The Low-A Tampa Tarpons opened the 2025 season at home in their new digs, dubbed “The Tank”, versus Detroit’s Low-A affiliate, the Lakeland Flying Tigers.
The Tarpons and the associated employees of the team have had a lot to adjust to since they also didn’t have a lot of time to work with given the schedules of both the Yankees Spring Training and the Rays holding their regular season opening series. The Tarpons are making the situation as enjoyable as they possibly can, but it’s definitely far from ideal.
Here are a few things to keep on mind if you plan on attending a Tarpons game this season:
- Seating is general admission in two sets of bleachers. Capacity is set to 1,000, but Friday’s game looked like it was pretty well sold and attendance wasn’t even at 500.
- You should bring a tush cushion or towel since the seating is aluminum so it will be hot under the sun for most games.
- Concessions are limited to hot dogs, bottled beverages and on-tap alcoholic drinks (margarita, etc.). A hot dog was $6.50 and was a good size.
- The team store is limited in variety, but they have some hats, shirts, etc., and the register is the same as that of the concession cart.
- Tickets are $5 for most games, and they strongly urge purchasing tickets online since there really isn’t a box office. Tarpons aren’t permitted to use the regular GMS box office since the Rays have “ownership” of the stadium currently.
Even still despite the above, I enjoyed my time at “The Tank” this weekend. There are different angles to experience the game, both on the 1B side, and the situation is both good and bad, but the organization is helping out a local MLB team after their roof was torn off in Hurricane Milton. Your opinion may vary depending on how you view the Tampa Bay Rays organization, but kudos to the Yankees and Tarpons for being so accommodating.
All of that aside, we saw a handful of both pitchers returning from TJS along with some that made their respective professional debuts this weekend. Tarpons pitching combined for 26 strikeouts this weekend, including 15 K in Saturday’s walk-off win.
Greysen Carter was originally slotted in as the Opening Night starter, but he was moved to the Sunday noon matinée start and instead 2024 6th rounder Griffin Herring took the bump. And for good reason too. Herring had the best outing of the 3 pitchers, throwing a 4-hit, 5-⅔-inning shutout, striking out 7 of the 22 batters faced.
We’re not fortunate enough to get full Savant data in Tampa this year, so we’ll have to depend on away sites (excluding Daytona) for advanced stats & pitch velos. Just going off of the extremely limited data, it seems like Herring has a three-pitch mix: a fastball that sits in the lower-90s (91-93), a slider that sits in the upper 80s (86-87) and a change-up that sits in the low-mid 80s (83-84).
Yankees 2024 9th round selection Tanner Bauman got the start on the odd Saturday matinée game (3 PM start), and his stuff was just as electric, if not a bit more so. Bauman went 4 innings of four-hit, one-unearned-run ball, where he walked 3 batters and struck out 7. Again looking at the limited pitch data, it seems that Bauman also has a three-pitch mix: an upper-70s/low-80s (78-83) change-up, a mid-80s (85) slider and an upper 80s/low-90s fastball (89-92). Bauman’s control seemed better than that of Carter’s, especially for a pro debut start, but it’s apparent that like all the other pitchers, there’s a lot to work with.
I didn’t get the opportunity to see Greysen Carter’s debut, but he had the most limited appearance of the three starters, only going 3 innings and 71 pitches (versus 5.2/83 for Herring and 4/70 for Bauman). While it wasn’t a bad performance by any stretch, he had the weakest in some regard by allowing 1 earned run on 1 hit, walking 5 batters and striking out 4 in those 3 innings of work. Carter showed the most velo of the three starters, throwing a 96.5 MPH fastball in a strikeout versus Lakeland’s Akil Baddoo, and regularly reached the mid-90s. He also showed a pitch that went into the upper-70s/low 80s (79-82), presumably a change-up but could have been a slider, too.
The star of the weekend was the Yankees’ top offensive draft pick last year, OF Tyler Wilson. Wilson went 5-for-10 in the 3-game set: 2-for-2 on Friday, 2-for-4 on Saturday, including that walk-off RBI, and 1-for-4 on Sunday. With 15 PA, the math is pretty easy to figure out with his BB% and K%; 13.33% K% and 33.33% BB%, although to be honest, with a slash line of .500/.667/.500/1.167, those numbers seem irrelevant. Still, while it seems obvious that Wilson may not keep this trend, he’s not a prospect many are talking about, and he’s a name that you should follow given how he looked this weekend.
The Yankees’ 14th round selection in the 2024 draft, 2B Austin Green, showed some pop and grit this weekend, including a 3-for-5 game on Sunday where he drove in 2 runs. In the top of the 8th of Friday’s game, Green was credited for getting the 1-4 out in a caught stealing, when really it was a 1-4-6-5-4-6-5-4 pickle kind of play (not sure if that’s what the actual scoring should be, but it’s pretty close). It was quite the play too as both the runner, Lakeland’s Jackson Strong and Green dove toward 2B but Green was the one that won the battle.
OF Brian Sanchez instantly went out swinging (literally) and went 3-for-4 in the opening game and 4-for-13 overall in the series, driving in 3 RBI including an RBI single on Friday and a 2-RBI triple on Sunday. Sanchez was half of the acquisition by the Brewers for Jake Bauers (Jace Avina was the other half; he did well in HV this weekend as well).
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