When you talk to most Yankees fans, they seem to believe that the team is not good at developing MLB players.  They will tell you that Aaron Judge and Brett Gardner were the only decent hitters developed over the past twenty years, and they will tell you that the pitching development has not been much better.  Of course, Aaron Judge is the best player to come through the Yankees farm system, perhaps ever, but that doesn’t mean the team hasn’t generated its share of prospects.  The problem?  Most of them now play for other teams.  So, while the Yankees have Judge, Ben Rice, Austin Wells, Clarke Schmidt, Luis Gil, Anthony Volpe (hurts to type that), and the Martian Jasson Dominguez, many of their prospects are on other teams.  So why don’t we check in and see where their prospects are playing?

The Padres Love Former Yankees Prospects

You don’t believe me?  Ask yourself where Michael King, JP Sears, Miguel Andujar, Randy Vasquez, and Jhony Brito are.  Now three of them did come over in the Juan Soto trade, but the Padres brought in JP Sears at the trade deadline and Miguel Andujar this offseason.  Michael King is a frontline starter (he finished 7th in the Cy Young voting in 2024).  Vasquez is a back-of-the-rotation starter (2.2 WAR in 2025), and Sears is filler (0.8 WAR in 2025). Andujar is a right-handed hitter who destroys left-handed pitching (.389/.409/.578 slash line in 2025) and is someone many of us thought the Yankees should sign this offseason.  

The Red Sox like them, too

This one stings.  The Red Sox currently have four ex-Yankee prospects on their team, and unlike the Padres, they are all players the Yankees could use.  The Yankees’ bullpen could use some more arms.  Wouldn’t it be nice if they protected Garrett Whitlock in the Rule 5 draft or didn’t unload Greg Weissert for a horrible outfielder (they combined for 3.5 WAR in 2025)?  And that isn’t even the worst of it.  Carlos Navaraez put up a 2.7 WAR last year and seems to be a better catcher than Austin Wells (and he is right-handed).  The cherry on top was trading for Caleb Durbin, who put up a 2.8 WAR last year at a position that was a black hole for the Yankees in 2025 (and he is a better hitter than Ryan McMahon at a fraction of the cost).

Who are some of the biggest prospects they let go of too quickly

Well, when you trade anyone for Joey Gallo, you will always have regrets (also of note, the Yankees traded the guy they got for him, Clayton Beeter, and he put up a 0.3 WAR with the Washington Nationals in less than half a season).  Josh Smith had a 3.0 WAR for the Texas Rangers in 2025, and he can play SS (along with other positions).  The Yankees also had two excellent rotation pieces that they simply didn’t have enough patience to keep.  Zach Little was once a Yankee, and he is now a top starter (3.2 WAR) and the poster child for not seeing talent in the system in the past decade. Jose Quintana, who has managed to accumulate 31.7 WAR in his career, none with the Yankees (that might go down as he signed with the Colorado Rockies.

So, what is the lesson overall?  It’s that the Yankees can develop talent.  Unfortunately, sometimes you have to trade your homegrown talent for players to get to the World Series (i.e., Juan Soto).  Sometimes you trade it for a missing bat and end up with Joey Gallo (note that the Yankees also traded Ezequiel Duran and his 1.6 WAR in 2005 to the Rangers). Homegrown talent is the key to being a contender, and you can create a team of former prospects still playing in the MLB that combined for 9.1 offensive WAR and 13.4 pitching WAR last year (and it would be slightly higher if David Robertson hadn’t finally retired).  I think it’s fair to ask if the Yankees are simply not committed enough to their young players.  I feel like the Martian and Spencer Jones might be on board with that statement …