A Five-Year Review of the New York Yankees Draft Strategy

The 2026 MLB Draft arrives on July 11 with the New York Yankees picking 35th overall, a slot shaped by payroll ambition, CBT penalties, and a farm system in the middle of a rebuild-while-competing cycle. Before we look ahead, it’s worth examining how the Yankees have built their pipeline over the last five years. From analytics-driven college bats to a renewed love affair with SEC arms, the pattern is clear, and instructive.

2021: Trey Sweeney and the Analytics Gamble

The Yankees entered the 2021 Draft holding the 20th overall pick after watching Jack Leiter go to Texas, Marcelo Mayer land in Boston, and a series of pitching options fly off the board. Their answer: Eastern Illinois shortstop Trey Sweeney, a 6-foot-4, left-handed hitter who hit .382/.522/.712 with 14 home runs in the Ohio Valley Conference, and was ranked 55th on MLB.com’s draft board.

The pick drew immediate skepticism. Sweeney hadn’t faced premium velocity. He batted .000 against fastballs 93 mph and above in limited exposure and was regarded more warmly by analytic models than traditional scouts. VP of Amateur Scouting Damon Oppenheimer called it “a pretty simple pick” based on physical testing, bat-to-ball metrics, and the organization’s belief in their developmental infrastructure.

In hindsight, it was a pick that reflected the front office’s confidence in process over consensus. Sweeney showed promise in his early pro years, though his big-league path has been complicated by positional questions, a familiar theme for Yankees shortstop prospects. The organization had now selected a middle infielder in the first round for the fourth consecutive draft.

Key 2021 Picks: Trey Sweeney (SS, 20th overall), Brock Selvidge (LHP, 3rd round),Will Warren (RHP, 8th round), Ben Rice (C, 12th Round)

Draft Grade: B-. Oppenheimer bet on developmental upside over proximity. The Sweeney pick wasn’t wrong in philosophy, but the reach on draft positioning and the continued absence of a premium arm in round one limited the class’s ceiling.

2022: Spencer Jones and the Judge Blueprint

The 2022 class is arguably the best of this five-year window, and not because of the round-one pick alone, though Spencer Jones (25th overall, Vanderbilt) was about as Yankees a pick as a Yankees pick can be.

Jones, a 6-foot-7 left-handed outfielder out of Vanderbilt, had slashed .370/.460/.644 with 12 home runs and 14 stolen bases in the SEC. The Aaron Judge comparisons were instant and obvious. Big frame, tremendous bat speed, plus raw power, and elite exit velocities. Jones had also undergone Tommy John surgery in a previous two-way attempt, which scouts factored into his evaluation, but for a team that drafted and developed Judge from Fresno State in 2013, the archetype was impossible to ignore.

What made 2022 especially productive was the second pick: Drew Thorpe at 61st overall out of Cal Poly, a command-first right-hander who went 10-1 with a 2.32 ERA in 104.2 innings. Thorpe emerged as a legitimate rotation prospect before eventually moving on from the organization in a trade. Chase Hampton, a sixth-round arm from Texas Tech, became one of the system’s most exciting pitching prospects before Tommy John derailed his trajectory.

Jones is now pushing Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and sits as one of the most intriguing position player prospects in the system. His 94.8 mph average exit velocity and 17.6 percent barrel rate heading into 2026 suggest the power is real.

Key 2022 Picks: Spencer Jones (OF, 25th overall), Drew Thorpe (RHP, 61st), Chase Hampton (RHP, 6th round), Cam Schlittler (RHP, 7th round)

Draft Grade: A-. Deep class. Jones and Thorpe were legitimate Day 1 values. Hampton’s injury is unfortunate, but the sheer volume of useful arms drafted here gives this class a strong floor even without the headliners.

2023: George Lombard Jr. and the Projectable Bet

Coming off a productive 2022 class, the Yankees pivoted from the “high-floor college performer” model with their 2023 first-rounder. George Lombard Jr., son of Detroit Tigers bench coach George Lombard Sr., was a fundamentally advanced 18-year-old shortstop from Gulliver Prep in Miami, with across-the-board tools but a profile built more on projection than production.

Ranked 27th on Kiley McDaniel’s pre-draft board, Lombard Jr. drew immediate praise for his baseball instincts, strong makeup, and the physical projection that comes with a 6-foot-3 frame still filling out. The Yankees, who had historically favored safer, higher-floor selections in the first round, were making a more aggressive developmental bet.

The results have been uneven but promising. Lombard hit .215/.337/.358 with a 26.4 percent strikeout rate in 108 Double-A games last season, with eight home runs and consistent hard contact. FanGraphs describes his plus hit tool as the floor, with above-average power upside as he matures. He entered 2026 as the consensus top prospect in the organization and a top-25 prospect in all of baseball per MLB Pipeline.

