For the first time this year, all four Yankees full-season affiliates were in action this past week, as Somerset, Hudson Valley, and kicked off their seasons on Friday night while Scranton put in a full week of work. Some bad weather led to several postponements around the system, but we got to see a great deal of the organization’s top prospects on both sides of the ball. With the first full week of the season beginning Tuesday night, let’s recap the appetizer.
Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders
Record: 6-3, 1 GB in the International
League East after a 4-2 week against the Rochester Red Wings (Nationals)
Run differential: +29
Coming up: Home vs. Durham Bulls (Rays)
The RailRiders got off to a bad start to their first full week of the year after Tuesday’s opener was rained out, and they dropped back-to-back games to open the week. Poor defense doomed a less-sharp Brendan Beck on Wednesday, while the bats fell silent in Elmer Rodriguez’s season debut on Thursday. The right-hander tossed five solid innings, allowing one run with two strikeouts in a losing effort. He spent the first week of the season on the Temporarily Inactive List on paternity leave.
Scranton rebounded in a big way by dominating a Friday twin bill, taking the opener 4-2 before blasting their way to a 17-4 win in the nightcap that required Braden Shewmake (yes, the infielder) to get the final out. Remember Zack Short from spring training? He was the sacrificial lamb for Rochester in the seventh inning of that game. Carlos Lagrange pitched in the matinee and only lasted 3.1 innings, walking five batters in a choppy outing. It’s the first time we’ve really seen those command issues pop up.
Dom Hamel had a second straight mediocre start on Saturday, but was picked up by home runs by Paul DeJong and Seth Brown, who was promoted to Scranton after being in a weird, organizational limbo for a week without an assignment. The offense exploded again on Sunday, putting up 16 runs to secure a series victory, while Luis Gil made his season debut and allowed three runs in 4.2 choppy innings.
There are a lot of standout performers here. Ernesto Martinez Jr. had a very strong week as he makes his case as next-up on the first base depth chart. Yanquiel Fernández absolutely had a case to be the Prospect of the Week, but I’m not sure he counts. Either way, he went 8-for-25 with three home runs, five extra-base hits, and eight RBIs. It makes you wonder why a team like the Rockies gave up on someone who just turned 23, who’s able to put an absolute charge into the ball.
While other veterans like DeJong and Ali Sánchez had strong weeks, the focus is naturally on the prospects. Jasson Domínguez is hitting the cover off the ball to start the year and went 7-for-16 with two home runs and two doubles in four games this week. He’s only taken four at-bats against lefties this season, but the quality of his at-bats looks significantly better than it did last year. The defense remains an adventure, but he’s on the right track.
As for Spencer Jones… not so much. He came on towards the end of the week with two doubles and a home run, but he struck out a staggering 14 times in 23 plate appearances this week and has 19 in 37 PA on the season. It just has to be better.
On the pitching side, Scranton’s gotten great starts to the season from Yerry De los Santos, Kervin Castro, and Yovanny Cruz, whose longstanding command issues have yet to pop up with seven strikeouts to just one walk in 4.1 innings. With the current volatility of the bullpen, you can’t rule out that a few more sharp weeks will have him in pinstripes sooner than later
Players of Note:
Jasson Domínguez: .379/.455/.655, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 2 2B, 2 SB, 189 wRC+
Spencer Jones: .212, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 3 BB, 51.3 K%, 97 wRC+
Yanquiel Fernández: .270/.325/.757, 5 HR, 10 RBI, 7 XBH, 164 wRC+
Brendan Beck: 9.1 IP, 6 H, 4 R (2 ER), 0 BB, 15 K
Double-A Somerset Patriots
Record: 1-1, 0.5 GB in the Eastern League Northeast after a 1-1 week against the Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox)
Run differential: +15
Coming up: Away @ Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets)
Somerset was rained out on Sunday, so we only managed to get a pair of very, very different games in against Portland in the Double-A version of The Rivalry.
Friday’s season opener was a blowout from the very start, with Somerset pouring on 18 runs on 22 hits thanks to big days by George Lombard Jr. (more on him later), Coby Morales, Garrett Martin, Marco Luciano, and Tyler Hardman. Saturday’s game was more of a pitcher’s duel, where Somerset lost 1-0, and the bats were held to just four measly hits.
Ben Hess started his season in unbelievable fashion, striking out the first seven hitters he faced on Friday before starting to struggle with command. The walks came back to bite him, but he settled in to fire five solid innings of two-run ball with nine strikeouts in his season debut. Kyle Carr and Xavier Rivas both pitched on Saturday, with Rivas as the piggyback, and walked seven hitters in 6.1 one-run innings, albeit with nine strikeouts. All five natural relievers used delivered scoreless relief.
Only two games means there isn’t much to go off of, but Morales drilled two home runs and had six RBIs, Hardman went 4-for-8 with a homer, Luciano went 5-for-9 with two doubles, and former Mexican League MVP Nick Torres went 3-for-5 in his first game of MLB-affiliated ball since 2018. Through all of it, the star of the show was the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect, who you’ll hear about later on.
Players of Note:
Ben Hess: 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 9 K
Marco Luciano: 5-for-9, RBI, 2 2B, 5 R
Tyler Hardman: 4-for-8, HR, 4 RBI, 2B
Coby Morales: 3-for-8, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 3 K
High-A Hudson Valley Renegades
Record: 2-0, 0.5 GB in the South Atlantic League North after a 2-0 week against the Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets)
Run differential: +9
Coming up: Home vs. Wilmington Blue Rocks (Nationals)
Like Somerset, storms in the Northeast postponed Sunday’s game against Brooklyn, but the Renegades still managed a successful mini-week that featured a plethora of 2025 draftees, including a pair making their professional debuts.
