Has any young pitcher generated more hype this spring than Carlos Lagrange? The Yankees’ 22-year-old right-hander came into the spring as the organization’s top pitching prospect (or number two, behind Elmer Rodríguez), with MLB Pipeline ranking him 79th, Baseball Prospectus at 61st, and FanGraphs at 73rd. And yet, as spring training winds down, those rankings have begun to look at least somewhat conservative.
2025 Stats (Single-A, Double-A): 24 games (23 starts), 11-8, 3.53 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 120 innings,
.353/.457/.441 (159 wRC+), 33.4% K%, 12.3 BB%, 1.20 WHIP
Signed out of the Dominican Republic for just $10,000 in 2022, Lagrange steadily climbed through the Yankees’ farm before breaking out in a big way in 2025. Between eight games in High-A Hudson Valley and 16 with the Double-A Somerset Patriots, he posted a career high in strikeout percentage and innings pitched, along with a career low in walk rate. As the spring began, he drew comparisons to Cam Schlittler, who had a similar breakout in 2024 before emerging as arguably the Yankees’ best starter down the stretch last season.
Then, on the first day of spring training, he struck out Aaron Judge with a 102.6-mph fastball during live BP.
That would be a sign of things to come. In 13.2 innings across four outings (including one start), Lagrange has allowed just two runs on six hits, striking out 13 and walking just four. He has drawn praise from, well, everybody who has seen him. ESPN Jeff Passan wrote late last week, “It wouldn’t surprise me if … Carlos Lagrange is pitching meaningful innings for the Yankees by September — if not sooner.” Dellin Betances, to whom the 6-foot-7 hard-throwing righty has been often compared, believes he “has the ability to be one of the best starters in the game if he continues to work on his craft.”
Judge agrees with that sentiment, and I’m pretty sure if Gerrit Cole had his way, Lagrange would start the season in the Yankees rotation. For his part, Lagrange thinks he would be “ready to compete” and following his most recent outing on Wednesday, catcher Austin Wells affirmed “I don’t have any doubts he could help us right now.”
Obviously, that’s not going to happen. Lagrange will begin the season in the minor leagues, either returning to Dougle-A Somerset or earning a promotion to Triple-A Scranton. The Yankees think very highly of this young righty and they don’t want to rush his development just to get him onto the Opening Day roster. As is common with pitchers of his stature, he is still a bit wild on the mound; as Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski of FanGraphs notes, his delivery “features lots of head movement and spinal tilt,” which makes it a bit difficult to find the zone with consistency. The Yankees have enough pitching depth both in the rotation and in the bullpen (even if, as Josh notes, there’s quite a bit of uncertainty in the latter) that there’s no real need to rush Lagrange to start the season; and if they need to tap into their prospect depth for starting pitching, well, Rodríguez is going to get first crack, anyway.
Even so, if all goes well, I would expect Lagrange to get the call to The Show at some point this summer. Ideally, he tightens up his control, reduces his walk rate, and allows his electric stuff — which is already MLB-quality, according to most metrics — and forces the organization to find a spot for him in the rotation some time this summer. But should the summer roll around without a spot in the rotation open, well, the organization hasn’t ruled out using Lagrange as a bullpen weapon down the stretch.
And while that might scare Yankees fans who fear Lagrange following the career arc of Joba Chamberlain, pitching development league-wide has come a long way since then, and Chris Sale, Garrett Crochet, and Michael King are just a few of the numerous starters who completed their development into top-of-the-rotation starters while also working out of the big-league bullpen at to,es. Only time will tell if Lagrange might just join that group.
See more of the Yankees Previews series here.