The rest of the 2023 class offered less headline buzz but meaningful depth. Third-round pick Roc Riggio (2B, Oklahoma State) ranked 99th on McDaniel’s pre-draft board and profiles as an offensive-minded infielder.

Key 2023 Picks: George Lombard Jr. (SS, 26th overall), Roc Riggio (2B, 3rd round), Kyle Carr (LHP, 3rd round)

Draft Grade: B+. The Lombard pick was more aggressive than typical for this organization, and the jury is still out. But the upside profile is legitimate, and if he hits, this draft looks brilliant. The rest of the class lacks punch.

2024: Ben Hess and the Return to Pitching

The 2024 Draft marked the most significant philosophical shift of the five-year window. With the farm system’s pitching depth having been traded away in waves. Ken Waldichuk, Hayden Wesneski, and others. The front office made a statement: they were going back to the mound.

Ben Hess, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound right-hander from Alabama, became the first pitcher taken by the Yankees in the first round since Clarke Schmidt in 2017. Hess was polarizing: he posted a 5.80 ERA with command concerns in 2024, but owned a 13.34 K/9 over his college career, the highest rate in Alabama program history, and a fastball that reached 99 mph. Oppenheimer said the Yankees believed “there is even more to come from Ben with our player development program.”

They doubled down immediately, taking Vanderbilt right-hander Bryce Cunningham with the 53rd overall pick. Cunningham had reinvented himself as a starter on the Cape Cod League circuit before becoming a full-time rotation piece at Vandy, pairing a mid-to-upper-90s fastball with feel for a changeup that separated him from most power arms in the class.

LSU right-hander Thatcher Hurd followed in the third round, extending the SEC arm pipeline even further. Of the first 10 rounds, the Yankees selected eight pitchers and 19 college players in total.

Hess reached Double-A Somerset in 2025, ahead of the organizational timetable, suggesting the developmental bet is paying early dividends.

Key 2024 Picks: Ben Hess (RHP, 26th overall), Bryce Cunningham (RHP, 53rd), Thatcher Hurd (RHP, 3rd round)

Draft Grade: B. The commitment to volume pitching is smart organizational rebuilding, and the Hess/Cunningham pairing at the top was good value. The near-total absence of position player talent in the first 10 rounds, however, continues a troubling pattern for an organization that needs offensive depth.

2025: Dax Kilby and the Prep Shortstop Pivot

After drafting exclusively college players across their previous three classes, the Yankees returned to a high school player in 2025 and made it count. With the 39th overall competitive balance pick, they landed Dax Kilby, a 6-foot-3 shortstop from Newnan, Georgia ranked 28th in Kiley McDaniel’s pre-draft rankings.

Kilby offers a short, direct swing with elite contact skills against premium pitching on the showcase circuit. His lean frame projects to add power, and while most scouts see a move to second base or the outfield long-term, his bat-to-ball ability and instincts are the type of tools the Yankees’ developmental staff loves to work with. In an 18-game pro debut at Single-A Tampa, Kilby hit .353/.457/.441 with 16 stolen bases, an immediate statement.

Third-round pick Kaeden Kent, a shortstop from Texas A&M, and fifth-round selection Core Jackson, a shortstop from Utah, gave the Yankees three middle-infield types in the top five rounds, a clear signal of organizational prioritization at the position.

Key 2025 Picks: Dax Kilby (SS, 39th overall), Kaeden Kent (SS, 3rd round), Core Jackson (SS, 5th round), Pico Kohn (RHP, 4th round)

Draft Grade: B+. Kilby was exceptional value in the comp round and immediately validated the pick with a strong debut. The commitment to middle infield depth reflects organizational need. The class lacks a true impact arm, but the position player infusion was overdue.

Five-Year Themes and Takeaways

Looking across 2021–2025, several organizational tendencies stand out.

The Left-Handed Power Hitter Archetype: Sweeney, Jones, and Kilby all fit a similar bat-to-ball + power projection profile. The organization clearly has a type at the plate: left-handed or switch hitters with leverage, zone control, and physical projection.

College Over High School: Of the first-round picks across these five drafts, only Lombard Jr. (2023) and Kilby (2025) were prep players. The Yankees have historically prioritized floor, signability, and proximity to the majors in the first round.

The SEC Pipeline: Sweeney (OVC), Jones (SEC), Lombard (HS), Hess (SEC), Cunningham (SEC), Hurd (SEC), Kent (SEC). The organization clearly scouts the conference with depth and has strong relationships at the coaching level.

Pitching Volatility: The 2022 class produced Hamilton, Thorpe, and Hampton but Tommy John surgeries have disrupted two of those three. The 2024 class may restore the mound depth, but command-intensive SEC arms carry inherent risk.

Position Player Drought (2024 Specifically): The 2024 class selected eight pitchers in the first ten rounds with only two offensive players drafted in that window. FanGraphs noted bluntly that “the Yankees need to find a way to inject this system with position player talent.” The 2026 draft is where that corrective begins.