Hudson Valley took Friday’s season opener, 3-1, behind a strong start from Pico Kohn and steady hitting from the middle of the order. Sean Paul Liñan made his organizational debut after being acquired from the Nationals in the Jorbit Vivas trade and didn’t make it out of the third on Saturday, but the offense put up eight runs, and the bullpen did more solid work in relief to finish what turned into a two-game sweep.
Kohn, the team’s fourth-round pick last year out of Mississippi State, tossed 5.2 strong innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts in his pro debut. Statcast is (still) not available for High-A and Double-A, so we don’t have data on what was working for him on a pitch-by-pitch level, but it’s likely he did a lot of his work with the slider, which complements his low-90s fastball. After the success we saw with Cam Schlittler, the Yankees will definitely try to bump up the 6-foot-4 right-hander’s fastball velo as he gets situated.
Elsewhere on the pitching staff, 2025 11th-rounder Ben Grable struck out two and got the save on Friday night in his pro debut, while Tony Rossi and Chris Veach, two intriguing former undrafted free agent relievers, combined for seven strikeouts in 2.1 scoreless innings.
Liñan struck out four in 2.2 innings to start Saturday’s contest and was mostly followed by strong relief. After Tanner Bauman’s rough outing, Hudson Valley got 5.2 scoreless innings with eight strikeouts from the trio of Hansel Rincon, Baron Stuart, and Jackson Fristoe.
The 2025 draftee trio of Kaeden Kent (3-for-7, 3 BB), Core Jackson (3-for-9, HR, 2B), and Kyle West (3-for-9, RBI) anchored the lineup this week, as did a familiar face looking to get off to a strong start in a new location. Former top prospect Roderick Arias made his High-A debut on Friday after two frustrating years in Single-A, and he looked sharp, going 4-for-8 with a walk and an RBI. Fingers crossed that a guy with his skillset can finally figure it out.
Players of Note:
Roderick Arias: 4-for-8, RBI, BB, K
Core Jackson: 3-for-9, HR, 2 RBI, 2B, 3 BB
Kaeden Kent: 3-for-7, 2B, 3 BB
Pico Kohn: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 8 K
Single-A Tampa Tarpons
Record: 0-3, 3 GB in the Florida State League West after a 0-3 week against the Lakeland Flying Tigers (Tigers)
Run differential: -21
Coming up: Away @ Clearwater Threshers (Phillies)
For those who’ve followed Tarpons baseball for the last few years, it usually doesn’t matter who goes through the system; it’ll look like this more often than not. The top 2025 draftees, both pitchers and position players, get aggressively pushed to High-A in their first full season, so Tampa is usually left with late-round finds who need more development, undrafted arms, and international prospects graduating to full-season ball.
Tampa lost 12-7 on Friday, 13-4 on Saturday, and 13-6 on Sunday. They walked 32 batters, which is somehow even more than the Marlins against the Yankees at the same time. There’d be stretches of these games where you’d see good pitching, but more often than not, it was a Single-A classic: guys struggling to find the strike zone.
On the hitting side, it was good to see Brando Mayea make his Single-A debut after a few years of underperformance and injuries had harmed his trajectory. He had multiple singles registering over 105 mph, but also struck out a few times. 2024 seventh-rounder JoJo Jackson and 2025 UDFA Logan Maxwell had good weeks, as did Hans Montero. Rough week for Engelth Urena, who’s 0-for-10 to start the year.
On the pitching side? Oh boy. 2025 18th-rounder Justin West, Danny Flatt, and Henry Lalane got the starts, and none of them opened the 2026 season on a high note. Lalane, in particular, struggled with command as he tries to rebound from an injury-riddled 2025. One bright spot: the velo on his four-seamer is on its way back up.
The bullpen was a trainwreck. 2024 fifth-rounder Greysen Carter, who was sent to the Tampa backfields midseason last year to work on his command, continued to struggle with walks. Jose Ledesma and Jordarlin Mendoza got hit around, the team had to use multiple position player pitchers, and the only relievers who had scoreless innings were 2025 UDFA Matthew Tippie, Pedro Rodriguez, and Josh Tiedemann.
Players of Note:
Brando Mayea: 3-for-14, 3 RBI, 2B, 4 K
JoJo Jackson: 4-for-12, 3 RBI, BB, 2 SB
Henry Lalane: 2.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 2 K
Prospect of the Week: George Lombard Jr.
Weekly Stats: 6-for-9, HR, RBI, BB, 2 2B, SB
The Yankees’ No. 1 prospect got off to a tremendous start to his 2026 season on Friday. After a strong spring training as a non-roster invitee on both sides of the ball, he blasted a home run in his first at-bat of the season and opened the season with a 5-for-6 performance, finishing a triple shy of the cycle.
He followed it up with a more modest performance on Saturday, but he still doubled, walked, and stole a base in the shutout loss. It was only two games, but it was a dream start for a prospect whose biggest goal in 2026 is to improve his hit tool after an up-and-down start to his Double-A career last year.
Lombard started 2025 on a torrid hot streak in High-A to get him a promotion in early May, and another hot streak to start 2026 could make his dreams of a promotion to the Show more and more realistic in the near future.
