Meet a Prospect: Ian Clarkin

The New York Yankees farm system is beginning to look like one of the better farm systems in all of Major League Baseball. Once the team finally realized that building a team from within either through the draft and through the international market worked out better than drafting and signing IFA’s just to trade for overpriced veteran talent wasn’t working the system took off. The team started hanging onto their draft picks and started actually relying on their farm system at the Major League level and in trades when the trade made sense. Loads of talent has been added to the Yankees system either out of college, out of High School or from around the globe and one of those I am personally most excited about is Ian Clarkin. This is Meet a Prospect: The Ian Clarkin Edition.

Clarkin was drafted out of High School by the Yankees in the 2013 MLB First Year Players Draft and reached as high as Low-A Charleston with the Riverdogs before missing the entire 2015 regular season with an elbow injury. Clarkin did not require Tommy John surgery and even got a few innings on his arm in the Arizona Fall League and is looking to come back in a big way in 2016. Clarkin will look to use him fastball, curveball and changeup repertoire to get it done

Clarkin throws a four-seam fastball that sits anywhere from 90-93 MPH although the pitch is said to be flat, little to no movement. Clarkin gets by with his command of the pitch and can generally put it anywhere he wants almost every single time. Clarkin’s curve clocks in at 72-74 MPH and it is a big 12-to-6 type curve that he can throw to both right-handed and left-handed bats. The curve is developing but it’s not one of those devastating curve’s that is going to make minor league hitters look ridiculously silly just yet. Finally his changeup sits in the 81-83 MPH area and it looks to be his best off-speed pitch at his disposal, even as it stands today. Clarkin can throw it for strikes and make hitters swing and miss out of the zone with it and he is not afraid to use it at any point in the count either. The changeup is becoming a true weapon for Clarkin.

Some early comparisons I have read for Clarkin are anywhere from a Jose Quintana, a very solid #2 starter or at worst a middle-of-the-rotation type starter, all the way to a Clayton Kershaw. Truth be told I’d take Quintana but if the Yankees found a gem that can pitch like Kershaw, best case scenario obviously, then the team got an absolute steal with that pick. Even if he didn’t want to pitch for the club before the draft. As Clarkin enters his 20’s and beyond it will be interesting to watch how he grows and how me matures not only physically but as he matures as a pitcher, and as a Yankee.