Meet A Prospect : Nik Turley

Nikolas C. Turley was born on September 11th, 1989 in La Canada, California where he attended Harvard-Westlake High School in California. With a 6'7" frame and weighing in at 230 lbs while throwing three plus pitches from the left side and has drawn comparisons to a young Andy Pettitte you can understand why the Yankees drafted him in the 50th round of the 2008 MLB First Year Players Draft. The Yankees offered him enough money, thankfully, to get him out of his written commitment to BYU and become a professional baseball player. With his three plus pitches, amazing pitchers frame, and the fact that he throws for control from the left side I cannot see how he fell to the 50th round but I am glad the Yankees scooped him up.

Nik only saw 8 IP in his first professional season for the Gulf Coast Yankees and put up a 2-1 record with a 1.13 ERA in four games, one of them as a starter. He stayed in the GCL in 2009 where he compiled 54.1 IP to go with a 2-3 record and a 2.82 ERA. Nik would start the 2010 season in the GCL once again but was not long for the league as the Yankees moved him up to the Staten Island Yankees where he put up a 4-4 record with a 4.38 ERA in 61.2 IP. By the end of the 2012 season Nik had made it all the way to the Trenton Thunder AA affiliate where he only got to pitch 5 IP before the season ended. In 2012 Nik had a combined record of 10-5 with an 3.00 ERA in 117 IP while splitting time with Tampa and Trenton. 2013 saw Turley repeat at AA Trenton and put up an 11-8 record with a 3.88 ERA before seeing one game in AAA for the RailRiders.

Nik is an intimidating prescence on the mound when he comes out there at 6'7" and throws a 2 seam fastball that sits in the 91-92 mph range. He also throws a nice changeup that sits in the 79-81 mph range and has a big looping curveball that is by far his best pitch. Unlike many tall pitchers in baseball, see Andrew Brackman, Nik has shown to be consistent with his control and his ability to repeat his mechanics and stay on top of the ball. Nik is a ground ball machine so he projects to do very well in the new Yankees Stadium if he can keep the ball down and make hitters pound the ball into the ground a la Chein-Ming Wang or Ivan Nova. Nik projects to be a middle of the rotation kind of starter and if everything goes as planned that will be in the Bronx for the New York Yankees.

ETA Mid to Late 2014