By Jon VankinShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberThe New York Yankees' young pitching jumped into the national spotlight in the American League Wild Card Series, when 24-year-old rookie right-hander Cam Schlittler, in only his 15th major league start, dominated the Boston Red Sox in the win-or-go-home Game 3, becoming the first pitcher in postseason history to pitch eight shutout innings while striking out 12 and walking zero.
The historic performance capped a debut season for Schlittler with a 2.96 ERA over 73 innings and 14 games with 84 strikeouts and 31 walks. But the Walpole, Massachusetts, native represented only the surface of a Yankees pitching youth movement that suddenly appears to be filled with potentially elite mound prospects all age 23 or younger.
...But one prospect, the 12th-ranked pitching prospect in the Yankees' system, according to MLB Pipeline, and 19th overall, recently forced himself into the conversation surrounding the future of Yankees' pitching.
Cade Smith, the Yankees' sixth-round draft pick in 2023 out of Mississippi State, helped the Bulldogs to their first College World Series title in 2021 as a freshman by throwing three shutout relief outings in the tournament, before shifting to a starting role where he led the Mississippi State staff in his sophomore and junior seasons, before the Yankees drafted him, with a modest $282,900 signing bonus.
But after two solid seasons in the New York minor league system, ending at the High-A Hudson Valley Renegades of the South Atlantic League, with a 3.31 ERA and 160 strikeouts in 133 1/3 innings across 32 games — 30 as a starter — Smith turned in his most attention-grabbing performance with the Mesa Solar Sox of the Arizona Fall League, which wrapped up its schedule on Nov. 14.
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The AFL is an infamously tough league for pitchers, and a place where hitting prospects are much more likely to highlight their talents. In the season that just ended this month, with each of the league's six teams playing a 28-game slate, hitters compiled a collective .797 OPS. For comparison's sake, major league hitters this season put up a .719 OPS.
But AFL pitchers ended up with a bloated 6.04 ERA.. The MLB ERA was 4.15.
In the heavily hitting-friendly league, Smith retired the first 21 batters he faced, throwing three perfect relief innings, and did not allow a hit until the fourth inning go his second start.
Smith is somewhat unusual, bucking the trend of overpowering fastball pitchers with a four-seamer that sits around 91 mph, according to Jesse Borek of MLB.com. Instead, Smith — not to be confused with the current Cleveland Guardians starter also named Cade Smith — counts as his "best attribute is his ability to spin the ball, which produces a plus mid-80s slider with two-plane depth and a solid low-80s curveball with similar depth," according to an MLB Pipeline scouting report.
At age 23, MLB Pipeline projects that Smith could make his MLB debut as early as sometime in 2026.
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