers, his wRC+ decreased from 111 to 89, and what was left of his status as a promising prospect has been all but entirely eroded. He’s still included in MLB Pipeline’s most recent update to the Yankees’ Top 30 prospects, but Arias will have to turn things around immediately in 2026 if he ever wants to make it to the big leagues.
In brighter news, the Yankees couldn’t have been happier with how this year’s first round draft pick, Dax Kilby, performed in Tampa in his first sample of pro baseball. Since making his debut on August 8th, the 18-year-old Kilby played 18 games with Tampa and slashed .353/.457/.441 with a 16.0/13.6 BB/K%, a 169 wRC+, and excellent batted-ball metrics to back up the promising performance. It was a small sample, but the Yankees could not have hoped for better results from their newest top prospect. He was Tampa’s hottest hitter for the last month of the season, and a major reason why they were able to avoid finishing below .500. Kilby will likely begin the 2026 season with Hudson Valley.
While neither of these affiliates made it to their respective postseasons, they played a big role in the development of many of the Yankees’ most promising young prospects. The top tier of minor-league talent within the organization currently consists of George Lombard Jr., Spencer Jones, Dax Kilby, Carlos Lagrange, Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, Ben Hess, and Bryce Cunningham. With the exception of Jones, all of these players spent some time at one of these levels during the season and made major developmental gains during it. The coaches at these levels won’t be rewarded with a championship for their efforts, but they were instrumental in the development of many future Yankees.
