TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees are about to open spring training with more questions than answers in their pitching staff. Gerrit Cole is still recovering from Tommy John surgery. Carlos Rodon is nursing an elbow issue. The bullpen is thin on proven arms.
But inside the organization, there is a growing belief that help is already in the building. It just might come from a name most casual MLB fans have not heard yet.
Ben Hess is not a household name in the Bronx. Not yet. But his pitching coach thinks that is about to change.
Cashman’s ‘young pups’ are turning heads in Tampa
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman recently dropped a phrase that got the fan base buzzing. He called a group of hard-throwing arms his “young pups” and said they were “hungry and thirsty” to push their way into the MLB mix.
Cashman pointed to names like Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange, two 22-year-old right-handers who are already on the 40-man radar. Both pitched across multiple minor league levels last season and showed the kind of raw stuff that makes scouts drool.
But it was pitching coach Matt Blake who added the most interesting wrinkle. In a recent conversation with the YES Network, Blake lumped a third pitcher into that elite group and offered a comparison that carries serious weight.
That pitcher is Ben Hess. And the comparison is to Cam Schlittler.
Blake sees Hess tracking ahead of Schlittler’s timeline
Cam Schlittler was the feel-good story of the 2025 Yankees season. A seventh-round pick out of Northeastern in 2022, he was barely on anyone’s radar entering last year. Then he rocketed through the minor league system, got called up in July and posted a 2.96 ERA with 84 strikeouts over 73 innings in 14 MLB starts.
He topped it off with a historic Wild Card performance against the Red Sox, throwing eight scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks to clinch the series. No pitcher in MLB postseason history had ever posted that exact stat line.
Now Blake is saying Hess is further along than Schlittler was at the same stage.
“All three of those guys have taken some nice steps in their development,” Blake told the YES Network, referring to Rodriguez, Lagrange and Hess. “They’re already in Tampa. They’re starting to ramp up, so we’re getting our eyes on them down there.”
That quote alone should perk up every MLB fan tracking the Yankees’ pitching pipeline. When the man responsible for developing arms in the Bronx says a Double-A pitcher is ahead of where a playoff hero was a year ago, it means something.
The Alabama product’s rapid rise through the minors
Hess, 23, was selected by the Yankees in the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft with the 26th overall pick out of the University of Alabama. He signed for a below-slot bonus of $2,747,500.
His college career was a mixed bag. Injuries plagued his first two seasons in Tuscaloosa, including a right flexor strain that limited him to just seven appearances in 2023. He stayed healthy as a junior in 2024 and racked up 106 strikeouts in 68.1 innings, but his ERA sat at a bloated 5.80 against Southeastern Conference competition.
The Yankees saw past the numbers. They saw a 6-foot-5, 255-pound right-hander with a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and touches 99. They saw a devastating curveball and a slider with two-plane depth. They bet on their player development staff to unlock what Alabama could not.
That bet paid off fast. In his first full professional season in 2025, Hess made 22 starts across High-A Hudson Valley and Double-A Somerset. He totaled a 3.22 ERA over 103.1 innings with a 33% strikeout rate. That is 139 punchouts in just over 100 frames.
His numbers improved as he climbed. At High-A, he posted a 3.51 ERA with a 33.9% strikeout rate, though he walked 11.9% of batters. When he got promoted to Somerset for the final seven starts of the year, he lowered his ERA to 2.70, cut his walk rate to 9% and kept the strikeouts rolling at 31.3%.
An arsenal built to overpower MLB hitters
What separates Hess from a typical Double-A arm is the sheer depth of his pitch mix. He features a four-seam fastball with above-average riding life, a big curveball that drops off a table, a slider with horizontal break and a developing changeup.
The Yankees have already tweaked his pitch shapes and usage since he turned pro. His curveball, in particular, plays well off the fastball because of the vertical tunnel it creates, especially against left-handed hitters.
Scouts have graded his fastball and slider as 60-grade tools on the 20-80 scale. That gives him two potential plus pitches, which is rare for any pitcher at his level. If his changeup catches up, Hess has the ceiling of a mid-rotation starter in the big leagues.
He arrived at the Yankees’ Tampa complex this winter as a non-roster invitee to spring training. He is expected to open the 2026 season at Double-A Somerset. But a promotion to Triple-A could come quickly if he keeps performing.
What a Schlittler-like leap would mean for the Bronx
Schlittler’s path last year showed that the Yankees’ development machine can fast-track an arm from Double-A obscurity to MLB impact in a matter of months. He went from relative unknown to postseason starter in one season.
Blake’s assessment suggests Hess could follow that same blueprint. With Cole out and the Yankees needing rotation depth, a second-half call-up is not out of the question. It all depends on health and continued improvement with his command.
Hess himself has kept his expectations measured. He told The Trentonian last summer that he was not focused on levels.
“I didn’t really set too many expectations going into the first year of pro ball,” Hess said. “The goal was just to go out and get better every start, and I think I’ve done that.”
That approach worked in 2025. If Blake is right about where Hess stands in his development, it could work even faster in 2026. And in a season where the Yankees need every arm they can find, a breakout from their first-round pick would be a welcome boost for a franchise chasing another ring.
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