Scottsdale, Arizona —— On Wednesday night, New York Yankees right-handed pitching prospect Cody Carroll threw a scoreless frame to close out a victory for the Scottsdale Scorpions over the Glendale Desert Dogs. A former 22nd round pick (2015) in the MLB Draft out of the University of Southern Mississippi, Carroll is now one of a handful of prospects representing the Yankees at the AFL this fall; the reliever enjoyed a very, very good summer season split between High-A Tampa and Double-A Trenton ahead of this foray into the offseason development circuit.
Carroll is an interesting reliever; he has height, at 6’5″, with a lean frame and some room to grow into his body that suggests he could pick up velocity. He comes to balance closed off to the plate and has some deception, especially to right-handed hitters, out of his high three-quarters/overhand release point with quick arm action and some ability to hide the ball. Most of all, his arsenal is pretty interesting: not only does Cody Carroll have a power fastball with some ride to his arm-side that will tie up right-handed hitters, he pairs it with a very sharp 11-to-5 curveball that breaks late and spins well, and a split-fingered fastball that — at least on Wednesday night — drew some really, really bad swings from a trio of Los Angeles Dodgers prospects (DJ Peters, Matt Beaty, and Yusniel Diaz).
Considering we’ve seen both Peters (here, and here) as well as Diaz (here) quite a bit before, and both are legitimate prospects with the ability to hit for power against good velocity, it was eye-opening even at an anecdotal level to watch Cody Carroll dispose of them so quickly. We’ve got video of the New York Yankees pitching prospect in that outing, too, which you can see here:
Long term, Cody Carroll should get a shot to fight for a big league bullpen job come spring training, after which he’ll likely fall into a Triple-A relief role while polishing out the final phases of his development. He is already 25 years old (DOB: October 15, 1992), so there’s not too much player development left at his station, but Carroll has a shot to make an impact on the New York Yankees at some point next season if he continues to do what he did this year — 89 strikeouts and a .191 opponents’ batting average in 67.1 relief innings split between High-A and Double-A. If you can miss bats and stay off the barrel like that, they’ll find a job for you somewhere.
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